An exciting night in Milton Keynes
On Tuesday afternoon, we headed to Milton Keynes by way of the house of a friend of Chris', a professional photographer named Tim. We spent nearly three hours at Tim's, sitting through a photoshoot to get the pics Chris wanted for the website. Have I mentioned I hate professional photo shoots? Very tiring, and not nearly as fun as you'd think.
We continued on to Stew's house, arriving around 7:30. The place was a wreck, since he's having his kitchen redone. It had already been decided that we would go out for dinner (obviously), but his boys (Will, 13, and Alec, 14) were being their usual moody teenage selves and causing their father nothing but annoyance. We went to a restaurant called Nando's for "chicken and chips" in a mall called Xscape which houses, among other things, a ski slope indoors. This would have been all well and good, but shortly after we arrived and Stu was placing our order up at the counter, a group of about 8 young black men began arguing loudly with some of the staff. It seemed a rather severe argument, over what, we couldn't tell. They left in a few minutes, having gone out into the lobby, and one of the guys suddenly through himself against a window, cracking it. Security was called and the group was ushered outside. One of the guys went absolutely ballistic and was being restrained by one of his mates, who eventually lost grip of him. The guy then ran full force toward the restaurant's outside facing windows, and attempted to kick through the window right adjacent to where we were sitting. The window cracked but did not break. Moments later, another of the guys threw something (we never figured out what) at the window and it crashed through, showering the customers inside with glass. A girl sitting near the windows started screaming and fainted; a couple guys around her dragged her around the corner and into the back of the restaurant. The two security guards were wholly inadequate in fending off the group. One of the guys (the one who'd kicked the window) started physically attacking the guard, but thankfully didn't know how to throw a punch, so mostly just whacked at him and didn't really hurt him. He was finally pulled off the guard by another one of the guys, and the entire group melted into the parking lot. Police showed up ten minutes later, far too late to do anything useful, of course. Meanwhile, the girl who'd fainted wasn't doing well, and after about half an hour of paramedic attention, she half-walked/was half carried to the ambulance and taken away. It was a very exciting evening.
As all this was happening, we were sitting at a window table right next to the window that was broken, and even though my heart was pounding, I remember thinking the whole incident through and wondering, very slowly to myself, "What sort of danger are we actually in?" in terms of should we move from the table or stay where we were. It seemed to me that it might exacerbate the violence and panic everyone in the restaurant if we all leapt up and started running from the window. I thought potentially the best strategy would be to just stay where we were, and duck under the table if need be. I was also continuously aware of the self defense I know, and mindful of the fact that I was in a group where one of us was pregnant (that would be Chris), there were two kids (Alec and Will), and a reasonably fit 40 year old guy (Stu), so was trying to figure out who I might best protect. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.
At Stu's house, Chris and I slept in Will's room while Will shared Alec's room. Will's room had two lofted beds. Been ages since I've slept way up near the ceiling like that, but it was fun. We'd stayed up quite late, though, so were quickly asleep. The next morning, we got up, took showers, and then had a quick breakfast (chocolate brioche!) before we headed to the Open University to teach the software course. It went pretty well, despite it being exhausting. I only ran into a couple questions I couldn't answer, and didn't say anything overly horrible or wrong, so all in all, quite good, I think. I'm feeling okay on this particular software's basics, but could use another day or two course myself!! I have a lot of questions for Chris about it, and hope I can ask her them tomorrow. I really need to make sure I keep playing in the software regularly or else I know I'm going to forget even the intro level stuff I have learned. That's the problem with software really. If you don't use it frequently, it totally leaves your head.
Last night, we did take out from the local Bengali restaurant, and then Jason and I went to the pub around the corner to watch the last half of a football (soccer) game. The game was less than thrilling, unfortunately, with all the players just running up and down the field and hardly any goal attempts. (Chelsea won, beating Liverpool, 1-0)
Today, we're at Chris' office. She has several meetings over the course of the day, and I, for the first time since I got here, have virtually "nothing" to do. I mean, there's tons of stuff I could be doing, but I rather am enjoying just tooling around online, doing not much. I can't believe I'm coming home on Saturday already.
