Stryper

A while back, Andy saw that Stryper were going on tour to celebrate 25 years! like an excited bunny, I frantically search to see if there was a European tour and after too many emails, i found out that they were going to play Prague our close city.
So, on Thursday the 20th, we (Andy had just assumed that Samm was coming and didn't actually ask her!) left work at 4:00 from Szeged and head to Budapest on the train. Here we spent the night, drank beer and hung out with matt brennar before we left the following morning at 9:30 to prague.

Skipping boring travel details and trying to get tickets, we arrrived, burgered up and then waited for the gig to start. On the way in we were asked if we had guns, knives or drugs! A first for a CHRIStian Band! Samm was dreading the size of the venue, with us being squeezed into an ocean of moshers but when we got inside, we discovered it was a quite small club and we squeezed into the the front row. There were about 5 rows of people and then the rest of the club
The Age demographic was Bizarre 8 - 70! I kid not!
Stryper were damm loud (my ears stopped ringing on sunday) damm good with the all the harmonies and guitars nailed. They also were also rather fit and non fat! They launched into the gig with 6 monster hits non-stop and they rocked hard with numerous rock posses. They did lob the bibles into the crowd!
We crashed at the czechinn hostel( most excellent and highly recommended) and then on saturday we meet Mark and Joanna for pancakage for breakfast and the start of a cool friendship
Tried to sleep on the 9.5 hour journey home, we eventually turned into bed at midnight!
A most excellent event

First Week back to work

On the 4th of Jan, Samm and I started the struggle to get back into a work routine after a couple of weeks off on holiday.
The morning rituals starts at 6:30am with the alarm going off and then two Zombies stagger around in the dark, trying to feed the dogs and get out the door by 7:15ish so that Andy can get to work for 8ish and have a car parking space near the university. This routine is disrupted by snow, fog and general tiredness.

Today We go to the gym, church and come home and bottle ginger beer and rosehip and hibiscus wine

GingerBeer

Just about to dive into the kitchen to start making our Home-brew of ginger-beer.
As there are thousands of recipes online all offering different advice, I'm starting with this recipe from http://www.selfsufficientish.com

Ginger-Beer

1/2 oz dried yeast
1/2 pint water
sugar
ground ginger
juice of 2 lemons


Put the yeast into a jar, add the water, 2 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons ground ginger and mix well. Cover the jar with a lid or cling-film. Each day for 7 days add 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon ground ginger. Finally, strain the mixture, add the lemon juice to the liquid and reserve the sediment. The liquid is now ready to use. For future use, keep the sediment and divide equally between 2 jars. To each jar add 1/2 pint water, 2 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons ginger and proceed the process all over again, as previously.

I think that after the first stage of fomenting, the ginger-beer could be transported into a demijohn and we might be able to make some ginger wine!