40 years and 40 beers!....

It was Russells 40th and we were all invited round to commiserate...I mean celebrate. There was some really nice champers....
....if only we could get it open!
Lots of cards. I KNEW I'd forgotten something.
Plus balloons. A proper party!
I searched and searched for some 'Lancaster Bomber' beer (Russells current favourite), but couldn't find it anywhere. I later discovered that they sold it at my local wine merchant. Typical, I didn't check there!
As compensation I brought along the 'Drinko-matic-4000' drinking hand to help make alcohol consumption less of a chore.
We were presented with some smoked salmon which had lingered in the cupboard upon its return from Seattle for near on five years. There was no 'use by' date and we reckoned that if we all drank enough strong alcohol any germs would die anyway. It was surprisingly nice, but did later dominate the room and make its presence known!
The automatic drinking hand proved itself to be a versatile piece of equipment being equally competent at handling nibbles.
Although the guidance system needed some tinkering.
As the evening became more blurry and confusing, a shoe appeared on the table. It turned out to be a pleasing strong lemon drink in a shoe shaped bottle. Once wrestled from Jennys grip (she thought it would ruin the look of it if we drank it) it was avidly consumed. Along with a variety of other drinks and chocolate liqueurs.
The drinko-matic hand suited Jon quite well until....
...suddenly and unexpectedly it turned on him. Obviously not conversant with the three laws of robotics, it attacked its master, first going for the eyes then force feeding him with three spring rolls dipped in hot peri sauce all at once. The mechanical hand was subdued. I'm sure the twins will love it.
All in all a top evening.
Thanks Russell for inviting us and turning 40 before me!
Thanks to Maxine for the seemingly never ending supply of yummy eating nibbles.

Transforming cars and left foot braking....

With the days so short and the winters blues taking their toll, it's nice to spend some time with your friends. Sunday evenings we often meet up at Russells house. In summer it's a BBQ, in winter we just hang out, have a beer, and stuff ourselves with snacks. It's amazing at how much fun we have joking around and poking fun at the world. The twins (http://russandmax.blogspot.com/) were in bed so there was no competition while playing with their toys and once worn out we settled down to watch 'Transformers on DVD on Russells 'home cinema'.
"Down in front!"

On leaving we discovered.....SNOW! I love snow, there wasn't much, but there was some. Did I mention?...I love snow.

We don't get snow very often anymore, but as soon as we get some you can't stop me. I'm off in the car practising my handbrake turns, left foot braking into corners and J-turns.

By the time I'd got to the church at the end of my road it had already begun to melt, and that nasty man with his gritting lorry had ruined it!

I'll never understand it, if the roads are so bad we need to cover them with salt, then how come the gritting lorries never get stuck?!

When I eventually arrived home, (I had to go the long way, I was having too much fun) the road was almost clear. The steep driveway to my house however was not. It took me three attempts and in the end I had to reverse across the road and take an almighty run up at it. I arrived at the top of the drive going a little too fast...a quick tug of the handbrake and I made it around the corner and into the yard. I missed next doors car, Jennys bike but the bucket and the tomato plant really shouldn't have been there and I can't be held responsible for them failing to get out of the way in time!

Doesn't look like we're going to get snowed in anytime soon.....just enough left to build a quick snowman before bed...