Gareth Harrison

We’ve been working incredibly hard recently, pulling in some all-nighters for a couple of our jobs, but instead of going on about that, I’m going to blog about some non-work stuff I’ve done over the last few weeks!

Most recently, this weekend I’ve been down in Bristol visiting Ali, and Helen also came down so we could have a bit of a mini uni-get-together!

I was originally planning to drive down there on Saturday morning, but I’ve been doing such long hours at work, and on Friday afternoon I was totally knackered after having had just 3 hours sleep in 3 days(!), so at the last minute I booked a train ticket down there instead!

I got into Bristol around lunchtime, and walked the short distance from Temple Meads to Ali’s house.  It’s interesting to see how much the area has changed over the years. When I first visited Ali there back in the 90s, it was a pretty run-down area, but now a lot of it’s been replaced by riverside bars and restaurants, and hotels and posh apartments – and Ali’s estate is right next to it!

When Helen arrived from Reading, we went for a drink at a really bizarre pub that Ali likes. It’s actually a bar and tea gardens called Beeses, and overlooks the river Avon, but to get to it you go down a dirt track in the middle of a housing estate!  Then in the evening we went to a birthday party of someone Ali knows, which was a bit weird as we didn’t know anyone else there!  However, we did get to meet Ali’s new boyfriend Matt who we’d heard about but not met before! Luckily he passed our stringent tests so there was no awkwardness!

And yesterday, after church, a crowd of Ali’s friends came over for a barbeque in the back garden.  The weather was great, and so was the food!  You can’t beat burnt burgers and hotdogs on a hot summer afternoon!

To round off the weekend, I arranged to go and visit Rob & Jenny Kay who moved to Bristol from Manchester (via France!) a few months ago.

Rob had actually been working in Manchester on Saturday night, and had driven back through the night, so did seem pretty knackered!  But it was great catching up with them again, and then we went to a really cool coffee shop near to their house to meet up with Ali and Matt.

I got the train back to Manchester today, and it was a really crap journey! The train was massively overcrowded because there was an influx of not-so-sweet-smelling Glastonbury campers, and then the train had a problem so we had to change at Stoke, followed by another delay because of damages signalling cables!

So what else then?

At the beginning of June, I went to Celia’s 30th birthday party which, as often is the case with parties nowadays, had a fancy dress theme, and this one was to go dressed as a superhero. I actually get quite stressed sorting out costumes for fancy dress parties – I just find it really hard to come up with something good!

The party was on a Friday night, so I managed to get finished at work mid-afternoon, and headed into Manchester to try and find a suitable costume.

First stop was Afflecks where there’s a pretty comprehensive fancy dress shop, and I spent absolutely ages in there, but just couldn’t find anything that wasn’t going to cost me an absolute fortune, and also that wouldn’t be too hot (such as a padded hero suit!), because we were in the middle of some very warm weather, and it could be pretty sweaty by the end of the night!

So, after giving up with the idea of getting a proper costume, I wandered in and out of shops around Manchester, with no inspiration at all for what to wear! Then I went into Primark and found a Superman t-shirt, with the body of Superman printed on it so that my head appeared where his should be!  All I needed to go with it was a cape, and luckily I had an old red sheet at home which I was able to cut up and finish off my costume!

It was a really fun night, and I was a little bit tipsy by the end of it, but hey, I was enjoying myself!

Check out some of the costumes in my photos from the night!

Also, this month I’ve been down to Tamworth and got to hang out for a bit with Brandon & Chloe… in their new summer house!!

It’s a serious playhouse! My mum bought it for them as an early Christmas present, and it’s loads better than anything we had as kids! It’s about the size of a decent-sized garden shed, with a mezzanine floor and veranda sit on to keep guard over the rest of the garden!  We just had to make do with a rickety plastic Wendy house!

They’re such great kids, and they really play well together (for most of the time!) which I guess is lucky considering they spend nearly all of their time together!

Anyway, it was a really sunny day so we took them down to the Castle Grounds in the afternoon, where they played in the adventure playground for a bit, before a bit of a race up around the flowerbeds by the bandstand, and then into Ankerside to buy some toys!

