The wife and I managed to cram our Saturday full of stuff, including the town & country fair event in Cambridge, part of which was to launch national bike week. Where we did a whole bunch of stuff including registering our cycles. On the way home we stopped along the river to watch the May Bumps.

On Sunday we took a drive up to Holkham, in north Norfolk.  We spent an hour or so on the beach admiring the kites and little children who were running around and generally having a great time in the glorius sunshine.  We then made our way to go and see Elton John’s last concert in England for just over 2 years.  This was actually in the grounds of Holkham Hall, which in itself is worth a visit when there isn’t a large concert in the back-yard.  The concert was great, Sir Elton is a consummate public performer and still sounds great 40 years on.  Very cool, lots of fun.  It wasn’t your typical stand up, get crushed kind of concert it was a more relaxed have a picnic take along some chairs, food, drink and generally relax and enjoy what was superb weather.

The whole event was however unfortunately marred by really poor crowd control/management.  At the start of the day we all had to queue up waiting for the gates to open. This was fine, a tad annoying but not unexpected.  However once the gates were opened the whole british mentality of orderly queuing went right out the window and everyone just flooded past as fast as they could.  This then coupled with the extremely poor control of the flow of cars on the way out led us to be in a queue of cars for over 95 mins.  If these were handled with a little more forethought things could have been so much better.  Would I go again? Yes, but I probably wouldn’t bust a gut to get there for gate opening time.

January - Discovered real british ale, finally.
February - Met Bill Rowe on his travels in the UK. Went for Dinner in London, and if I recall rightly we discussed the US presidential race, as far back as that.
March - I became a Freenode Staff member. 
April - Not a lot seemed to happen in April. Oh wait! Alice, my lovely wife turned 30.  She still looks 25 to me.
May - Hannah & Chris’s wedding.
June - Became a member of the ASF.  Thanks!
July - Devon beckoned as Alice and I went to Bovey Castle, and met up with niq
August - Started playing badminton again. 
September - First wedding anniversary.  One year.  Wow!  I can’t believe how lucky I am to have Alice in my life let alone be married to her.  I still thank my lucky stars.
October - Oh yeah, another year older.  Not even 30 yet. 
November - Received my gift from Joe.  This year’s must have item. 
December -  Got flu from my Mother, best Christmas present she ever gave me.  Thanks Mum, I love you.  I also bought myself a Blu-Ray player.
That was a lot harder to write than I thought.  Anyway.  Happy new year to all my friends and family.  May 2009 bring all the things you want and so much more.

  EDIT: Updated ‘November’ – How silly of me to to forget this. Sorry Joe.

I am quite a fan of circa 2003/2004 Sauvigion Blanc from Marlborough, NZ.  I like a white that has a bold taste, and a little fruity taste.   Any hints?