Sh!t Astle

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After the madness of new years, January was pretty quiet. For instance one weekend my highlight was buying a lamp and a side table. Pretty rock and roll, I know. Anyway one weekend Nic and I decided to go for a jaunt to Richmond park. It is Europe’s largest urban walled park apparently. Whatever that means. You would think then you might get lost in it and not finding it. Well we did both to be fair. Surely a huge park on a map would be easy to find, apparently not. It was like the labyrinth trying to find an entrance, because we walked for miles trying to find one. By the time we arrived into the park we already felt like we’d done enough walking for the day.

Our aim was to see some wildlife as the park has deer roaming about. Our map skills were tested again and we failed big time. I was getting scared that we wouldn’t find our way out in the 7 hours of remaining daylight and get eaten by ravenous wild deer. Not to worry though. We had a break, re-gathered our composure. And then realised we were about 20 metres away from the deer, through a clearing. It is pretty cool to see them just strolling right near you. We also saw some yellow parakeets, and parakeet eating squirrels. (Note this story may be factually inaccurate.)

Nic and I along with Jess and Emma (Nicola’s mate from home) went to the circus: Cirque Du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a weird and wacky colorful show and some of the stunts/acrobatics they pull off are mind-boggling. The girls, especially Emma were peering out from behind their hands at some points, unable to watch due to the dangerous maneuvers and no safety gear. We were all really impressed by the show and would recommend it. Afterwards we went to the pub I caught up with my mate Richard while the girls had a wine to de-stress!

I can’t really remember what else I did in January; on the other side of the world my brother Todd played two games for Canterbury vs the England cricket team. He bowled well and managed to get Ian Bell, Owais Shah and England captain Paul Collingwood out. He also caught the prized scalp of Kevin Pietersen. This may help to explain why my cricket team have given me the nickname ‘shit Astle’. Harsh, but fair.

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