Well today’s been the 4th bank holiday in 2 weeks which is rather odd!  We obviously had Easter last weekend, but on Friday it was the Royal Wedding, which I actually managed to avoid watching at all, and instead went and did some shopping at IKEA, which was probably the quietest I’ve ever seen it! I’d planned to buy some storage furniture for my new bathroom, but I’m struggling to find something I like – I did find a unit there that I thought might work, but when I went to collect it I discovered that they’d discontinued the shelves needed to go inside it! So the search continues!

Anyway, today was May Day bank holiday and I found out that there was a walk being arranged for the Vinelife / Reach crowd, so I headed up north of Bolton to tag along.

We all met up at Rivington Hall Barn, which really is in the middle of nowhere! I got a little bit lost – my SatNav first tried to take me across a golf course, and then eventually led me to a random collection of cars amongst some trees! Luckily, as I was pulling up, Dan and Gemma arrived as well, along with a few others, and we took an educated guess at which direction to take to get us to the main barn where everyone was meeting.

There was quite a crowd really – I knew a reasonable proportion of the people there, but I did feel quite an outsider to be honest.  I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised about that really!  It was nice to get out into the countryside though, and we all made our way up to Rivington Pike which is the top of Winter Hill, and has a great view of the surrounding area stretching for miles and miles. It was very windy up there – it’s all quite exposed, and it felt at times like you could get blown off the hill!  Luckily there’s a tower at the top you could use a shield when it got a bit intense!

There are some photos of the walk here on Facebook.

On Easter Sunday I went down to Tamworth to visit family – the first time this year!

In the morning, I went to church with my mum, sister and the twins, and then in the afternoon, we took them down to the fair in the Castle Grounds. It was a proper old-school funfair, and Chloe went on the teacups ride with Vicky, but Brandon wasn’t really up for trying any of them! He’s not quite as adventurous as his sis!

Then afterwards, we took them to the kids’ playground nearby and they played there for a bit before we grabbed some ice creams!  And then we headed back to mum’s to break into some Easter eggs!

One final thing – I finally ordered myself a new washing machine yesterday! It’s been over a year since my old one died, and I’ve been using the launderette ever since!  I’d decided to wait until I’d got my kitchen done before replacing it, and I now have done… only a few months late!

Yet another Christmas has been and gone… and for this one I decided to stay at home and cook myself a Christmas dinner in my brand new kitchen!

I think Christmas dinner has to be the best meal you can have! It has so many different things in it, and you’re kind of allowed to over-eat for that one meal!

I cooked a joint of turkey and a joint of gammon, and also had he full works with sausagemeat stuffing, bacon wrapped around sausages, roast potatoes, and loads of veg!  It was washed down with a nice glass of wine whilst watching Christmas Top Of The Pops on iPlayer live on my laptop!

And by the time the Christmas pudding made it onto the table, I couldn’t have been more festive if I’d tried!

Once I’d had my dinner I just relaxed and watched TV for the rest of the day! It was a proper lazy day, and I did actually enjoy it!

And last week, just before New Year, I popped down to Tamworth to visit my mum, sister and the twins, and give them their Christmas presents.  I bought Brandon and Chloe some Lazy Town costumes – a Sportacus suit for Brandon, and a Stephanie outfit for Chloe.  The only problem was that it freaked them out a little bit!

Obviously they’re so used to seeing those characters on the TV that they couldn’t get their heads around the fact that they could dress up as them! Maybe they’ll play with them sometime in the future, but I don’t reckon they’ll get much use in the immediate future!

And in other news, I’ve bought a new TV for my living room!  I’ve had a big widescreen CRT for about 10 years and I thought it was time to get myself a HD set.  I’ve bought a Samsung 37″ Freeview HD internet TV – and it’s got BBC iPlayer and YouTube built in. I’m quite pleased with it… now I just need to get Sky HD and a Bluray player!

The heading kind of gives away the content of this post!  It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with a weekend in Tamworth, a day at the beach, catching up with old friends, and a fancy dress party!

For Easter, I went down to Tamworth for the weekend, and it was nice to spend time with Brandon and Chloe again.  I was obviously down there a few weeks earlier for their birthday party, so I think they remembered me this time round!!

