So last night I went down to Howard’s place in Winchester for another evening of games.

This time we had quite a few guest appearances over and above the usual suspects of Chris, Phil and Fuller. Firstly, Chris brought along Shaun, who unfortunately turned out to be rather better at the games than the rest of us – however he was saved by the fact that he also provided a number of laptops for the occasion. We were also joined by Martin, who came down by train for the occasion. Last but not least, Jarrod was let back into the country once again, complete with an American plug on his laptop and a stack of adapter plugs!

Interestingly this was the first time I had actually met Jarrod – he was described to me as like Chris, but turned up a couple of notches, which seems pretty accurate!

As usual, the first hour or two was spent making sure everybody had the same set of game files for the various games, fiddling with the network, and looking at Howards new TV – sorry, large computer display monitor – which with it’s HDTV input produces some pretty stunning pictures when given some of the HD trailers from Apple.

Anyway, I did take a few pictures during the night, which you can browse through in our photo gallery.

Yesterday, in a scene that I guess was repeated all across the company, our floor was temporarily brought to a halt by the arrival of the company 2006 desk calendar.

The design has gone over a couple of revisions in recent years, and for the past two has been a tri-fold card with a series of small pictures of various aspects of company business, that slotted easily into a triangular structure to sit on the desk.

This year we had a new design, with a glossy panoramic shot of one of our wind-farms on one side, and the calendar on the other. There was also a helpful bit of double sided tape already attached to one end to roll it into a tube.

This of course produced the intelligence test that brought people to a halt whilst they tried to work out which way it was supposed to go together – dates out, or wind farm… In fact it was quite amusing as people came back watching them experimentally roll it one way, and then the other. Needless to say that there were a few people trying to mount the calendar up in such a way as to see both.

Having said that, the nice panoramic shot did give me an opportunity to have a bit of fun with my Channel 9 Guy – although the fact that he is casting a shadow over the wind-farm behind is a bit of a giveaway – as is the corner of the slip case for my PDA on which he is sitting.

Incidentally, if you’re in the market for a calendar, I spotted that Firebox are importing the classic Despair Calendar from the US. Along with twelve of the best of the motivational poster send ups produced by Despair Inc it also includes a vast selection of notable dates, like December 23rd 1690, when astronomer Royal John Flamstead made the first recorded observation of Uranus, thinking it was a star. However it wasn’t until almost one hundred years later, on March 13th, 1781, that the planet was actually ‘discovered’ by William Herschel. Certainly something to keep you entertained for the next year.

So here we are in 2006!

Last night we saw in the new year with Jo and Kerri, who work with Beth, plus Jo’s boyfriend Drew, and Kerri’s housemate Lisa and her boyfriend Chris. In actual fact it was a comparatively quiet and reserved(ish) gathering, kicking off with an excellent selection of curries which Jo and Drew picked up from a local restaurant, followed up by fruit salad and chocolate cake prepared by Beth.

After dinner, as seems to be pretty common for gatherings over Christmas and New Year, out came the games. We’d brought along Fluxx, which I blogged about just before Christmas which we played first. It has to be said that it was pretty obvious who wasn’t drinking and who was – myself and Drew were driving, and Chris hadn’t drunk quite as much – as Drew and Chris picked it up pretty quickly, whilst Kerri and Lisa, who were playing as a team, still didn’t get it even when we’d finished.

It’s interesting comparing how differently the game plays with a full six players, as compared to the two player games I’ve had with Beth. Certainly there were a lot fewer rule change cards played, and as Barry pointed out any sort of strategy goes out the window. There was one point early on when after using the ‘rotate hands’ card I had all the elements for a winning hand, but then by the time my turn came round the goal had changed. Ultimately I clinched the game thanks to a lucky draw when someone played the ‘scramble the keepers’ cards, and I got the ‘let’s play that again’ card, and was able to fish the ‘steal a keeper’ card out of the discard pile. However, much more by luck than anything else.

That finished just in time for midnight, which was followed by a large amount of fireworks from surrounding houses, and then we played a game that Lisa had been given for Christmas called Name Dropping.

