Dr John Hawkins

Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff, home to a huge load of pictures, and my daily blog.

My email address is as above - I've put it in an image in a vein attempt to reduce the amount of spam I get.

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Recent Entries:

Drinks with the New Guy
The Sambuca Incident
More Wine, More Curry
More Visitors!
Vera
Wine
Vindaloo
A St. Patrick's Day Miracle
Japanese Night
Cotswolds
Hangover
Birthday in Windsor

Drinks with the New Guy

[Wednesday 24th March] We had a new guy (called Peter) starting at my company, so a few of us went out for dinner and a few drinks with him to give him a bit of a welcome. It also happened to coincide with Kev's birthday, giving the evening a double barreled purpose. Nothing out of the ordinary, but a nice night out nonetheless.
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The Sambuca Incident

[Tuesday 23rd March] Chie's friend Shu was going back to Japan in a couple of days time, so this was the last chance for us to go for a drink with him. Kev joined us for the evening as well, partly as a sort of pre-birthday drink. We managed a nice mini pub crawl incorporating three pubs, and it was all going very well until the Sambuca incident. The barman at the last pub on our agenda very kindly offered us all a free glass of flaming sambuca. Unfortunately, three out of four of the glasses had been left to burn for too long and had become superheated by the time we came to drink them, and Shu, Chie and Kev all got very nasty burns on their hands. I managed to escape this by virtue of my glass having gone out twice, and was left feeling very guilty indeed. Ho, hum.
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More Wine, More Curry

[Monday 22nd March] In the evening Myself, Chie and Junchan met up with Nozaki for a couple of glasses of wine, followed by a curry, before Junchan then headed off back to London.
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More Visitors!

[Sunday 21st March] Adrian (my brother), Liz (his wife) and their two kids William and Katie came to visit us whilst Vera was staying in the daytime, which was really lovely. After they'd left, then Vera left, we then had our friend Junchan to stay for the evening. We ate dinner at my local, bangers and mash, which was very nice.
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Vera

[Saturday 20th March] Vera (my grandmother) was visiting this weekend, and arrived sometime in the afternoon on Saturday. Didn't really do much in the evening, just a quiet night in really. I think I made risotto for dinner, can't really remember that well now.
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Wine

[Friday 19th March] In the morning we saw Sato and Miho off at the station. They were heading on to Paris, which both me and Chie were slightly envious of. In the evening we were invited to Nozaki Sensei's (Chie's tutor from her university days) for a wine tasting evening, with dinner thrown in to boot. Very nice.
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Vindaloo

[Thursday 18th March] This was Sato and Miho's last night staying with us, and we decided to round it off with a curry from my local Indian takeaway. I was feeling particularly adventurous and ordered the vindaloo. It was plain violent. I could just about manage it at the time, but the next day my stomach felt like someone had gone at it with a blowtorch. Wonderful stuff.
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A St. Patrick's Day Miracle

[Wednesday 17th March] We'd decided to take our Japanese guests out for a meal, and after amazingly discovering our local Indian restaurant to be full (this almost never happens, especially not mid-week), we opted instead for a little cafe/restaurant place just round the corner. Once in there I noticed something was a little unusual - there didn't seem to be any other men in there. Eventually we realised it was Ladies' night, and gradually the fear and panic started to set in. Just as I was beginning to face up to the horror of spending the evening in the presence of a load of irrate middle aged women who were glouring at me as though I was some kind of intruder, I got a phone call. Lo and behold, Rob, Mark and Byrnie were outside my house, having turned up out of the blue on the off chance I was in. I made my apologies, and left the overly feminine restaurant, to instead spend a lovely evening supping Guinness at my local pub with my pleasingly male friends. It really was a little miracle.
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Japanese Night

Leon dropped in for a visit, which was nice, and worked very well as Chie, Sato and Miho had decided to cook Japanese food. Leon announced he and Yukari had got engaged which was even more splendid.
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Cotswolds

[Monday 15th March 2004] Had the day off work to take Chie, Sato and Miho on a guided tour of the Cotswolds, which also doubled as a second birthday outing for me. A very nice day out.
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Hangover

[Sunday 14th March] Stayed at home in bed with the all too predicatable hangover following the previous day's boozy excess. Actually, not as bad a hangover as it could have been, pretty mild really compared to some I've had. In the evening Chie returned from London with Sato and Miho, and I made a sort of vegetarian roast meal, including toad in the hole and a very successful cauliflower cheese. I was trying very hard to convince our Japanese guests that English food wasn't that bad after all...
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Birthday in Windsor

[Saturday 13th March] Pub crawl in Windsor to celebrate my birthday (a couple of days early). Not much point in saying anything here as the pictures tell it all really!
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