Berit & Chris's weblog

Concorde's last flight

Today was a sad day in aviation history. The last Concorde to roll off the production line in Filton, Bristol (G-BOAF) made her last flight by returning home to Filton. She was officially handed over by Bristish Airways into the care of Airbus UK. Since I currently work for Airbus I was lucky enough to get to see this event with my own eyes. Before she came into land her flight path took her around the local area which included flying over the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Downs which is where Berit, and a few thousand other people, bid her farewell.

It seems sad to think that this was her last flight but we all hope that one day she may return to the sky once more. Looks like the flight crew did too since they made a wonderful gesture by jamming one of their Flight Caps, which they all signed, into a gap which opens up during flight due to the aircraft expanding from the heat generated when flying at over twice the speed of sound. The only way to remove this is once again to fly supersonic, fingers crossed eh :-)

Birthday at the Zoo

On my birthday, we visited Bristol Zoo Gardens. The gardens were beautiful and it was reassuring to see the animals apparently so well looked after, and to learn that the Zoo is committed to a number of conservation breeding programmes both in-house and in the wild. The Zoo features a wide varity of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and invertebrates. We especially enjoyed watching the cuddly lions, Moti and Chandra (Chris thought they were cuddly from a distance of 10 metres with some wire mesh thrown in. Take the latter away and a different adjective might be more appropriate :-), the penguins - including the supposedly first albino penguin ever bred in captivity - and the amazingly beautiful and elegant seals visible from an underwater walkway.

Painfull Balls

Early Saturday, we made our way to Paintball Adventure together with 15-20 people from Chris' work. After being issued with all necessary safety equipment and strict instructions from game leaders, we ventured into the area to commence battle!

The objective of this game is to fire balls of paint (muzzle exit velocity of 280 ft/sec) at your friends which, apart from head shots (they don't count!), renders them stained with a splat of coloured vegetable oil, bruized and officially dead for the remainder of the battle. During the day we all took part in 10 different battles, all lasting approx 20 mins, ranging from hostage situations to outright head to head battles.

We ended the day thoroughly exhausted, muscles acheing, drenched to the skin (thanks to the weather) and covered in small round bruizes all in the name of fun. So this morning we're both acheing all over and planning to spend most of the day winging and lying around doing very little.

Would we do it again? of course we would! but maybe with a little disclaimer on the weather :-)

Birthday Soiree

Last night, Chris and I spent a really lovely evening with friends; Neil & Paula, Ana, Matt, Chris & Hayley, and Kryn. Because my birthday falls on a Monday, we decided to celebrate it a few days early in good company with lots of food, some of which Chris decided to BBQ in the garden.

Chris's Christmas brainwave

As I'm getting older the number of brainwaves, or to put it another way eureka moments, have dwindled to few and far between so when one comes along you have to make the most of it! This is the latest idea -

Most of my family have been asking what I want for Xmas so I've (well Berit really) made it easy for you with the following list (even included some links too)

Chris would like:
Alpinestars motorcycle gloves (GP Plus, blue/white, size XL) - might need to form a syndicate to buy this one!
Palm™ Hands-free Headset
Proporta Tungsten C Case
Proporta 3 in 1 stylus (Tungsten C & W)
Shirts (16" coller), ties, socks (size 10) and pants (medium) as usual (note socks and pants require amusement factor e.g. Homer Simpson etc)
And if anyones recently won the lottery, an Audi A3 2.0 TDI would be nice :-)

Berit would like:
Mulberry Tabover Compact Purse (color: berry)
Funny & colorful socks (size 36/37)
Clinique gentle waterproof mascara (color: brown/black)
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (paperback)
A more attentive boyfriend :-)

Birthday greetings

Yesterday, Claire & Henrik wished me happy birthday. It was really very sweet - and very funny since my birthday is a week away! And this morning I received a birthday card from Linda & Paul....I wonder who started that chinese whisper :-)

Palm Blog

This is the first entry on the site using my palm :-) This should now mean that we can update the site on the move as long as we can find a WiFi hotspot!

Xmas decorations in Bristol

They put up decorations as early as possible here, like most places to get the shoppers in Christmas mood thus enticing them to spend more money!! We have bought our first box of 50 Christmas cards and I give serious thought to buying candles and other lovely Christmas accessories over the weekend.

A little introduction perhaps!

Finally, we've got our very own weblog, much to the credit of Bron, who's staying with us for a few days. Chris's bit - Berit failed her lesson the other day when I tried to test her linguistic skills, antidisestablishmentarianism (spelled wrong for sure!) was a definate no - Here endith Chris's bit :-)