Friday evening I went to Eden at New Hall. Unfortunately for covertmusic, they cancelled Inferno at fairly short notice; fortunately for me and others, they attempted to compensate him with "as many guest tickets as you want". I assume that at some point they'll refund my largeish cheque, but will give them until after May Week to get out of headless chicken mode.

lusercop came up Friday afternoon and after a bit of faffing at mine, we wandered over, arriving around 5:30 or so. Almost the first person we saw was my old NatSci DoS, and we had a pleasant conversation with him. There were strawberries and cream, and Pimms, and lots of non-alcoholic drinks, and burgers and hotdogs and icecream and candyfloss. There was some timeless period when I sat on the grass listening to live music, watching Matthew devilstick and enjoying the glitter of light and the patterns of movement, and it was good.

mobbsy and pjc50 turned up in due course, and we had more pleasant conversation, while lusercop gave impromptu lessons to random passersby. Later still, acronym arrived just as I was attempting a guided tour of my old College and its artwork for Pete, and we returned from that to find j4 & addedentry. Because Inferno had been cancelled, Eden was extended until 10pm, after which Janet and Owen went home and Matthew, Andrew, Andrew and Pete came back to mine, where we hung out and gossiped. I eventually gave in and got some sleep, and left Matthew as temporary house occupant to continue being hostly.

Saturday dawned gorgeously. We sat and gossiped for a bit, and then I attempted to deal with the piles of to-do list. We had a lazy lunch, which I serendipitously started cooking just as jdc39 emerged blinking into the day after Robinson Ball. After this I did some working from home, fixing the problems I hadn't had time to fix before leaving on Friday. Most of it was the kind of fiddly, repetitive, careful work that gets immensely tedious but can't be automated. We listened to CUR1350's coverage of the Bumps, after which there was Dr Who and a very pleasant meal at the Thanh Binh. Sunday I spent rather more of the day working, interspersed with conversation with Matthew and Jonny. I finished bang on 5:30 when I really had to stop, so that fanf & I could go to the CUMC Centenary Dinner. This turned out to be excellent fun despite the heat, with a huge turnout of past members, some impressive beards and a fine after-dinner speech. It was fun showing Tony off introducing Tony to my climbing friends, and especially pleasant to see Andy B (and finally meet his girlfriend) back from Durham for the event. Lots of people I knew had been on the club week-long meet in Cornwall, which I missed due to having lots of work and a wedding to plan. Tony and I will go next year, if at all possible.

I slept very badly last night, but did get into work reasonably early. I migrated my package of fixes for testing by mid-morning ... and got back a shorter list of new bugs by lunchtime. Sigh. Must code better. I then took an extra-long lunch in order to pick up fripperies for the wedding, and was really a bit too hot by the time I got back to the office. It took quite a while and a lot of water before I felt able to think straight again. When I got home this evening, all good intentions to do useful things vanished in the face of being hot and tired, so I read a book instead. I probably should go to bed, but the upper floor is uninvitingly hot. I suppose I could read another book.

( Weekend friends and family )
Sunday evening I was incredibly useful and sorted out lots of stuff that had been lurking in my inbox for ages ... with the notable exception of anything wedding related. That's the first time in a while I've caught myself productively procrastinating. Among other things I checked through our phone bills for the first time in a year and decided the quarterly call costs weren't worth chasing lodgers for. I also realised just how cheap it can be to ring my parents these days, and as my main reluctance to do so on the landline has been the quality of our handset, I bought a new handset. And an answerphone, so that my parents can ring me at home and be able to leave messages.

Monday was busy at work and I was feeling a bit tired and under the weather for the beer festival, so finished my second read-through of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow instead.

Yesterday continued busy at work. I went to the beer festival afterward and had a very enjoyable time, running into several sets of people during the evening. Tony & I have now joined CAMRA because the joint membership is a bargain compared to single memberships (21 and 18 pounds respectively). I started off with Holden's Black Country Mild (on the North Bar) which is rather lighter and easier to drink than most milds and I approve. My next choice was Boelens Bieken Honingbier from the Foreign Beers stand, which was described as "Gorgeous Honey beer" and was. I thoroughly approve and wish to find more. When I went back to the foreign beers, all the honey beers had gone, all my backup choices from the Lambics had gone, and I tried Orval because I could see it was there. It was drinkable and had nice texture, but nothing amazing. I had sips of other people's drinks now and again, those that stuck in memory overnight were the Espresso Stout from Dark Star which Alex (climber, but not the one atreic knows) had, and the Rauch beer that ptc24 chose (both good). Helen (climber) had a cranberry wheat beer which was very thin-tasting and I found disappointing but she liked.

I may or may not get to beer tonight. It will depend on how sociable and energetic I am feeling - there was a plan for work people to go, but the colleague most enthusiastic about it is off sick.

fanf and I are getting two cats shortly after we get back from our honeymoon. This is probably excessively couply or something (although possibly not, compared to being married). We're getting Kat's cats as mentioned here. While Tony is used to having pets, I've never lived with any animal until davethedog started visiting regularly. But that has gone well, and I usually get on with other people's cats, and I am prepared for the probable dealing with dead things. I am going to keep my room off limits to them and try to keep them downstairs at night.

I've talked it over with Keith who is amenable, and antinomy who had lots of good advice, and have thought it over a lot with Tony before definitely deciding and I'm now getting quite excited about it. Keith and I have been talking about where to put their things and where to feed them and so on. I want to find a "how to look after your cat" book (yes, I know it's probably reasonably easy but I've never done it and I like having a manual). Any recommendations gratefully received.

Otherwise I'm a bit zogged today after a dash into London to meet damerell in the Oakdale for some drinks last night. emperor and I took the wussy non-cycling option and caught the train back that arrives shortly before midnight. I crashed a bit on the train, but woke up sufficiently cycling home that I couldn't settle to sleep and was still up when fanf got back rather later on the next train. But at least I was failing to sleep at home rather than kept awake elsewhere.