28,000 Days To Live

One of my childhood favourite cars, i mean one that i used to obsess over, was the Mustang. Add to that the Mini (the proper British Leyland one, not the huge BMW one), Subaru Impreza (again, the older version, the WRX STI), the Aston Martin DB9, the Aston Martin DB5 and you pretty much have my dream garage. Recently i was given the opportunity to take a spin in a Mustang and it drove exactly how i had hoped! Acceleration - Jumpy, growly, sputtering - like an excited and drunk alsatian! Handling - Just keep turning... the steering column is connected...promise! Braking - Oh you want to brake in a STRAIGHT line...nah sorry bro. Interior Comfort - Imagine a metal shell with a stonking great engine lumped at the front, it even had a switch for the horn, not a button and certainly not on the steering wheel...that would be too easy. Number of Fs given - Zero! Such a ludicrously fun car that its impracticalities melt away as soon as you touch the go peddle. A truly charmingly, ment...

I went to this with a good friend and fellow gin connoisseur - a small underground gin bar and distillery near to St Pauls. They greeted us with a gin and tonic (of course) made with their signature London dry gin. They then took us around the back to the stills and explained the history of gin, the word coming from Jenever, a juniper based liquor that was the first traceable version of gin. Apparently, going back to the 1600s, soldiers were allowed certain rations of alcohol per day: English, a gallon of beer, dutch a litre of jenever etc. As the Dutch were allowed a  whole litre of highly alcoholic Jenever, the English marveled at their bravery in battle, which is where the term "Dutch Courage" originates from - Who knew? After the history lesson we tried another 2 london drys, an Old Tom (Sweetened Gin, goes into Tom Collins) and Sloe Gin. Made me remember why i love Sloe Gin so much!

Not a life list one but still awesome! This was when we went to Hamburg for my company's Betriebsfest to celebrate 425 years in business.

On at the same time as a Munich conference at work - we took a couple of extra days to enjoy the local culture, wearing lederhosen, drinking beer and taking some really terrible photos...

2:1 in Mathematics from University of Bath I was 0.1% away from that first....but then again i also got to enjoy my final year!

Treat from my sister - Here's us two enjoying our first sip of butter beer

I haven't got a photo annoyingly but i have been zorbing. There were two options - one in the dry, one in the wet (They ill the inside of the zorb with water before rolling you down the hill). We had paid for the dry one, although, going on a chilly day, and hearing the girlish screams of the men before us who chose the wet option, i think we made the right decision. We (not so elegantly) had to jump / slide into the zorb and strap ourselves into the harnesses on the inside walls. They then kicked us off, down a large hill spinning Alex and I around and around. Good fun - wish we could have done it more than once!