Happy New Merry Year!!! These blogs are getting few and far between but I’ll try harder in ‘09, promise! Here’s the festive run-up period in blog-format. I hopes you likes my loves…

Winter is upon us. So that means dark mornings and dark, cold nights. Still, nice sunrises though.

One of the essential Christmas films, Die Hard 2 : Die Harder (Best sequel title ever?)

Danny managed to get his mug in an episode of Casulty!

Ahh, how I love the Bristol squirrels. I have an affinity with them since a young age (a true fact, there’s a whole story behind it, but thats for another time)

Squirrel High-fives!

We took the kids to the park. Needed the hats though as it’s cold.

I fell off my bike, again! This time it was on black ice, and yeap I smashed up my brand new Macbook Pro. Luckily it all works fine, it’s just got battle scars.

Halogen heaters come into their own in Winter.

I got some fancy festive metallic red packaging for the Christmas Droplet orders.

Saw WALL-E for the first time. It’s flippin’ amazing, one of the best things I’ve seen in years.

Got new business cards done, to match the new website and stuff. Can’t beat gloss laminate finish, mm mm mmm!

Duncan gave me this beautiful silk painting, how rad is that!? I can’t wait to hang it!

I made friends with the good people of Innocent Drinks and they kindly sent me a whole box of smoothies!

This one is the best, fact! I’m going to be in a lil’ book Innocent are putting together, I can’t wait and am honoured to be a part of it! 2009 will be rad!

We had an Aardman Online christmas do, it was a whole lot of fun, ending with the funniest / most bizarre kareoke I’ve ever witnessed (we weren’t singing, it was a right oddball selection of another companys work outing.)

Some very drunk woman tried to ’sing’ a Linkin Park song, giving up pretty much straight away screaming “I can’t rap… I’m not black enough” (!!?)

Managed to catch-up with Rich and Laurs and Taff, Bobbie Yeast kept us entertained as always.

For a Christmas present, I decided to take my first fixie, AeroTurbo, that was originally my Dads bike years and years ago, and strip it down and refurbish it as a single-speed racer, giving it back to me pops!

I’d bought all new bits (new seat, new tyres, new chain, new brakes, new grips, new drop bars) and a night was set, and as Danny is the bike-build-master, he did all the hard work!

Old Aero…

Went with a nice classic matte black re-spray for the frame!

New front & back brakes

Nearly there…

Just needs the finishing touches…

Once all the painting was done, the next bit was all the finishes. I’d ordered some real fancy italian leather for the grips, which needed to be sewn on by hand!

I’m a bit of an pleb when it comes to anything that isn’t on a computer, so Sarah used her deadly skills to do the bootiful grips…

On first glance it looks like Sarah’s throwing up Wings & Teeth, but I don’t think she is, I think she got sore hands from sewing the thread!

Look at the finished bad boy though…

A proper gentlemens racer! It’s on a freewheel at the mo but with a fixed cog on the other side, so my pops can try it fixed any time he likes… :D

Fifty got in the Christmas spirit, with well fancy wreathes with gold supra kicks in the middle!

Another classic, Bugsy Malone.

On the last day of workin’, the 23rd Dec, we all brough in lots of party food in the office and gourged on many a sugar-based treat!

Then, before you knew it, it was time to pack up all my stuff and go home to Leicester for Christmas!

Xmas CD. Essential drive-home listening.

Always great to see the family again. Got to see the big dogs once again.

Dads new favourite thing is this huge wood-burning stove we’ve now got in the dining room. It produces roughly as much heat as a small solar flare and keeps the house warm for weeks on end.

CHRISTMAS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who needs tripods? Dan obviously doesn’t, as 3 tins and a butter dish do a better job.

Pigs not yet in their blankets. Aside from the turkey, the best thing about Christmas dinner.

I managed to get my dads bike back from Bristol, dissassenbled and hidden under a duvet sheet, and then built again to bring down on Xmas morning.

Turkey turkey turkey!!!

I get 2 Christmas Days, as we do it all at my house, then in the evening I go to Sarahs and do it all again, I love it!!

I got Sarahs mum this rad Shaun the Sheep (she loves Shaun) that plays music from your ipod out of the speakers on his headphones (which also light up in time to the moooosic)

I couldn’t belive it, Sarah got me Guitar Hero World Tour, the pack with all the instruments!!! I’ve been going on and on about this ever since it came out, I didnt think i’d actually get it! WELL stoked!

Pretty much instantly, I dissapeared upstairs to unpack it and play it on Richs Xbox!

And so it began, since then I’ve not done much else but play Xbox! I brought it home the next day for all to play!

It’s quite hard but good fun! Mind you if you can play an instrument I bet it’s a piece of cake!

You can create your own band and customize pretty much every aspect. My bands called ‘Itchy Knuckles’ and features ‘Deathpickle‘ on Guitar (all black outfit with a bright yellow gasmask and bright yellow guitar), a bassist called ‘Serg’ and a drummer called ‘Fuckbiscuits’ (complete with the word FUCK tattoed on his neck)

Aswell as Xbox fun, I got lots of other nice presents aswell. Cocommander is just one of them.

I brought WALL-E back home for all to watch too, as they hadn’t seen it before either.

So this has pretty much been the scene for me, since Christmas. Controller in-hand, playing games. I’ve loved it.

I completed Fable II, which is good because I never normally finish games.

After letting my brain go to mush, I forced myself to stock up on some culture, thanks to Dans guidance in the matter.

A Leicester nighttime. I often spend it sitting on the roof…

It’s suddenly got freezing here too, proper cold and everything.

Cold enough to freeze over a lake too.

We got out the house and had a little mooch around the ’shire.

And that’s it from me.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!