I went with mum, Vikky and the twins to the Easter Service at ECC in Lichfield – it was weird going back there since the last time I was there was when I was 18 or 19 – nearly 20 years ago!  We got there pretty early because they were having a buffet breakfast before the service, and Brandon and Chloe managed to get quite a bit of the food down their smart clothes!  I guess that’s quite normal!  I said hello to a few people there who I remembered from when I was there years ago, and also chatted with Dave Bateman’s sister Helen who goes there, and actually works for them as a student worker!

Then on Easter Monday, I was back up north, and a group of us went over to Formby to spend the day at the beach!

It was pretty windy, and not the warmest of days, but we had a good laugh walking along the beach, and climbing up the sand dunes.

I managed to provide a bit of hilarity for the others when we decided to do a group photo where we all ran off a 1½ metre step of sand, with the plan for the photo to be taken whilst we were in mid air.

Anyway, eight of us lined up to do the running jump, so on cue we all went for it, but as we landed, I stumbled whilst still running, and smacked down face-first into the sand!  It properly winded me – I didn’t get a chance to break my fall with my hands, and someone managed to collapse on top of me as well which didn’t help!

It was pretty funny, but it really knocked it out of me – and I guess I was most impressed by the great support from the others… especially Penny who was in complete hysterics and just couldn’t stop laughing at my misfortune!  Thanks guys!

And to add insult to injury, the photo was taken too early, so we had to do it all again!! Luckily this time I managed to stay upright, and the picture was taken at the right time!  I’ve nicked it from Steph’s Facebook album and posted it here to make the pain worthwhile!

I’ve uploaded a load of photos of the day on my Facebook.

Then last Saturday, I had to go out and get a new mattress for my bed because the springs had started to come through my old one!  So when I got back, I started to unload it from my car, when I started getting heckled! My next-door neighbour Jo had a visitor for the weekend, and they were sitting out on the doorstep drinking wine with Jez and a few other neighbours. Anyway, the woman who was Jo’s friend was actually being quite mouthy about my new mattress being quite small, so I started bantering back a little bit.  Then the next thing I hear is someone making a comment about her being from Tamworth, which is where I’m originally from!  So I said that I used to live there, and when the woman thought I was just saying it for the sake of it, but we soon discovered we both went to the same school, and then it turned out that I was in the same class as her sister, Ellie Sutton – and she was Faye, who I do kind of remember, although she was a  year or two below me. Really small world!!

And last night was John Roberts’ 29th fancy dress birthday party at Baa Baa in Fallowfield.  The theme was musicals and theatre, so luckily there was quite a lot to choose from with regard to costumes, although I always do get a little bit stressed trying to sort out stuff like that! Anyway, I decided to go as a pirate, complete with hat, eyepatch and hook… I was also planning to add scars to my face using facepaint, but since I was going by bus, I chickened out and didn’t turn into a pirate until I got to the pub!

It was a really good night – I had enough drank enough beer to get me briefly up onto the dancefloor!  After the party finished in the function room, we headed down to the main bar – all in costume – so did stand out quite a bit! John and Matt’s costumes were so amazing – Shrek and Dracula – that people kept wanting to get their photos taken with them!  We eventually left at about 3am, slightly worse for wear, but it was worth it!  You can check out the photos from the night here.

Oh, the other thing I was going to mention with regard to random meetings was about when I was down in Tamworth for Easter.  On the Saturday, I nipped into Asda to buy a few bits and pieces, and bumped into an old mate from school – Dan Martin – who I hadn’t seen since sixth form!  Was really weird reminiscing about school days together and learning about what people are up to nowadays. I know Facebook has that pretty much covered nowadays, but it’s more real when you meet someone in person!

Last night I was at a Geek Party at Rob & Jenny Kay’s, where you had to go dressed as something inspired by geek chic! Now it may come as real surprise (since I am a bit of a self-confessed geek) that I was really struggling with a costume for the night, but with a couple of days to go, I suddenly hit on gold!

I decided to go as the ultimate geek – Mr Dave Bateman!

To make this dream a reality, I wondered about the best way to go about it, even Googling to find out how to make an actual 3d head(!), but finally settled on printing his face onto some card to make an oversized mask, with a couple of eyeholes punched through his actual eyes!

It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to wear for the whole evening if I’m honest, but I really enjoyed how it slightly freaked people out as they talked to me!

When Dave himself finally arrived around 10 o’clock, I think he found it pretty strange to have a bobbing-head version of him staring right back!

