Biscuit likes tea

But her head doesn't fit in this cup so is using her paw.

Fire o'clock

Our electricity and gas bills are sky rocketing at the moment and the house is still cold. Luckily we can put the fire on in the living room. Roll on the spring.

Photos from the South Downs

Interesting toilet solution

We visited a friend's new house down in Eastbourne on Sunday. They have big renovation plans, this would be top of my list.

New cheesy breakfast

Saw this online on Saturday so cooked it for April. Grilled egg at cheese on toast.

Big delays this morning

But I did get to see how the redevelopment of Battersey Power Station was going on. Looks the same, but with more cranes.

I think Poppet's thirsty

View coming out of Lloyd's tonight

Banished to the music room

Football's on but banished to the music room. We're winning though...  But it is against the mighty Plymouth in the fa cup replay.

Stuartini Clarketti FM17 1

Having been appointed manager at League two side Portsmouth back in July 2016 the little known Italian manager Clarketti wasted no time matching supporters expectations and guided his side to 4 out of 5 league wins during the month of August.

With zero budget available Clarketti managed to convince his board of directors that a link between a more senior side would benefit the club both financially and also in getting talented young loan signings for free. The board found 3 possible suitors.  West Ham, Tottenham and Chelsea.  With many of Chelsea's hot prospects already on loan Clarketti suggested that Tottenham Hotspur would be his preferred choice.  Shortly after Portsmouth made their first loan signings, the highlight being Harry Winks.

Being slight of build Tottenham wanted him to gain playing experience in the lower leagues that would hopefully toughen him up for the physicality of the Premium League.

10 games in Portsmouth are sitting pretty at the top of league, and despite getting knocked out of the EFL Cup in the first round against higher league opposition have a healthy match record of W7 D1 L2.   

Tune in next time for the next installment of Stuartini Clarketti FM17...

Found the poker set

But not really enough chips so have ordered another set. Poker night is pencilled in for next Friday.

Poker night

I'm going to try and sort out a Tonbridge poker night in the next few weeks.  Nothing silly, just £20 in with the possibiilty of another £20 buy in if you're a glutton for punishment.

It's been a fair while since my last one.  I think it was back when I was living in Clapham.  Almost much 10 years ago as I left there in May 2008.

I remember one night when I was living in Putney and if I remember correctly Ben went out after about 2 or 3 hands and Kris decided to protect his £2 winnings by not betting for the rest of the evening.  I think April won that one (she's currently not invited to this one) and Steve did well too.

The other infamous one was the big cheese challenge night in my Kennington flat.

For those that haven't seen it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Wp9blNIcA

Thanks to Ben for making this available

What was he thinking?!?  How young do I look?  It was filmed in Summer 2003!

Let's hope nothing like that happens this time.

And the winner is...

I've managed to pull out the capital model run data from our hpc setup at work and guess who ran the most models in my team last year?  Me!  I got the most in 2015 too.

I've also managed to pull out time of day (i'm second highest in model runs outside of office ours) and day of the week (i've ran more models over the weekend than anyone else too).

Who says I don't work hard?  Me.  The servers do most of the work, I just kick them off. 

Red sky in the morning...

Shepherd's warning of an incoming nuclear war.

Some photos from Saturday night

I met up with Shaheen and Ross on Saturday afternoon for a steak in Hawksmoor followed by lots of drinks all over the place. There was even crowd surfing in the Crobar. Not by us I hasten to add...

Made this on Saturday morning

Onion and black pepper bread topped with red onion and raclette cheese. Mmm...

Before...

Waiting for Shaheen and Ross in the bar at Hawksmoor (Air Street). It's going to be a messy one. Saying that, I imagine i'll be in bed by 11.

£186 from the change pot

Not a bad haul.  I think there was over £200 in there this time but was unable to bag 3 or 4 sets of coins.Getting last paid in mid December means a long month so will certainly help with cash flow.  Pretty sure I may spend it all on Saturday with Shaheen and Ross though as we're set to hit London for the night.

We're booked in for an early dinner at 4pm here

http://thehawksmoor.com/locations/airstreet/

Can't wait.

Snowy but not enough to stop the trains

Last minute change of plan

We were going to grab some take away fish and chips on the way home last night but decided to go for a Tex-Mex instead. Yum.

Going up market?

The closest pub to us in Tonbridge (as the crow flies) now has a wine list and it's also gotten rid of the borderline racist poster. Has it gone up market?

No.

Music was half decent from the bike box though.

I think they do love me

The cats have attacked me after getting back from the pub.

First game night was a success

If your name wasn't Stuart or Jonno.

Games played: Tsuro, Spendour and Lanterns.

The inaugural Tonbridge games night is tonight

I'm only able to see the dweebs (you know who you are) once a month these days so i've decided to try and set up a semi regular board game night with some of my Tonbridge friends.  I've had a couple of dinner parties over the past year or so where we've played a game or two afterwards that have been successful so thought it would be nice to see how a regular session went.

Our new favorite pub in Tonbridge (The Foresters Arms) is an ideal venue, although i'll have to head back to mine first to get changed then cart the games back across town first.  There's plenty of table space, they do their own pizzas and will be quiet most Mondays.

There were originally going to be 5 of us playing tonight  but we've had out first call off this morning, but have been informed if I were to move it to Wednesdays then we'd get a couple more going too.  If that was the case we'd have a couple of games going at once which would be good.

No complicated games at first.  Perhaps a bit of icebreaking with a spot of Flux or Tsuro, then a bit of Splendor and Lanterns later. 

Reminded me of the film Blade

The blood from my roast beef slowly ran around the rim of the chopping board. It reminded me of one if the later scenes in the film Blade.

Poppet likes to keep warm

I may put on a few pounds in 2017

My raclette Christmas present from April.

Biscuit helping April work from home

New years photos

I think we finally went to bed at 3!

April's last gig of the year

The Crobar now has a wine list

Don't worry, I didn't try any. I kept to the can of red stripe.

Cat attack

Showing me some love

Dweebs abusing my trust when getting the beers in at the Knights Lodge.