Barbeque fun

Just (well, a couple of hours ago) got back from a barbeque with the Megalomaniacs. We had decided a couple of weeks ago that the weather was nice enough to warrant a bit of fun in the sun. Fortunately Jon and Allison, who have a proper barbeque, live quite near to Platt Fields Park, which was an ideal location to set things up. I’m not sure if we’re actually allowed to do things like this, but we were passed by the police and the park wardens on several occassions and neither group came over and said anything so I guess it’s acceptable. Personally I can’t think why anyone would object to a few responsible adults (if one can describe the Megs as such) eating and drinking in a public place and clearing up afterwards, but you never know what daft rules Manchester City Council has in place.

We looked a bit silly carting the rather large barbeque down the street (Paul has a video of this which I will try and get off him and upload at some point), especially as its wheels weren’t very good so we had to pull it down the road rather than on the pavement for most of the journey. This lead to some rather amusing moments when cars drove down and stopped to give us right of way, and prompted memories of my traffic directing antics at cheese rolling last year.

The barbeque itself went very well, with lots of food on offer because everyone had brought things to eat, although next time we need to be a bit more coordinated to ensure that we don’t bring 24 sausages for a small group that includes two vegetarians. Paul did a good job of keeping things moving and making sure that everything got properly cooked without putting so much on that there was lots ready that no-one wanted to eat.

All in all though, it was probably the Megs’ first successful event where nothing had gone wrong. What remains to be seen is whether we all wake up tomorrow morning with food poisoning…

I was thinking of going to Jon’s house warming but by the time I got back after the barbeque and we’d cleaned up stuff, plus watched a bit of Time Team as we thought Paul might be in it, my hayfever tablets had started to wear off and my eyes were beginning to itch quite badly. I feel bad about not going, but at the moment I’m shattered and tired and I would probably have fallen asleep when I got there. Hopefully next week will be a bit less frantic and not involve travelling to and from Manchester on the bus every single day, with the exception of Wednesday.

Holy Cross Jubilee

I don’t know if people from Holy Cross have heard about this already, but I know that a few of you read my blog on a semi-regular basis so I thought I’d mention that the college is having an Open Day to celebrate 25 years of the institution (*N.B.* this isn’t how long the college has been there, as far as I’m aware it’s 25 years since the convent turned into a college) on Monday 4th July 2005 between 2pm and 7:30pm. You can find more information in this thread on Rogue Students, but suffice to say I’ll be there for most of the afternoon if people want to meet up, although I’ll be leaving a bit early because of role playing in the evening.