And the mask proved so popular that everyone wanted to wear it!

Check out the full set of photos from the party in my Facebook photo album.

So what else? Well, going back a couple of weekends, I was down in Tamworth for Brandon and Chloe’s 2nd birthday party!

There was a bit less alcohol at this party(!), although it was more of a family thing compared to their first birthday, when they had loads of little kids there as well.

Every time I see them, they’ve grown up so much!  I’m not sure if they totally realised what was going on, but they seemed to be happy enough with all their presents, party food and cake!

Just to round off this blog entry, last week we took on our first employee at doodledoMOTION!  It’s Rob Lee, who’s done various freelance bits and pieces for us over the last year, so we’ve taken him on part-time to work across all areas of the various projects we take on.  So, it’s a bit of an unknown for us, but pretty exciting at the same time!

It’s that funny time between Christmas and New Year when generally nothing really happens – so the ideal time to do a blog update!  And since I last posted a week and a half ago, I’ve actually done quite a lot of stuff in that time!

Last Wednesday night, I went over to Liverpool with John Roberts to see a production of ‘The 39 Steps‘ at the Liverpool Playhouse.  He runs a theatre reviews website called The Public Reviews, so we we got free tickets which was pretty cool!  It was actually a really good show – it’s a comedy and was performed by just 4 actors, who changed roles continuously throughout the play, which surprised me at how well it worked!

The show culminated in fake snow being showered on the audience, and then as we left the theatre, we discovered that there was real snow falling – and I’d have been really impressed if that was part of the show as well!  We’d already had a bit of snow in Manchester a couple of days earlier, but there was none in Liverpool when we arrived.  We got back to the car, and within a few minutes we were driving through a pretty intense blizzard, and the snow really started to build up on the roads.

And by the time we hit the M62, we couldn’t see very far in front of us, and you couldn’t see any road markings at all!  So basically you had to follow the rear lights of the car in front, which at one point meant that we accidentally left the motorway by following the car in front off a sliproad!

Anyway, because of the snow and the likelihood of the roads being a nightmare on Christmas Eve, I decided to wait until the next morning to drive down to Tamworth for Christmas with the family. 

What this did mean was that I was still up in North West that evening, so I went along to a little get-together at Michael & Becci’s for anyone who was still around in Manchester.  There was a nice little crowd there, including Jon & Emma, Andy & Ruth, Yan, and Luke, and it was an enjoyable way to spend Christmas Eve.  I chatted quite a bit with Michael who was telling me all about their future plans, and about their upcoming move to America for 3 months to spend time at IHOP before coming back to Manchester to model something similar here.  It sounds really interesting and exciting, but quite a big thing for them to do!

The next morning I drove down to mum’s and got there around noon.  The motorway was a lot busier than I expected – I guess lots of people had decided to wait until the morning because of the weather.  Even so, I was actually the first there, and everyone else was really late, and they all live really close!

It was great seeing Brandon and Chloe again – I know I say it every time, but every time I see them, they’ve always grown up so much more!

And they’re so much more chatty now – even though half of the time it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense, but bizarrely they seem to understand each other alright!

I last saw them at the beginning of October when we were all out in Turkey, so I suppose with it being two and a half months there’s going to be some serious growing up taking place!

And it especially was nice this Christmas because they obviously got a lot more out of it this year than last.  They were really excited about all their presents (of which there were loads!) and what was really funny was that Chloe would decide which presents should be for her, and Brandon would basically go along with it!

I’ve uploaded the photos I took over Christmas here.

It was a nice weekend, and was quite chilled out really, and good catching up with everyone.  I also managed to fit in a few drinks with Tom on Boxing Day, who was back at his folks’ from the UAE for Christmas which was cool.

One last thing I did whilst I was in Tamworth was going to visit my dad’s grave with my mum and sister – I’d not been to it before, so it felt a bit weird to be honest… I’m just not very good with stuff like that at all.

I drove back home on Sunday night, and then to round it all off, yesterday I travelled to Llandudno to visit Emma who was back from the States for Christmas.

I arrived mid-morning, just as Emma and her mum were dealing with a bit of a crisis!  They’d been out to the supermarket first thing and whilst they were out, all the dogs managed to get into the bedrooms where they found load of chocolate stuff which they then ate.

