Bit of a surprise spontaneous evening yesterday. I got a phone call from Chris. Peter was in Newbury (coincidentally so was I) and he finished at 4pm, just like me. I explained to Chris I would call him back when I left the client office. I tried to call Peter first on his personal mobile but it went straight to voicemail, so I called Chris once I was on the road. He gave me Peter’s work number, which I quickly noted down on my N73 and called him once I was onto the M4. Chris had said Peter was going to head over to The Oracle but when I spoke to him, he was ahead of me perhaps as much as a couple of miles on the motorway, he was heading to Racks in Maidenhead. I would meet him there after I went home and changed. I know this was rather silly to go right past the Maidenhead exit but opted to go home and get out of my suit. (Even though for a split second I did consider going direct and avoiding all the traffic.) I got home, got changed, queued up my PC to record the Brit Awards and headed out of the door. There was not really any traffic on the way down to Maidenhead and I parked at my usual, the multistory and walked through St. Nicholas Shopping Centre. Just outside McDonald’s I saw Peter. It was good to see him again. We shook hands and headed up into Racks. Peter signed me in and got the first round in. We were waiting for Chris, he was stuck in traffic but on his way. I bought Peter up to date on the latest at work. The leavers, the movers and shakers. Not much had changed really apart from our move to the front of the barns. Then Peter pulled out a network diagram of the servers he was building today (all named after fruit). He then showed me his impressive package. The UMPC. The Gigabyte U60. (There is one from Sony as well) I will come back to that again shortly. Chris did eventually arrive and then we moved over to one of the pool tables. There was no point in me playing, so I let Chris and Peter battle it out. It was a clear 4-0 whitewash to the baby face Williams. We then headed to watch the match and get some food. Peter asked one of the bar maids, Hannah where the best place would be to a good place to catch the match. She recommended The Bell or Chicagos. We headed past Chicago Rock Cafe first but they were showing the Manchester United match, so the barman directed us to The Bell. It was relatively quiet, so we tried to find a good place to sit with a few of the television screen. We walked around the back, to the side area for a small area with a TV directly in front of us, adjacent to the bar. It was a shrine to Liverpool.

Obviously this was painful for Chris, a Toffee surrounded by Red, but he managed a smile! We got some drinks and chose some food from the menu and placed our order. There was free wifi access, so Peter got out his tablet and we went onto Facebook, first Chris to show us a friend that has recently appeared in a British movie. I then logged in purely to update my status.

I suppose, I better qualify the term, “Dream Team”. The members were Christopher W, Peter J and myself, Andrew T. We worked on the helpdesk together from July 2005 to February 2007 and it was perhaps the best team I was ever a part of. This is not the place for my trips down memory lane, you can do that over on my other log! It was cool being online on such a tiny device. I was in geek heaven. I need to get me one of these! We got our food and waited Sky Sports News in the build up to the game. I felt sorry for Peter, he is not a football fan and he had to sit through this Champions League tie from the Emirates. To give him credit, he lasted the ninety-four odd minutes with little agitation. The first half was quite boring really but Arsenal improved a great deal in the second half just could not find the back of the net. I was impressed with Senderos finding his form once again. But the goal-less draw will not be enough to see us through, I fear. After the match, we said our goodbyes and headed back to our cars and home. When I got home, just after 10pm, I had just missed the end of the Brits. My sister, Samantha had text me around 8.15pm, to tell me that Rihanna looked very good. I was looking forward to her performance of Umbrella with the Klaxons. It was different but other highlights including Wow by Kylie and the Mark Ronson Medley. An extremely busy weekend from start to finish. Tomorrow I continue my guise as Friday Night Terry out in London (There is only one place for me to go really, TGI Fridays in Leicester Square!) I will avoid the temptation to turn the evening into a mission to get back and go out in Reading (no matter what The Admiral and Pav try!) Saturday is pretty much packed. I am up early over to Amersham Audi, haircut (if time allows) and catch the lunchtime kick off between Birmingham and Arsenal. Then off into Henley-on-Thames in the evening for Chris’ birthday. Sunday will be a good opportunity to give the car a good clean. (Now I have all the quality Breezy certified gear). All weather permitting of course, but I will get my detail weather update from Pavneet mid-afternoon tomorrow. Sunday afternoon is a bit of a no-brainer, watch the League Cup Final, some piano practice and reading. Yes, I am reading again. I got a book out from the library a few weeks ago and have been trying to read every night before I go to bed. It is a relatively light (and short) sci-fi story but I wanted something simple to get me back into the habit of reading. Then I can attempt to tackle the beast. My approach will be for some modern contemporary classics before heading for the greats, such as War & Peace.