As I've already mentioned, the Sunday before last we had a blizzard in England. It wasn't of the nice "oooer look at the pretty snow falling gently out of the sky" variety. It was of the "driving wind, snow violently shoved in your face" kind. It was definitely an admire it from indoors kind of snow fall. We were out, as part of the festival of John, having dinner with John, Nik and Dave. After dinner we planned to go to a Superbowl Party. I made Superbowl themed cupcakes.

During dinner, while watching the weather from the restaurant window, I made the decision to bail on the party. After dinner and a cheeky half, I waved goodbye to the boys from a warm bus. They were still waiting at the bus stop. Nik rode his bicycle (in a blizzard! crazy man) to the party. I went home, got into bed, cranked my leccy blankie up to 9 and went to sleep.





The boys made it to the party.





Superbowl kickoff was 11pm. John left at midnight. Andrew and Nik stayed for the whole thing. Finish time - 3am.

At some stage during the evening, London Transport decided to withdraw all buses from service. The horrendous weather meant that most of the cabbies had given up and gone home.

Nik got on his bike and rode home (crazy, but smart, man!). Poor Andrew was left with only one option. Walk home. Andrew walked from the party in West Kensington to our home in Notting Hill.

















You might think that I was at home, snug in my warm bed, soundly asleep. Andrew texted me when he left and worried for his safety, I stayed up until he got home. So, I was at home, snug in my warm bed, reading a book.

Lucky we both had a Snow Day the next day, and a bit of a sleep in, to recover.

Our fortnightly trivia outing continues as does our search to find a regular trivia venue. Our initial Monday night plans were cancelled (snow day!) so we rescheduled for Tuesday evening at the Earl of Lonsdale in Notting Hill. It's not exactly a central pub so we weren't able to tempt any trivia regulars to come. Instead we were joined by John (a pub quiz virgin) and Steve (who is only visiting London) and his friend Lucy.

Unfortunately, the Earl of Lonsdale is another pub that imposes a limit on team sizes. Only 4 members are allowed on a quiz team which meant that our team was forced to split into two. Our two teams were Cockfosters and Shepherds Bush. Can you guess along what lines the teams were split? (And before you accuse me of being rude, they are both genuine places in London. The English started it!) We figured we'd hedge our bets with the two teams. If we weren't 100% on an answer we'd put down different guesses on the two forms. It didn't seem to help us that much.

We enjoyed our night out but once again we struggled. We found this quiz to be quite English-centric. We had no clue on the football questions or on the identities of C-grade celebrities. If you take that into account, and take the combined score for the two teams, we didn't do too badly. We didn't win though.

There were 6 rounds and they were based along different themes. Here are the questions from the Connections round. The answers to these question have a connection.

1. Jack Ford and Jessie Seaton are characters in what Television show?
2. Robbie Keane is the leading goal scorer for what country?
3. In the 1990s, Frank Sinatra and Bono collobarated on what Col Porter song?
4. In Poker, what is the result when two or more players tie for a hand?
   
   and
   
   
5. What is the connection?

London: Weekday evenings - Winter. Sydney: Weekday mornings - Summer.

"London was abuzz on Monday. On Sunday evening it started snowing and it didn't stop. We were out on Sunday evening and the snowfall could probably fall into the classification of blizzard. On Monday morning, we woke up to a pretty London covered in a blanket of white snow. It was the heaviest snowfall that London has received in 18 years. It meant that the whole of London practically shut down for the day. The tube wasn't working. The buses weren't running. Restaurants and cafes were closed (surprisingly the pubs were open). Lots of businesses told their employees to work from home, including the companies that Andrew and I work for. It was our first ever snow day."




Check out Sue's day at noodlebowl.net and her photos on Flickr.

John is in town. Yay! He's in London for business but that doesn't mean we can't hang out. We've tried to squeeze as much Johnny goodness out of him as possible. Friday night, we caught up for drinks and dinner. Saturday, we invited John over for dinner. Sunday night, we had dinner and the boys went to a Superbowl party.

Our Saturday dinner followed the usual Dubs schedule. The boys played some Pentago, we ate dinner and then we played a game of Diminishing Whist.

While John is gallivanting around the world for business, poor Leah is stuck at home. So on Saturday evening while we played cards, we video conferenced Leah in so that she could be part of the fun. Every round John would show Leah his hand. On the webcam, Leah could watch each trick being played out. Leah could also listen to the usual trash tralking and join in the conversation. It was like hanging out with Leah, except for the fact that she was physically on the other side of the world.

As I've described before, there is a round in Diminishing Whist, where you are dealt one card which you are not allowed to see. Instead, you have to stick it on your forehead and let everyone else look at your card. On Saturday evening, we figured that we could include Leah in the round of one. We dealt everyone a card. We used the webcam to show Leah the cards on our foreheads. When we bid, Leah called out her bid. There was lots of giggling.

The photos below describe the second round of one. (Andrew was leading. Diamonds were trumps. Andrew, Jess and Leah bid 1 and John bid 0. Andrew won and bid correctly - 11 points, John bid correctly - 10 points, Jess and Leah did not bid correctly 0 points.)










We spent the rest of the game trying to figure out how we could play a full game of transcontinental Diminishing Whist. We'll keep brainstorming.

London: Weekday mornings - Winter. Sydney: Weekday Evenings - Summer.

"Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard... Look at our very empty fridge. It's broken! The other day our freezer started leaking and then we noticed that the fridge wasn't cold anymore. It was 17 degrees inside our fridge which makes it about 10 degrees warmer inside the fridge than it is outside. We're waiting for our new fridge to be delivered so this week has seen much soup and takeout for dinner. We haven't had any house luck this year. Our boiler broke, then our fridge, and our kitchen lights don't work anymore and now the intercom is on the fritz. Our house is trying to give us a message."




Check out Sue's day at noodlebowl.net and her photos on Flickr.