I knew that chocolate and dogs aren’t supposed to mix, but I didn’t realise how dangerous it can be for them, so Emma’s mum had to arrange a visit to the vet to get some medicine to force the dogs to be sick, which sounds like a really grim job!

Anyway, to escape the chaos, me and Emma drove to Betws-Y-Coed, which is a small village about 20 miles from Llandudno.

We went for a short, slippy, walk by the river before grabbing some lunch at a cafe, then decided to head up to Swallow Falls, which we discovered later is actually 2 miles out of the village, so it ended up being quite a long walk there and back!  The falls were really impressive, although the steps down to the river were really iced up and were pretty lethal!

Check out the photos here.

I’ve just got back from my first proper holiday in many years (I’m not counting Anglesey over new year!). Quite a few of my family were on holiday in Turkey staggered over a couple of weeks, so I managed to get some time off work and join them over there for a week.

I’d never been there before, but my mum and dad started going over there on and off for holidays about 10 years ago, and both my brother and sister had been there quite a few times as well.

Anyway, I headed over there from Manchester Airport with my cousin Sam and her husband Matt, and we got into Bodrum airport at about 5am, after having been awake since the morning before! Then it was onto a mini-bus for me, whilst Sam and Matt went onto a Thomas Cook coach (I’d booked with a small travel company, so my transfer was with a local company), and the journey from the airport to Altinkum seemed to take forever – the roads we pretty ropey, as was some of the driving! I eventually got to the apartments for 7.30am, and then crashed down for a few hours sleep.

Venturing out around lunchtime, the first thing I noticed was how much warmer it was than the weather I’d just come from! To the locals, it wasn’t hot at all, but to me, it was just about right!

I also got to meet Steve’s new girlfriend Jeni and her daughter Chelsea – I’d not had a chance to before this week. And as well as my mum, Vikky, Damien and the twins, it turned out that a couple we’ve known for years, Colin and Jenny, were and had been moved into the same apartment block at the last minute!

It was really nice to be able to spend such a long time with Brandon and Chloe. Again, I really noticed how much they’d grown since I’d last seen them in July. And they really are just so cute!

Unfortunately Brandon seemed to have some kind of bug for part of the week which meant he was quite unwell for a bit of the time, but generally they seemed to really be enjoying themselves, and loved playing on the sand, or running around in the beach cafe!

I’m not really the kind of person who enjoys sunbathing every day, so on Thursday I went on a day trip with mum and Sam to the city of Ephesus – or more accurately, what archaeologists have discovered of it!

It really is an amazing place. It was re-discovered about 150 years ago (it had become buried or something) and they’re still excavating it and re-constructing the ruins.

You could feel the ancient history around you – and it was weird feeling when our guide was talking about stuff that had happened there during Biblical times, and then to think that you’re standing in places where all those people had also been! It’s hard to get your head around! And some of the technology they had there 2 thousand years ago, like hot running water, and proper sanitation… and then all that was lost for so many centuries – it’s really crazy!

So generally it was a good week, although I found the town to be far to touristy… apparently it used to be a much more traditional place, but it now very much caters for the British, which actually isn’t a good thing. And I really didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t go to any shops or past any restaurants without being hassled to buy something – it really annoys me!!

Yesterday I was down in Tamworth and got to spend some time with Brandon and Chloe. I think it’s been about 3 months since I was last down there, so I could really see how much they’ve developed.

They’re now walking (and running!) and it really does make a difference. It’s kind of strange to see!

They seem so much more independent now, and they’re pretty chatty, even though you can’t make sense of anything they say other than the odd word! They’ve got such character, and are really cute! Obviously I’m biased because they’re my nephew and niece, but they really are the best kids in the world!

We played in the garden for a bit, then they spent some time in their sandpit, where basically they poured sand over each other! It’s a pity I don’t get down to see them more often, but at least I get to chat to them on Skype every so often – although I’m not sure they totally understand what’s going on when we do that!

Work-wise, me and James have been busy. I’m trying to get the 29th Chapter music video sorted, but it’s taking a lot longer to do than I’d hoped. I think it will look good, but the work on it is more intense than we’d first thought.

