Minute44 - Dan Schonhaar

Personal post time! It’s been a long time coming, mainly because I’m not very interesting, but now I’ve got a bunch of good stuff to write up. Over the last few months I’ve been up to a whole bunch of stuff! I’ve been on holiday (well, short break), I’ve been to Santa Pod for Jap Show and most important of all; Nat and I have got our first proper place together!!

In May, Nat and I took a drive down to Torquay, Devon for a short sea-side holiday. I hadn’t been on any kind of holiday since Canada in 2005 so, believe me, I was bloody ready! Although it was only a short break, it was excellent. Like I said, we drove down and we actually made really good time; just over 3 hours. Because we knew we were going to be moving shortly after, we decided to make it a cheap one. With that in mind we stayed in the Torquay Travelodge – walking distance from the sea front – for only £32 a night! This left us with way more money to go and see sights, have a nice meal or two out and just be able to enjoy ourselves a lot more.

While on the subject of eating out I actually fulfilled one of my life goals while down there; to eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. On our second night we booked a table at Number 7 Fish Bistro. (Excellent restaurant, terrible website) We knew from the get-go that we wanted to have an exceptionally nice dinner one night but we never imagined it would be Michelin dining! I had fillet of sea bass with seared scallops and Nat had loin of cod with tempura scallops and prawns. We had starters (Grilled garlic mushrooms) and deserts (sticky toffee pudding with local clotted cream) too. best meal I’ve ever eaten. Hands down.

Aside from the excellent food, the rest of the holiday was great too. Relaxing on the beach, eating ice cream by the harbour front and cheesy 2p machines in Paignton. It was a really nice time and we hope to go more often, possibly to Cornwall.

So shortly after we got back from the holiday we found our new home. We decided to do a whole bunch of house viewings in one day and one of the first ones we saw, a 2 bed semi on Broadmeadows, really grabbed us and we decided to go after it straight away. It’s really perfect for us with a nice sized living room, very nice, modern kitchen and two double bedrooms. The garden is a decent size too, perfect for barbecuing.

We had family and friends over for a housewarming party the other week and that was great. As well as getting all the family together, our friends got to see our new house. Even Reedy came down from Sheffield which was ace! I hadn’t seen him in over a year.

At the time of writing this we’ve been in the house a month and it’s working out really well. The big modern kitchen has made me really enjoy cooking again where in the old house the kitchen was really old and small I didn’t want to be in it. In the new place I’d say it’s the place we spend most time. The ultimate bonus, though was the fact that we were allowed to keep our kitteh, Juno. She’s settled into the new neighbourhood with ease and, after coming back with battle scars the first night, has found her place amongst the local cats. Oh yeah! After a few weeks in the house the drama kicked off! just around the corner from us, someone got their house firebombed! See the smoke pictures!

Most recently, then, I went to the JapShow at Santa Pod raceway. It’s been a while since I’ve been there so I jumped at the chance to head down there for a weekend with the boys. We saw some amazing shit while there and I’m tellin ya, there must have been some crazy technological advancements in the last couple of years because the pro cars were achieving times that were unheard of when I was there before. A drag modded Skyline GTST was running quarter miles in the mid 7s at over 170 mph!! The highlight for me though was seeing the brand new Nissan GTR. If you haven’t seen one, check out the photos below. There were two stock ones and then a lightly modded one with a carbon fibre bonnet and they were all stunning. The car, though not called a Skyline, continues the Skyline tradition of insane power and performance for very little money. The new GTR costs £65,000 ish but is easily faster than plenty of cars that come in at twice that price.

Anyway… what else should I talk about..? Oh yeah! The new iPhone! I’ve made my mind up that I will definitely be getting one of these bad boys as soon as my Orange contract is up. I’m not just moving to get the new iPhone either. Orange signal is absolutely terrible in the new house. I get no bars downstairs and only 1 or 2 bars upstairs. Nat, who’s on O2 gets full signal throughout the house. So yeah, roll on iPhone 3G-S

So that’s pretty much everything. I’ll try and stay more current in future so to avoid super long war and peace posts like this. Ta ta!