After a week of pretty mild and sunny weather, the UK experienced northerly winds that blew down a cold front down across the UK.

The results were snow showers being evident in most places of the UK, the following were the scenes around our house.

I visited Albania for a Market Strategy session - and Project Meetings during 11th - 15th December 2007.

This was my second trip to Albania, and this time remembered to take my camera to take some snaps. Intriguing place, and definitely a Country with lots of potential - by the scale of development and investment that is currently taking place in the Capital, Tirana.

Four AXP representatives attended the meetings, and Mario and myself managed to visit the second city of Durres on the Saturday, 15th December, prior to our flight departure. Durres was smaller than Tirana, but definitely was seen as the meeting location by the beach - methinks the next meeting should be held here! :)

Another year, another Christmas Party!

The GNS Brighton (GNS Business Solutions and GNS Technologies and GNS Settlements Teams) visited Hanbury Ballrooms, in St Georges Road, Kemp Town, Brighton. It was quite an intimate venue - not massive, but enough to hold the Brighton party-goers.

The finger buffet did its job, and it was actually quite a entertaining party, and amazingly, although I had drunk a fair bit - I woke up with nothing more than slight headache - was expecting a something a lot worse! Hmmm, not that I am complaining one bit!!

Mario invited me to his birthday bash in Athens, Greece.

I was able to coincide a work trip with the party.

It was a great event, spread over the Friday 9th, Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th November weekend.

These photos are of the party at Baraonda where we had dinner and enjoyed the clubbing atmosphere afterwards!

Photos from the Lewes Bonfire Night - 6th November 2006. Normally Bonfire Night is on the 5th November, but this fell on a Sunday this year, Lewes celebrations are moved to the following Monday!! :)

Photos from the Lewes Bonfire Night - 5th November 2005.

Photos from the Lewes Bonfire Night - 5th November 2007.


I visited Lewes with my mother and her sister (my aunt) and my cousin who were over here from Hong Kong. I then met up with some ex-Sussex Uni friends for the rest of the evenings fun and entertainment!

I treated my parents to a holiday to Egypt, where we were had a Bales Worldwide guided holiday.

Our itinerary included 4 days in Cairo to visit the Pyramids, Sphinx and the Egyptian Museum. We then flew to Aswan to catch a Cruise Ship on the Nile sailing towards Luxor for a 2-day stopover. We visited Kom Ombo and Edfu on the way 'down the river' towards Luxor. We then travelled back visiting Kom Ombo and Edfu 'up the river' and arrived back at Aswan for a complete 7-day round-trip cruise. We flew back to Cairo for an overnight stopover for our flight back the London Heathrow.

A lot of fun, plenty of early starts, definitely a lot of sight-seeing, and a few relaxing moments in the mix too! More importantly, a thoroughly overdue but well deserved break!

These was Part 2 of my friend's wedding - the Indian Wedding. This was actually the main part of the wedding, with a large group of their friends and family present, including other American Express folks too!

Although a very long event, my mother and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at what was our first Indian wedding. The weather was amazingly warm and sunny - fantastic weather for the ceremony - and both the bride and groom looked truly wonderful in their authentic wedding clothes.

I had two business meetings in Greece, which were either side of the last weekend of July 2007.

I was able to stay over in Greece, and my delightful lady friend invited me to come along as part of her trip to Pylos, Messinia, in the Peloponnese area of mainland Greece.

Truly wonderful to see somewhere else on the mainland, and it was definitely a relaxing time spent with some great folks!!!

Only my 2nd ever fancy dress party - and there is still 'room for improvement' (on my part at least!). Anyway, a couple of photos taken at the event to celebrate Halloween (31st Oct 2006).

One of my closest friends from my Master's course tied the knot yesterday at the Civil Ceremony in her home town of Dudley, near Birmingham.

I know both the bride and groom from the my Masters course - whilst studying at Sussex University, and the bride was on the same AXP IT Graduate Programme as me - we kept each other motivated and we shared highs and lows during the 2-year programme.

What a wonderful day - and the weather held out for both of them. The second part of the ceremony - the Indian wedding - is scheduled for August 2007. The bride looked absolutely amazing on this special day! Congrats to Reena and Vish!

The photographs of my American Express Greece Assignment - where I was located in Athens for a 12 week period between 27th March through to 28th June 2007.

I was staying at the Hilton Athens for this period of times (and became a Hilton Diamond VIP member in the process) and managed to use the opportunity to visit a number of the Greek Islands.

I visited 'Poros', 'Hydra' and 'Aegina' as part of a one-day tour, I visited 'Skiathos' on a weekend break, I took a week's holiday and visited 'Santorini' (during the Champions League week - no room at the inn!), I took a further weekend break in Syros, a tour to see 'Delphi' and 'Meteora' and a weekend break in Sifnos - with my mother who had visited during the last week of my assignment. Lastly, I couldn't leave Athens without visiting some of the infamous sights - so became an Athenian sightseeing tourist for a few days too!

An absolutely wonderful experience and great opportunity - which I thoroughly enjoyed!

During the late evening on Saturday, 2nd March 2007, the world experienced an awe-inspiring natural phenonomens, where the Moon passes into Earth's shadow - a Lunar Eclipse.

Lunar Eclipses occur when the Sun, Earth and Moon are in a near-perfect line in space. The Moon travels through the long cone-shaped shadow that the Earth casts in space. During "totality", only light that has been refracted through the Earth's atmosphere reaches the Moon's surface, making it appear a reddish colour - as this is what we witnessed!

The weather conditions were purrfect - with a clear night sky showing the full effects of the fantastic sight.

Our Christmas-2006 holiday involved a 3 location spell, with a stay in the Westin Beach Resort in Nusa Dua in Bali, a family visit to Jakarta in Indonesia and then a short stay for Christmas period in Hong Kong with our family.

The American Express London Employee Christmas Party in Battersea Arena, Battersea Park, London, SW11.

GNS Business Solutions held its Christmas Party - at Stanmer House in Stanmer Park just outside of Brighton on 1 December 2006.

Adrian's and Ben's Engagement Party at the Soho Revue Bar, London on 11th November 2006 - with Muriel Vanel (Opera Singer) and Sam Crockatt (Saxophonists) as guest performers.

The GNS Business Solutions team-build involved a cookery 'MasterChef' event at Plumpton Racecourse. Were we budding chefs-to-be? ...well some of us possibly (not me!).

I was very fortunate to obtain complimentary Corporate Hospitality tickets to go to Wimbledon on Monday, 3rd July 2006, and boy was it a fantastic day!

Three awesome scheduled matches:
- Daniela Hantuchova vs. Justine Henin-Hardenne;
- Marcos Baghdatis vs. Andy Murray; and
- Roger Federer v. Tomas Berdych.