Also, we’ve been working on the graphical look for Channel M’s new daily magazine show. We shot the titles for it with Tim a couple of weeks ago, and we delivered the majority of it on Monday for their pilot week ahead of the show launch next week. It’s not exactly what we’d originally planned to do with it all, but I think it still looks good – especially with the amount of time we’ve had to do it in!

It’s been a weekend of parties – but there was quite a difference between the two!

Last week was Brandon and Chloe’s first birthday – I can’t believe they’re a year old already! It’s gone so fast, but then at the same time it’s like you can’t remember what it was like before them! I went down to Tamworth on Friday to see them (their actual birthday was the Thursday), and then on the Saturday afternoon, it was time for their party!

It was a new type of party for me really – when the main guests are all under 2 years old! The twins looked really cute – Brandon had a Superman costume, and Chloe had a pink ballet tutu!

They’ve really got their own personalities now, and it’s amazing seeing them growing up. I reckon they’ll be walking soon – they keep trying to stand up, and move around using furniture as support!

All the kids seemed to have fun, and there weren’t too many tears, although at that age, you can’t really explain to them about sharing toys and stuff! There are photos of the fun here.

Anyway, after their party, I drove down to Bristol for another one! Ali and Julie were having a joint late birthday party – but this one had a theme… 80s cheese!

I really struggled to come up with a costume for it. The night before I still didn’t have anything, but a trip to Asda found a rock star wig and inflatable guitar!

So on the Saturday I bought the most horrific t-shirt (a nice skull, sword and snake design!) and a head-band, and created my 80s rocker look! It turned out alright, but I think it’s a lot easier for girls to put costumes together for something like that!

Anyway, nearly everyone made a pretty good effort, and it was a real reminder of how bad the fashion was in the 80s! Ali and Julie back-combed their hair which was an interesting look, and there were some great wigs making an appearance!

Then yesterday afternoon, I went into the centre of Bristol to get lunch with Ali, then we took a ferry down the river back to her house which was really cool! You don’t get anything like that in Manchester! Check out the pics of the party and our afternoon in Bristol here.

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone!

I’ve been down in Tamworth since Christmas Eve, and it was my first Christmas back down there for quite a few years – certainly since I’ve been living in my current house anyway.

Part of my reason for going down this year was that it was Brandon and Chloe’s first one, so wanted to be there for that really. My sister was doing lunch at hers, and there were quite a few of us there for it… me, mum, Vikky, Damien, the twins, Damien’s mum and dad, and Damien’s brother, Gavin. Also, Steve and Julie popped in before dinner, so it was quite a full house!

I was quite surprised that the twins also had Christmas dinner with us – they were eating pretty much the same as us, and it didn’t seem that mashed up really! They like to be able to grab food and put it in their mouths themselves, so the more food they can hold the better!

It was actually quite weird being around people – I’ve really got used to being on my own on Christmas Day, and doing what I want to do, when I want to do it! So I didn’t get my usual lie-in, and didn’t really get to watch the TV I wanted to see either!! Thank goodness for Sky+! I’ve got so many shows I’ve recorded over the last 3 days that I need to try and find the time to watch!

Anyway, back to Christmas Day at my sister’s…

Brandon and Chloe had a great day – even though they were both a bit snotty. And they got so many presents from everyone, it was ridiculous! My sister said she’d have to put some of their new toys away, and swap them all round every month! It must have been quite bewildering for them, because they got so much attention, and then were going from one new toy to another!

One of their cool presents was a talking Elmo toy – and it was amazing! The movement on it is so realistic, and if he falls over, he even asks you to pick him up again!

Both the twins were transfixed by him – especially since he was sitting at the same level as them – although Chloe eventually decided she wanted a hug from her dad rather than a robotic toy!

It’s amazing seeing the kind of toys you can get for kids nowadays – when I was that age, there was nothing like that at all! It was just teddy bears and Fisher Price telephones!

They also got a ball pool which was great fun! We put them in there and buried them under the balls. I don’t think Brandon quite knew what to do at first – he just lay there as they piled up on him! And Chloe spent a lot of time trying to eat them!

There are photos from the day here.

