Perfectionism...

You Are 55% Perfectionist

No one would call you a perfectionist, but you definitely have a side of you that strives to be perfect. Try to see your mistakes as learning experiences, and don't be so hard on yourself when you screw up!

Are You a Perfectionist?

Vocabulary test...

Your Vocabulary Score: A-

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

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I belong in.....

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

Look what we can (just) see from our apartment!

Karen had never noticed, since she is a few inches shorter than me, but from one of our windows we can actually see the very top of Arthur's Seat, the extinct volcanic hill about 4 miles away. Here it can be seen in the midst of a gorgeous sunset (taken on my Sony cameraphone - it is best to click the image to see a bigger version):

Funny weather

The weather in the Lothian region is very bizarre recently: you're certainly advised to take a raincoat or umbrella with you, even if it currently appears sunny outside.

Anyway, I saw this beautiful rainbow over Granton Harbour the other day when I was driving down the Granton Road, so quickly stopped my car to snap it. (Excuse the quality, as it was taken on my Sony cameraphone).

Simon and the Nepalese food

Simon (my best man) came to stay with us for one night last night. It was great to see him and have an excellent chat.

He was very kind in treating us to dinner at a Nepalese Restaurant called The Khukuri, near Haymarket Station. The food was very nice indeed but, what's more, the service was exceptional; let me give you an example:

I asked for a pineapple and soda. The waitress did not seem too sure so we explained it was a pineapple juice with soda water. A couple of minutes later, Karen spotted the waitress coming back in through the front door with a carton of pineapple juice in a bag - she had actually gone to a nearby shop to buy some pineapple juice (which they obviously don't normally have) just to meet her customer's request! Most places would just say "sorry - we don't do that drink here".

Top marks. We'll be back.

While on the subject of good service, we decided when we got home to have some ice-cream, although we had none in the freezer. Karen knew, however, of an ice-cream shop on the Granton Road that closes at 10 pm, so off she went. She came back with some Italian Mint Choc-Chip (delicious). She had apologised to the owner for cleaning him out of that flavour, when he replied: "Oh! No problem - I'll just make some more in the morning". So it was actually home-made ice-cream, and great it was too :-)

My stag weekend - REPORT

Well, it seems AGES ago now (it was), but it is about time I told you briefly about my stag weekend (then I can finally get on to posting about the wedding and honeymoon!).

I flew to Southampton after work on Friday 13th October 2006 with Wayne and Phil (my ushers) and Mel, Phil's wife. First we consumed a quick Indian meal near the station before grabbing a train to Portsmouth Harbour. From there, it was a shortish walk through the marvellous Gunwharf Quays centre until we found our hotel, the perfectly-located Holiday Inn Express Gunwharf Quays. I shared a room with Wayne, and we had a good old chat about everything under the sun till 3 am.


After breakfast the next morning (Holiday Inn Express do a good continental buffet), we had a good look around the Gunwharf Quays. Mel and Phil went on a boat tour of Portsmouth Harbour then a trip up the Spinnaker Tower, whilst Wayne and I went for a look around the shops.

In the afternoon, Suzanne (my sister) came down by coach from London. I spent some time with her, firstly going up the Tower (with its really rather scary glass floor) and then walking to the Historic Dockyard to have a look at HMS Victory (although lack of time precluded our going on board - and I'm not sure we would have wanted to stretch to £11 each for the privilege anyway).



In the evening we went out for my stag meal, to a great Oriental Buffet called Water Margin within the Gunwharf Quays centre, followed by our reason for going to Portsmouth in particular - the opportunity to see my favourite band, Level 42, performing live in the city that night. They were SUPERB, FUNKY and TIGHTER than a TIGHT THING TIGHTENED :-)

After the show, we waited in the cold air for over an hour until I finally got my chance to meet my all-time bass hero, Mark King. He had a great sense of humour and, on Suzanne taking a pic of us together, he got up on a barrier to equal my height, asking me:

"Are you the tallest man in the world? Here's me and short arse Steve getting our picture taken!"

I was over the moon and it was SO worth waiting for.


The next morning, we flew back to Guernsey. A FANTASTIC stag weekend, and I didn't even consume a drop of the black gold. :-)

P.S. All photos courtesy of Suzanne - thanks.

Wedding and Honeymoon story/pics coming SOON!

Sorry for the delay in reporting on the recent events.

I am now happily settled in Scotland (well, except that I'm still looking for a job), but don't have broadband yet. My Orange broadband and Livebox wireless modem was apparently successfully delivered on 17 October, but was signed for by a Mr R Hussain! Neither Karen nor I have any idea who that is, so Orange have had to send out a second package. When it arrives, I shall update the blog properly. It is SO frustrating being on dial-up, even temporarily!

STAG weekend

Off to Portsmouth tonight for my "stag" weekend, although it won't be typical as I don't drink very much. Instead, we are going to have a wander around Portmouth Gunwharf Quays on Saturday and then go to a Level 42 gig in the evening (my favourite band!). Should be good. My sister is going to join my ushers, one of my usher's wives and me for the gig. We will probably go out for food beforehand. My last weekend of singlehood, here I come!

Oh, by the way, I did not get one of the jobs. Still waiting to hear about number 2.