We continued on to Stew's house, arriving around 7:30. The place was a wreck, since he's having his kitchen redone. It had already been decided that we would go out for dinner (obviously), but his boys (Will, 13, and Alec, 14) were being their usual moody teenage selves and causing their father nothing but annoyance. We went to a restaurant called Nando's for "chicken and chips" in a mall called Xscape which houses, among other things, a ski slope indoors. This would have been all well and good, but shortly after we arrived and Stu was placing our order up at the counter, a group of about 8 young black men began arguing loudly with some of the staff. It seemed a rather severe argument, over what, we couldn't tell. They left in a few minutes, having gone out into the lobby, and one of the guys suddenly through himself against a window, cracking it. Security was called and the group was ushered outside. One of the guys went absolutely ballistic and was being restrained by one of his mates, who eventually lost grip of him. The guy then ran full force toward the restaurant's outside facing windows, and attempted to kick through the window right adjacent to where we were sitting. The window cracked but did not break. Moments later, another of the guys threw something (we never figured out what) at the window and it crashed through, showering the customers inside with glass. A girl sitting near the windows started screaming and fainted; a couple guys around her dragged her around the corner and into the back of the restaurant. The two security guards were wholly inadequate in fending off the group. One of the guys (the one who'd kicked the window) started physically attacking the guard, but thankfully didn't know how to throw a punch, so mostly just whacked at him and didn't really hurt him. He was finally pulled off the guard by another one of the guys, and the entire group melted into the parking lot. Police showed up ten minutes later, far too late to do anything useful, of course. Meanwhile, the girl who'd fainted wasn't doing well, and after about half an hour of paramedic attention, she half-walked/was half carried to the ambulance and taken away. It was a very exciting evening.
As all this was happening, we were sitting at a window table right next to the window that was broken, and even though my heart was pounding, I remember thinking the whole incident through and wondering, very slowly to myself, "What sort of danger are we actually in?" in terms of should we move from the table or stay where we were. It seemed to me that it might exacerbate the violence and panic everyone in the restaurant if we all leapt up and started running from the window. I thought potentially the best strategy would be to just stay where we were, and duck under the table if need be. I was also continuously aware of the self defense I know, and mindful of the fact that I was in a group where one of us was pregnant (that would be Chris), there were two kids (Alec and Will), and a reasonably fit 40 year old guy (Stu), so was trying to figure out who I might best protect. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.
At Stu's house, Chris and I slept in Will's room while Will shared Alec's room. Will's room had two lofted beds. Been ages since I've slept way up near the ceiling like that, but it was fun. We'd stayed up quite late, though, so were quickly asleep. The next morning, we got up, took showers, and then had a quick breakfast (chocolate brioche!) before we headed to the Open University to teach the software course. It went pretty well, despite it being exhausting. I only ran into a couple questions I couldn't answer, and didn't say anything overly horrible or wrong, so all in all, quite good, I think. I'm feeling okay on this particular software's basics, but could use another day or two course myself!! I have a lot of questions for Chris about it, and hope I can ask her them tomorrow. I really need to make sure I keep playing in the software regularly or else I know I'm going to forget even the intro level stuff I have learned. That's the problem with software really. If you don't use it frequently, it totally leaves your head.
Last night, we did take out from the local Bengali restaurant, and then Jason and I went to the pub around the corner to watch the last half of a football (soccer) game. The game was less than thrilling, unfortunately, with all the players just running up and down the field and hardly any goal attempts. (Chelsea won, beating Liverpool, 1-0)
Today, we're at Chris' office. She has several meetings over the course of the day, and I, for the first time since I got here, have virtually "nothing" to do. I mean, there's tons of stuff I could be doing, but I rather am enjoying just tooling around online, doing not much. I can't believe I'm coming home on Saturday already.