While I was down in Tamworth, I also dug out some old VHS tapes of stuff I filmed years ago and copied them to DVD. Some of my stuff was so bad!! But it’s fun to look back at it now though, especially some of the videos I made with Tom whist I was at school. It also made me realise how bad quality VHS is – especially when I was editing it back then, because the picture got much worse on every pass, whereas nowadays you can copy stuff or edit footage without any quality degradation at all.

I also copied some old home video stuff from when we hired a camcorder back in the early 90s. It’s really strange looking back at video footage of yourself from so long ago! And also of all my grandparents, as well as my dad. It’s one thing looking at old photos, but watching footage puts a whole different perspective on it all.

Anyway, that’s Christmas over… I’m back in Manchester now, but this afternoon I’m off to Anglesey for the next week to see in the New Year in a cottage next to the sea, so hopefully that should be fun!

It’s been a strange few weeks.

A few posts ago I mentioned about my nan being ill. Well unfortunately she died a few weeks ago on the 1st November, and we had the funeral just a couple of weeks ago. It was weird thing – obviously it was all really sad, but with it being a Catholic funeral, there was a service for the family on the Sunday night when the coffin was brought into the church, then the actual funeral ceremony the next morning. It’s also quite strange, because I’d never realised that Catholics believe that the soul of the person is still in the coffin whilst it’s in the church, and they ask the saints and Mary to protect it overnight, and then in the second service the priest kind of commits the soul to heaven. All a bit odd!

It was also the same weekend at Steven’s birthday, so it was a strange weekend really. Also odd to note that last year dad’s funeral was 2 days after my birthday – and then this year, nan’s was 2 days after Steven’s.

On to yesterday then, and I had the most rubbish day, and it turned out totally opposite to how I’d hoped it would. It was Jess Torry’s dedication service at Vinelife, with Helen then being baptised afterwards, followed by a gathering back at their house. I’d totally planned to be there for the whole thing, and am truly gutted that it just all went pear-shaped. I arrived for the service about 10 minutes before the start, and it was all going fine until unfortunately, just as it was starting, I bumped into someone who I really wanted to avoid, and then just had to get out of there. I really tried hard not to let it get to me and stay in my seat, but I just couldn’t do it, even though it was such an important day. I’m actually really angry with myself for not being able to deal with it, but also pretty annoyed that the situation arose in the first place. As it was, I listened to the dedication part of the service from outside, but then left which meant I missed the get-together in the afternoon as well. I guess I just feel rubbish ‘cos I really wanted to be there for the whole of their special day, but because of what ultimately is just stupid stuff, I wasn’t there for them.

It’s a year today that my dad died, and if I’m totally honest, I still don’t think I’ve properly felt anything abut it. I commented after the funeral that I hadn’t really had much of a reaction to it all, and maybe it’d come further on, but it hasn’t really. Maybe that makes me heartless – I don’t know. But maybe now isn’t the right time, and it’s still something I’ll deal with in the future.

Also, nan’s been taken into hospital this weekend, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that. When I first found out on Thursday, it sounded like it was really bad and everyone was fearing the worst, although mum’s texted me today to say that she’s improved, and is now eating and drinking (she hadn’t eaten in a week before being taken in), but they don’t know whether she’ll be allowed home or not. I guess it’s just a case of waiting really.

Been a bit of a gap since my last post, so need to do a bit of a catch-up!

Firstly, tonight on G.O.L.D. (it used to be UKGold until this week!) there’s a documentary about one of the funniest shows ever – “Blackadder Exclusive: The Whole Rotten Saga”, and we did the graphics for it.

It’s on at 9pm (and I think is repeated throughout the week, as is the way with digital channels), although there’s another show next Thursday night at 9pm called “Blackadder’s Most Cunning Moments” where we provided a lot more graphics, as well as doing the background images for the interviews.

It’ll be quite strange seeing it, because we were working on it back in May and June, so seems like ages ago now! I won’t forget it though because it coincided with James’ paternity leave, and the week it had to be delivered I was juggling that along with the Drama Trails 3D stuff! Fun! The programme was originally going to be aired in the summer, but then it was decided that they’d save it for the channel relaunch which happened this week, hence the gap between working on it and it now being shown. I’ve watched some of it on DVD, and they’re actually really well put together shows, so hopefully the viewers will like them!

Other news… a couple of weeks ago I was down in Tamworth for Brandon and Chloe’s dedication service.