I'm back :-)

Interviews went fairly well I think but I will not hear about job 1 until next week and job 2 until a couple of weeks' time.

Had a great time in Edinburgh though. Karen made some lovely food (she would be the first to admit that she does not really enjoy life in the kitchen, but she did a great job) and we went on a date to see "The Queen" - Karen's treat.

Here is a pic I took of the "other" side of the Castle from the Grassmarket (taken with my cameraphone, hence poor quality - mainly because I need to clean the lens I think!):

Off to Edinburgh for 2 job interviews

AAAAAARGH! HATE job interviews!

Never mind.

A very quick trip this time - up today and back Friday. Managed to get a good price by using Aurigny to Manchester (£92.90 return) then http://www.megatrain.com from Manchester Piccadilly to Edinburgh for the princely sum of £6.50 RETURN! (Would have been £2.50 return if I'd booked a week earlier :-)

I will let you know how I got on when I come back.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Well done Connie! Both Karen and I voted for her. She was clearly the most perfect competitor for the role of Maria and we hope to go and see the show one day.

Battle of Britain Air Display

Tomorrow is meant to be the annual Battle of Britain Air Display in Guernsey. Whether or not it will actually take place depends on the weather, which is looking a bit marginal judging from the current forecast.

I have many fond memories of this display (I first remember seeing the Red Arrows fly over my old house for the display when I was about 3 or 4 - roughly 1976 - my parents stood me on a chair and I nearly fell off due to the noise!).

Here is a video I took of a Lancaster Bomber taking off from Guernsey a few years back on its way to the afternoon display in Jersey (Guernsey's display is always in the morning). Just listen to those beautiful engines!

Happy 50th Birthday Debbie Turner!

Debbie Turner is well-known as the Hollywood actress who played little Marta in The Sound of Music (the one who said "I'm going to be seven on Tuesday, and I'd like a pink parasol).

(She is the little girl second from the right in the line of children pictured above.)

When I was planning to get engaged to Karen, I emailed Debbie to ask for some help in finding the location where the children had had the picnic in the film, as that was where I was planning to ask Karen to marry me (a stunningly beautiful place - click here to see pics of our engagement). I did not really expect a reply, but Debbie was wonderful and ever so helpful and I will never forget this.

So, Happy 50th birthday today Debbie, and thanks so much for all your help!

Long time no post :-(

Hi guys!

Sorry I have not posted in ages. Things are VERY BUSY for me right now, what with wedding planning, looking for jobs in Scotland, plus being stacked out in my current job.

I will try and write more regularly from now on.

Take care!

Pasties and Ice-cream

Cornwall was great (although my trip was less than 48 hours in total). We went to Boscastle, the scene of those horrible flash floods a couple of years ago. They have mostly rebuilt it all now, and it is just naturally beautiful. I look forward to spending more time in Cornwall in the future. Here are just a few pics (the rest are here).

OFF TO CORNWALL :-)

Off to Cornwall till Monday afternoon for a short break, staying at Karen's Mum's house. Karen will be there with her friend Helen.

Can't wait. Need a break!

Angel with Fur - the Video

As a surprise Valentine gift for Karen in 2004, I wrote her a song about our now-sadly-departed mini-lop, Barney.

I have finally got around to posting the "pop video" I made on Youtube. Unfortunately, the compressed picture and sound quality is pretty rubbish, but you will get the general idea.

Karen, thankfully, LOVED the song. For me, I would have re-recorded the vocals if I could have, without all the shakey bits, but we were in an absolute rush to get this done.

Thanks to Sue Lainé for doing the camera work, and for Bradley Steenkamp for recording and mixing the project, all in record time :-)

To watch the video, just click on the play button below (EDIT: I have now re-posted the video in better quality on Myspace Videos, so this now looks better than before):

Angel with Fur

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World Cup Semi-Final: Italy v Germany

WOW! WHAT A GAME! Am so glad I saw this, although I had hoped Germany would win. I don't really mind though, as long as Portugal do not win the World Cup overall. Anyone but Portugal!

Proof that Myspace is amazing

About 12 years ago, I bought an album called "Ben and Roy Castle's Big Celebration", which was the last CD Roy (the British entertainer famous for "Record Breakers") ever contributed to. I was very struck by the good bassplaying of a Mr Tim Harries on this album.

Anyway, fast forward to 2006 and I am merrily adding some "Friends" to Myspace when I spot someone else has a Tim Harries as a friend (this is where the whole networking thing comes in). So I add Tim Harries to my friends too (having established that this is one and the same guy from his profile).

Lo and behold, today I get a message from Tim himself (who would never have spotted me other than that I added him as a friend), which read as follows:

" At last, a song about a rabbit! Brightened up my day no end."

I was amazed that the Tim Harries had listened to Angel with Fur. I made a comment on his profile to say thanks and that I knew him from the Roy Castle album but had not heard much else of his.

He responded, "Now that was a long time ago! He was a great man. We have a dwarf lop who's a feisty miss but we love her to bits."

So, Tim Harries not only has heard my humble song and it has brightened up his day, he also owns his own bunny! Let's just say I am SOLD on Myspace and the possibilities it offers :-)