Our whirlwind weekend

We have had quite the hedonistic, social-butterfly last few days... not like us really!!

On Thursday evening we had some friends over for dinner and games (Blokus, a family favourite!) Ooh, I like to be experimental when we have people over for dinner, so I made a roast and made yorkshire puddings for the very first time. They tasted like they are supposed to, so it was a success!

Ben was off on Friday again so we took Oliver swimming and met up with a friend there. Ben works opposite so he took us in to see his desk since we'd never actually been in to BP. It was pretty much dead there and no-one was in his office since it was flex Friday. I LOVE the work-life balance :) We also raided the vending machines since he still gets money on his lunch card on non-work days! Mmm, so we stocked up on chocolate bars and cereal bars too.

In the evening Ben and I went to see 'War Horse' at the cinema (with free Tesco clubcard tickets!) while our friends DJ and Kirsty looked after Oliver and put him to bed (well done them!) We'd been wanting to see it for a while and it was good... although not really what we were expecting. A bit like 'Black Beauty' in the war, really, and quite mushy and sentimental which is a shame since neither of us are very into animals. It was still very beautiful and had lots of storylines (you follow the horse through the war and he is owned by different sides, some nasty and some great, and there is a great bit when it ends up in No Man's Land...) Worth seeing but not buying, I think.

On Saturday morning we went to a family fun day at the local science centre, Satrosphere. It was quite small but brilliant and everything was hands-on: a bit like the cool 'Launch Pad' children's bit in The Science Musem in London. Oliver toddled around happily poking buttons and pulling levers and then we got to go inside a gigantic bubble!! It was fun and rather geeky so right up our street.

Our hedonistic, social-butterfly-ness culminated with the 'Granite City Ball' on Saturday evening. It was a formal oily/geological dinner and ball evening, fundraising for the RNLI (lifeboats) and the Geological association :) It all began with a drinks reception and some traditional bag-piping. Dinner was suitably posh and small but very delicious... the starter was a lentil 'soup' served on a slate!! I really wish I'd taken a photo: we were genuinely served a salady thing on SLATE. Yummy though! Main course was chicken stuffed with haggis and some other yummy bits, and then raspberry cheesecakey icecreamy thing for pudding. In case you are wondering how expensive tickets were, BP sponsored a couple of tables, so we didn't pay a thing!! We were on a table with other BP-ers, including Ben's boss' boss' boss and his wife! He was great though and very friendly, making sure I kept ordering more posh soft drinks on his tab he'd got for our table. (It's a bit surreal being a things like this sometimes!) After two courses he got all the men on our table to swap places so we could meet other people and he ended up sitting next to me so by the end of the evening I had had lots of time to put in good words for Ben including a man who will be on his deciding panel and will decide where we will be sent next. I think I got in all the right things: wouldn't mind going foreign (!), not desperate to go down South and happy to stay up here, Ben fancies working in Exploration... :) It made Ben laugh that I got to chat to all these men with 'influence' when he'd hardly spoken to them before.

After dinner was a ceildih (sp??!!) which was LOADS of fun. Ben was highland flinging with other BP-ers when I needed to sit down for a bit, we found out that we have NO idea how to waltz and it was just great. We left 'early' at 11.30pm to get back for the babysitters (DJ and Kirsty again, poor them!!) and found all well there.

Sunday was church in the morning and I am happy to report that Oliver is improving at staying still-ish and in our pew for Sacrament meeting (the first hour of church when we take the sacrament) This is a major breakthrough for us since he is always making mad dashes to the front of the chapel. You just can't seem to hold a good man down. On Sunday afternoon we had dinner with some MORE friends. Wow, we are lucky. It was yummy and great company, and they looked after Oliver by cunningly arranging a laptop playing episodes of 'Peppa Pig' in front of him during dinner. Worked a treat!

What a brilliant, brilliant weekend, we're very fortunate to live up here and to have great friends and so much going on! My life is now complete :)



I didn't get any good photos from the weekend (mainly me making rubbish faces in them), but here are a couple of okay ones:

Me explaining the camera??

Ben is just about in there... it was so fast!

My black tied husband

Ben is off again!!

I am getting used to life without a husband- it is quite lonely!! He was away for training in Windsor all of last week, and a couple of days ago we found out that he could do his first bit of 'offshore' experience for a few days. He is basically on the boat to watch and learn and ask questions, while they do a site survey (I think they drop things off the boat and do tests about the strength of the seabed for prospective wells... perhaps??!) I think they are going quite far North (even further!!) and probably into Norwegian waters.

I dropped him off at the Harbour this morning, complete with Artic jacket, bright orange BP jumpsuit, balaclava and the whole lot! It was quite bizarre, since that isn't usually what he does for his work. When we got there, there was a line a crew members loading up the boat- the Ocean Seeker- with food. I spied UHT milk, orange and apple juice and SPAM!! For some reason spam always makes me laugh.

I'm not quite sure why, but in the end they didn't set sail until this afternoon, at about 4ish, but Ben had kept me updated so Oliver and I could wave him off and run along the Harbour wall as far as I could with the buggy until I got to lots of spikey fences. It was quite exciting and I felt a bit like we were in a film :) I tried to take a couple of photos but it was getting quite dark and they didn't turn out very well. But he is off! I stocked him up with travel sickness tablets, but he's a bit sicky at the best of times... urgh. Fingers crossed all will be well and he won't be away too long.

I found a photo of the boat online:

BP

I am officially a BP fan. Of course, I'm not the one working there, but from my unique wife-y perspective, the working hours are GREAT. Ben works 8am- 5pm 9 days in every two weeks... because he gets every other Friday off! Very nice. In fact, I've always said that BP feels a bit like 'The Firm' (John Grisham) cos they treat you so well, surely something has to be wrong?!! I love that film.

I digress... It turns out we really do get a discount on petrol! That made us laugh.

Another thing was that on Friday Ben amazingly got us tickets to the last BP Dinner Dance- basically a free, BP party! There were over 300 people there, sat a big round tables, so it was a pretty grand affair. It was outrageously glitzy- in a big hotel, with arty food, and LOTS of cutlery and glasses, and a really amazing, but slightly crazy live band. Shiny lights and everything!

After three scrummy courses and lots of wine (or water for us! - apparently they'd have to charge me for orange juice... even when I reminded the waitress that it was probably cheaper than wine, but no luck...) we boogied on down, and Ben cracked out all his crazy moves. He is GOOD! I always feel completely rubbish dancing next to him, but I feel cool to be with him!

Here we are-

Ben was quite sad to leave around 11pm since the dancing was in full force, but we had left Oliver with a new babysitter, and he's getting into the habit of waking for his first feed before midnight!! What made everything totally wonderful was our babysitter, Christine, was having the best time ever watching the first two Star Wars films, and Oliver had just started to stir as we got back around 11.30pm! Superb. Christine was brilliant and we got on well too! Ahh, it's also a major relief of motherhood when your baby behaves exactly like you told someone they will, and didn't scare her away!

Hurrah, I love BP. Ben has also had his first paycheck now, so that helps! :)