The general aim of the game will be familiar to anyone who has seen They Think It’s All Over, as it’s effectively the Name the Sportsman round, but with multiple categories of person. At this point Jo became rather competitive – especially as in round one, myself and Beth scored one more point than her and Drew. Ultimately we were all pretty closely matched, and for every round where we scored really well, there was one where we struggled to even score one or two. Thankfully by the end Jo and Drew did actually win by a couple of points – I suspect Drew probably would have had a harder time if they hadn’t!!! The amazing thing was that Jo still complained about not having the rules explained so it was harder for them, despite the fact that they had won!

Anyway, since we had to be up for Church in the morning, at this point we made our excuses and headed home. All in all and enjoyable evening. (There are a few more pictures in our photo gallery too.)

After church we headed off for a slightly different evening, finally getting to see Howard’s new place in Winchester (and very nice it is too). We also took Howard out for dinner and were one of the few customers enjoying the food at the local Loch Fyne Fish Restaurant – New Years Day not being the most popular night for eating out. It’s not a restaurant chain that we’d tried before, but definitely one we’d try again I’m sure, especially as they have a restaurant in Reading too.

Tonight was the last night of our busy weekend of Christmas parties – Beth’s school Christmas party.

The school has always tried to do something different, so in previous years we have been to dinners held at a local golf club, a hotel in Reading, and last year, on a boat traveling up and down the Thames.

However this year has to be the most spectacular. They managed to get tickets for what is regarded as one of the hottest Christmas parties, Cirque Noel organised by The Christmas Company. The company has taken over what is essentially a field behind Easthampstead Park near Bracknell, and on it have put up a complex of tents in which the event is put on for up to 1100 guests a night. The event has been running since 25th November, and the last show is on Friday. Some friends of ours went along to one of the earlier evenings, and came back saying how great it was, and we actually know of one couple who had tried to get hold of tickets, but couldn’t because the minimum booking is for eight people.

We have to agree, that it was a spectacular show, and aside from the flex in the floor, you really didn’t know that you were in a field near Bracknell – with an outside temperature of below freezing! On arrival, everybody gathers in the bar area, which has two bars, and a small stage in the middle, where the performers do small scale acts. However at 8:15, to the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra, the curtains pull back to reveal the 1100 seater arena, with a large stage in the centre, and 100 tables laid for the four course dinner.

The dinner was superb. We’ve been to several large scale Christmas dinners where the food has been pretty poor, the excuse being the numbers. But here they served all 1100, serving table by table – every person on the table simultaneously, a four course meal. The food was hot, not lukewarm, and was properly, and nicely cooked with crisp veg, and tasty meat. The puddings were superb as well, with a choice of a chocolate pyramid, or a winter fruit pudding. I didn’t count quite how many staff they had working, but there seemed to be at least three teams of ten waiters serving, plus a number of wine waiters serving drinks. Quite simply they proved that it is possible to efficiently serve a large number of people at something like this, and with good food too.

Alongside this there was the spectacular show, with the breaks between courses filled with a spectacular selection of acrobatics. This culminated in a final show after dinner, where all the performers appeared on stage, leading into the disco that continued on into the night.

Once dinner had finished, they then opened fairground attractions including dodgems, and casino tables in the bar area. Considering how much was laid on, the price was not exactly unreasonable – we paid £40 each. In fact the only criticism that we would have, and it is one that we’ve heard from almost everybody else we know who has gone along, is that they didn’t have a smoking policy. As is quite common now, the number of people actually smoking was relatively small, and whilst we were lucky, and were in a relatively smoke free part of the arena, others we know got stuck next to tables with people that essentially smoked all the way through dinner, which for them really spoiled the enjoyment of the evening. Although as always with such events, it is a difficult situation to call, previous dinners we have attended have restricted smoking to the bar area, at least until after people had finished eating.

Anyway, aside from that, we thought it was a great night – hopefully the school will be able to get tickets for next years event. I managed to take a load of pictures, which you can see in our photo gallery.