A bit of a Christmas get-together with the added bonus of Andy and Meri over from the US to join us for a bit of food, drink and company.

The standard new years shennanigans around at Keith's house. Food and drink a-plenty.

Before the karting we all went to London and had an excellent time in a TGI Friday eating and drinking and generally carrying on silly.

Karting for the first time in a long time I shatter the lap record for the day and generally treat things far too much like a competition. Still, a wonderful day out and some excellent crashes. If that's not the point of going karting then maybe I'm missing it entirely.

We all go to see Geoff and Shelley's little one, Rhys, and celebrate his first birthday in style with toys and icecream and jelly and paper hats!

Meeting some of the fine denizens of #drum and alt.fan.pratchett for an instructional visit to the Greenwich Meridian and points East and West.

The first Thursday: Inc. barbecue at chez moi. Food, flames and frolics as the sun shone down and the wine was drunk. Oh, I bought a barbecue and implements set, too.

A picnic with Andy, Keith, Steph and Jonathan. Fun and food in the sun. All good.

We don't need an excuse for a Barbecue! Thursday: Inc. was pleased to host the second occasional barbecue in the sun at chez moi. Plenty of meat, women and wine.

It was Elaine's birthday the preceeding week but there wasn't anyone around to celebrate with so she came down to see me and I gathered a few good friends together to do it properly. I would have invited more but I didn't have enough crockery. Cormac and I made the food, everyone ate it. Life was good for a time.

Not only did Easter fall on my birthday this year but it was also a handy opportunity to celebrate my housewarming (only three months after I'd moved in, a record!), see some people I hadn't seen in a while and generally find out just how many people my kitchen could hold.

This is the wedding of Gideon and Jenny in Bath Spa. Being one of the bridesmaids (don't ask, the best man was a woman) and responsible for some of the organisation, Elaine and I travelled up on the Friday and booked in to the hotel. The day was great, the occassion splendid and the food at the reception really quite marvellous. Aside from helping two of my favourite people get married I got to catch up with a lot of friends I haven't seen in a while. The only down-side was not always being able to remember the names of the relatives!

Vicky, Nicky and their little newborn son Benjamin decided to have a little barbecue and alcohol-tasting thingy one Sunday evening. While I didn't indulge in the wine tasting, or beer tasting I did go with the whisky one and very much appreciated the types on offer. Getting a taxi there and back with six other people may not have been the most cost-effective way to do it, but it was a very pleasant way to do it.

A bit of Venetian exuberance on a hot summer's evening. Eighteen of us bought tickets to Jesus College's May Ball and after assembling at Keith's house we took taxis to Jesus, queued, entered, ate hog, doughnuts, popcorn, fajitas and pizza while drinking champagne, Shark, cocktails and water. While the comedians died on their arses, the hypontism act was fun (what we heard of it) and the music was good. Coming home at 0-dark-30 in a taxi and falling in to bed turned out to be the best remedy for a Monday spent at work; Tuesday off!

Elaine and I went to Sheffield for her MRI appointment to find out if her bout of Optic Neuritis was symptomatic of something more pervasive, like Multiple Sclerosis. At time of writing we haven't had the results yet.

While in Sheffield for Elaine's MRI scans we took the bus up to the flat to do some final cleaning, pick up any post that'd dropped through the postal redirection service, take some photos of the place while it was empty and to look at the birds and the other wildlife for the last time.

Elaine and I travelled up to Sheffield for probably the last time for a while to have her presented for her Masters degree in Engineering. We were met at Doncaster station by her father and Clare who joined us for lunch before attending the Congregation at the University. Elaine had a section of the programme all to herself, which really made her name stand out. The photos here are mainly for publication-for-printing purposes, which is why there are so many the same.

Rather than sit indoors on a nice day we decided on the spur of the moment to have a barbecue in the front (only) garden. It was great, even if Cormac managed to kill a square of grass with his skillet.

Elaine, Veg and I took a trip to Duxford to see the planes and stuff. Another hot day, an excellent chance to do things like go onboard Concorde 101 (funky retro 70s computers) and actually touch the fastest plane in the world (the SR-71 Blackbird).

It was Cormac's birthday, so he had the bright (mad) idea of going night kiting with power kites. Of course it was raining, but that didn't matter. We had a mini picnic, people came out. Then it got too dark to do anything sensible so we went to someone's house and drank.

It was warm, we wanted to see friends. We had beanbags.

Rachel and Tony got married. Starting off in a nice little chapel in town for the ceremony everyone was gathered together to see the two tie the knot. After retiring to the court for photos some of us took a trip into town for a little drink before heading home and then to a nearby community centre. Lots of good friends were in attendance as well as bucketloads of food and drink. An excellent time was had by all.

Once again Keith managed to pull off a rather memorable party for all kinds of reasons. Either we're all just a bit more grown up, or the fancy clothes we were in lent a bit more gravitas to the night but there was no (truly) excessive drinking, nothing got broken and we managed to do fire breathing without anyone dying. Pretty much all of the usual crowd were there, I had some interesting conversations and drank some very interesting drinks. This was my first outing with the new Canon 350D and it shows. Warning: This time only I've uploaded the full-size, huge images. If you click on the "Full size" button for a thumbnail, be prepared for a 2MB+ download.

Popped along to the Cambridge Corn Exchange for a Beth Orton gig. Initially not allowed to use "professional" camera equipment (without a press pass) the lead bouncer had a word with the tour manager who allowed myself and a friend to take shots. The warmup band were (probably) called Clayhill and were pretty good too. Beth, obviously, was very impressive and being at the front made the whole thing rather more intimate than for those nearer the back.

Went to a local lecture on how Chemistry Is Fun. They're right, it is. Lighting wasn't too great though, for obvious reasons.

Wandered by the Strawberry Fair on the Friday and saw an excellent VW Kombi which I took a few shots of, then met people the next day to wander around the fair proper and do some poi and staff demonstrations with other people from the Circus. The evening was a barbecue at Keith's.

James' birthday barbecue and evening party on the Green. Lots of people, fun, poi, staff, juggling and general frivolity.

An afternoon of relaxation and (you guessed it) more poi and juggling fun with close friends and small boys with water. Also Shaun and Linda's son, Tom.

Cormac managed to keep a secret. This by way of being a calendar event we decided to celebrate by taking Steph punting and then to a Teri-yaki-catered meal at my house with balloons and helium and cake (by Elaine) and plenty of champagne. Oh, it was also pretty much her birthday too.

The Latitude Festival near Southwold. I went along as part of a juggling crew and helped run two workshops a day for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Between those times we got to sample some of the exceedingly varied acts on offer. From Marcus Brigstocke in the Comedy Arena to The Zutons and Snow Patrol. Literary criticism, burlesque cabaret, theatre and live poetry reading. Along with the phenomenal weather and some very late nights (read: early mornings) a damed good time was had by all. Sorry the shots aren't so good; I only had the compact on account of not wanting to tote my big kit around.

Kris got her doctorate. From Harvard! How cool is that?! She managed to swing a ticket for me to actually see Commencement in one of the closed-circuit viewing spots so it was much better than not seeing it at all. We had an amazing time in Boston which I saw in a completely different light to the last time I'd been there. We also ate a lot of wonderful food and did a hefty amount of walking.