Gobbling up Turkey with an Old Friend

Ooooooh soooooo claaaaaassssy!!!!!! Heck yeah, that is me in my new coat. Pretty spiffy, huh?! Officially that is the first suit jacket that I have bought in my life. I guess that means I've entered a new rung on the social class ladder, making me a sophisticated fellow. No longer am I a simple farm boy, but now a simple farm boy dressed in a sharp jacket! It is hard to see in this picture but it is a beautiful deep hue of navy blue, and has pin stripes. Pin stripes are key to it all, gotta have them. Kevin and I found these hats a few weeks ago, and I do believe it completes the outfit, at least for this evening. This was a wednesday evening a few weeks ago before I left for a social night out with the rowing team. The Theme was Gentlemen and Ladies, and everyone dressed in various fashions. My favorites were flowered shirts of browns, and gaudy brown waistcoats, and then socks pulled up to the knee like Knickers as a few guys wore with the classic old englishman cap. Needless to say, with the rowing team, though we don't have socials often enough, it was a brilliant time!
HAPPY BELATED THANKSGIVING YA'LL!!!!!!!!!!

Though it is not a celebrated tradition over here in the UK, for the obvious reasons that the Pilgrims were LEAVING this country for the new land, we made the most of it ourselves. Everyone signed up for different cooking duties and such. I deftly sidestepped that stressful chore for doing decorations instead with Miss Mary. As always, when allowed to be crafty or creative, I got a little carried away.

I actually researched all these different leaves on google images, sketched them as best I could from the computer screen, stacked up all these colorful sheets of paper and carefully and meticulously cut out these lovely leaves. Absolutely Unecessary I know, and rather dorky, but I was proud of them. Pretty close to life if you ask me. For those of you who aren't tree huggers enough to tell these different leaves apart (as I wasn't) they are starting in the upper left going clockwise: Random bush leaf as filler, Maple Leaf, another bush, ghinko leaf, walnut leaf, birch, oak, and CAnadian shaped maple leaf. Crazy but cool!
We had the traditional meal with turkey, green beans with what tasted like funnions? on top of it, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes with mushrooms and gravy, homemade bread stuffing, carrots, salad, and various deserts of apple or pumpkin flavor, and rice pudding. A great meal with some extra guests in the flat. We had the Juggins, who are neighbors to Mark and Carole our directors, and friends of this program ever since it's beginning decades ago. They are our inside scoop to everything we might want to know about Nottingham as they have lived here their whole lives, and are avid Forest (soccer) fans and are season ticket holders, so they keep us in the know on all thats going on. Really cool folks. Mary also had her parents Rick and Frona here visiting which is nice for her to have some real family around, and they are extremely kind folks as well with all of us enjoying their company. (Not to mention that they bought us 6 bottles of wine to enjoy the leftover meal the next evening, as well as cigars for all on another evening excursion on the roof of the flat.) This is just a special occasion thing, not a habit.
Best of all, John Meyer, a great friend of Kevin, Hilary and myself was here from thursday, all the way through sunday morning. It was great to see him, and have him around to mix up the group dynamics a bit add he's cheery zest to the mix. He is currently studying in Switzerland for the semester, and made his way up to see us for the weekend. For all who doesn't know him, he was my freshman year roomate with Andy, and made for a great first year at college. That bond will be tough to break. I miss him already.

Another game, another victory. Saturday was yet again a big event. We went to the Nottingham Forest Vs. Millwall game, but not before pre-gaming it at Hooters. Yes we found one right here in our town and not far from the stadium. I was really looking forward to some delicious buffalo/chicken wings...and that's really all. Honest.... Well good food, and a pint of Worthington's got the lot of us prepped for the game.

We were off with 10 minutes til kickoff and about a 15 minute walk to the ticket booth before walking around the stadium. Late once again, keeping with our record of never attending a kickoff, we managed to miss the first goal in five minutes scored by...boo...Millwall.
A rather uneventful first half, left some major catching up for Nottingham, and that they did. They were expected to stomp Millwall, but only closed the game with a 3-1 win. Oh, well...all's still well and good, and was a really fun game, especially with our special guest and avid football fan and player.
We always manage to come on pretty decent days, and here the sunset is just peaking around the stadium, and you can see a sliver of the moon up above.... um....so... back to the game. That's what I was watching...really... I never even noticed how pretty the sky looked in it's mild shades of pink and orange, or even that the moon was there....matter of fact I did not tilt the camera at such an angle to catch most of the sky in just the right way. Just Coincidence....Honestly!
GO FOREST!!!!!!!!