Usually at this time of year there is always something vaguely festive going on in my social calendar. For the past three years I’ve had Christmas meals with people at uni, then before then it was the school Xmas dinners. This year, almost inevitably, I was to share it with web developers.

Sunday was a really good night, with a good strong pack of Multipackers descending on Cafe Rouge in Birmingham. There were also a few new faces which is always good, the food was very nice, the waiter was ill-tempered and the beer was flowing.

Despite Trev’s protestations, party hats only really remained on during the meal, and there were some interesting interpretations of the French menu. For example, it took me five minutes to work out what Stu was on about until I finally realised he was asking if I had a prawn cocktail.

After food at two, drinks were served in Lloyd’s Bar and we spent most of the evening there before people finally started to make their own ways. Matt, Leevi, Dave and myself stayed on a bit longer to find another bar and had another couple in Walkabout before making for the station where us last three all realised we’d missed the last train. And it was all down to the Tooheys (brings back memories).

In the end Leevi got the bus and Dave stayed over at mine; a more fortunate end of the evening than Gavin who managed to get his car locked in a car park along with his phone and keys, and so spent the night in a city central hotel.

All fun.

At the moment I’m meddling with textpattern and tweaking some code, but by Friday I’m going to be back on the move again and up in Loughborough for a couple of meetings and then the weekend. I also heard that the headmaster at my old school is going to be moving on at the end of the year. That’ll open up a few discussions I feel.