They looked cute – Brandon had a little suit with a waistcoat and cravat, and Chloe was wearing a dress with little flowers on it, and a sparkly headband!

They were really well-behaved and seemed to enjoy themselves, although Brandon does manage to be sick at pretty regular intervals!

Both are really happy babies – they seem to laugh all the time, and really know how to pose to the camera! I guess they’ve got pretty used to having people taking pictures of them all the time!

And it’s amazing to see how quickly they grow up… obviously I don’t get down there that regularly, so when I see them each time, I can see how much they’ve changed!

Anyway, it was a really nice day, and it was good catching up with my cousins again, and also getting to see Dave & Tanith’s baby Evie, who’s a similar age to the twins, but it was the first time I’d seen her for real, and not in a photo on Facebook!

And to carry on with the baby theme, we had a bit of a random day in the office last week… Helen turned up with Jess and James’ mum on Wednesday afternoon, so it was really nice to see them. I hadn’t seen Jess since July when she’d last come in, so she really had grown since the last time I’d seen her, and she’s really got her own personality now, and pretty cute smile!

Then, about an hour after they left, Brandon and Chloe turned up with Vikky and my mum! They’d been up in Manchester for a photoshoot for Littlewoods catalogue, and popped in afterwards before travelling home.

As you can see, we made sure we put Jess, Brandon to Chloe to work on some doodledoMOTION projects!

Well my excuse for not having updated this blog since February is that I’ve just been too busy with work! And it’s pretty true to be honest! I’ve not had a day off for over six weeks now and I’m feeling pretty knackered! I’m currently in the middle of doing a load of 3D graphics for a series that starts on ITV3 this Wednesday night at 9pm called Drama Trails. I’m actually really pleased with how our stuff’s all looking in it, but it’s a 10 part series and I’ve still got 5 more episodes worth of graphics to do, so it’ll probably be a few more weeks until I get a day off!

The show’s being made by Tiger Aspect, and we’ve also just completed graphics for another of their programmes – a Blackadder special which is going out on UK Gold in September, so I’ll probably blog about that a bit closer to the transmission date!

I mentioned a while ago that we were going to be moving into an office – well that happened at the end of February, and it’s great have a proper space to work in. It’s not 100% finished yet… we’ve still got to put the finishing touches to the edit suite, but I think me and James have done a pretty good job with it!

The picture here shows mine and James’ desks, which is currently where we spend most of our time. To the right of the bookcase, we’ve got a little seating area, and to the left of the shot is an edit suite that we built ourselves using lots of wood and plasterboard! Check out my photos to see how we did it all!

In my last blog, I announced the birth of my little nephew and niece – Brandon and Chloe. Well they’ve certainly grown a bit since that week! This first picture of me holding both of them was taken as they were about to leave hospital, and they were just 4 days old. You can see how tiny they were by the fact I could hold both of them at once!

They’re now 19 weeks old, and I last saw them a couple of weeks ago when I made a fleeting visit to Tamworth for my mum’s birthday, and they’ve really grown into little people, and are definitely developing their own characters. I don’t know how my sis copes with looking after 2 babies, but she seems to be doing a pretty good job!

(Brandon & Chloe – top: 6 weeks old, bottom left: 11 weeks old, bottom right: 17 weeks old)

Staying on the whole baby thing, James is now a daddy!

Helen gave birth to Jessica Grace on the 4th June, nearly 2 weeks overdue, but if I’m really honest, I was so glad that the baby held on those 10 days, because work was crazy, and we’d have struggled to get it done otherwise!! (sorry Hel!!)

Anyway, James brought Jessica to the office for a visit when she was just a week old, and she’s so cute – though as is the norm with babies, she didn’t do much more than sleep and cry!

I haven’t discussed it with James yet, but as soon as she’s old enough – 18 months should be fine – we’ll be training her up on After Effects to take the workload off us a bit…

Late last night, Brandon David and Chloe Amy were born into the world!

My sis was 27 hours in labour, which sounds like a heck of a long time to me – I think it was a pretty rough one. Brandon was 5lbs 6oz and Chloe was 5lbs, so those are pretty decent weights for twins born a month early!

I’m going down on Saturday to see them – and hopefully they’ll all be out of hospital by then (not a big fan of hospitals myself!)