Because everyone else is doing it

January
2008 started with a bang (fireworks, not sex) in the snow in Berlin. The month ended as it began, in the snow - this time in Andorra.

A German New Years

February
February saw Wales beat England for the first time at Twickenham for 20 years, I was still in Andorra and missed celebrating with my friends in Cardiff.

Andorra, Taken on the day of Wales' victory - everything looked good that day

March
March broke new ground for me when I asked a girl I'd met in a bar to hike up a mountain with me, and she agreed. Wales went on to be crowned rugby champions of Europe for the second time in three years.

Silence the day after the Grand Slam

April
I decided not to drink for a month, I became isolated from many friends but became much thinner and started running regularly. I missed going to gigs, so I started going to lots of them and one of my favourites was the Ting Tings.

The Ting Tings

May
May brought a trip to stay with the fantastic Cleavers and explore the fine city of Toronto. I then spent time in Vermont with an old friend who I realised I liked a bit more than I thought. I also added a second state to my list of places I'd been in America (You're mine now Massachusetts).

Downtown TO

June
A jolly to a Swedish island for their traditional midsummers festival with my sidekick, Sud. We introduced our own tradition of drinking lots of vodka. Possibly the favourite moment of my year occurred on the ferry ride back to the mainland, where I produced a rose and handed it to a girl to cheer her up after her and her friend had missed the previous ferry (also because she was pretty), I asked her name, it was Marlin. We had missed that same ferry and ironically almost missed the second because I was picking roses. Sud was so incensed at being out-done he went to the bathroom, took a fake rose from a vase which he'd spotted earlier, marched over to the same girls, gave one the rose and asked her name..... it was Marlin.... the look of horror on his face was priceless as he realised he'd given the rose to the same girl, not to her friend as he intended. The horror quickly changed to relief when it was explained that they were both named Marlin. This event spawned the now infamous line "At least it's not just idiots who miss ferries, it's hot girls too".

A midsommarstång, a pole covered in flowers basically, we renamed Midsummers the 'Penis festival' after seeing this.

July
We took on another amazing adventure with Astrid as we spent the day drinking Pimms and getting sunburnt at the Henley Royal Regatta. Our class was absent as we drank the Pimms straight from the bottle and hung out by the burger vans for an hour. (Fighting through the blazer and fancy hat-wearing crowds in the heat became hard work, we needed a break)

Blending in Superbly

August
Two fantastic days were spent in London and Portsmouth, saying farewell to Monica and saying happy birthday to a good friend respectively. I never thought I'd use 'Portsmouth' and 'Fantastic' in the same sentence.

The Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth

September
Our good friend The Doc moved out of the house and a fiery Sicilian moved in. A lot of pink started appearing around the house soon afterwards.

Sicily and Wales collide

October
Similar to running your hands under hot water and then plunging them into the cold, I travelled to Barcelona and to the north of Norway within the space of a couple of days. I also began relations of sorts with a girl who'd come to view our spare room in September - one way to meet people I suppose. Unfortunately Norway broke my camera and pictures stopped being taken from then (I'll be sending a complaint to King Harald V).

Tromsø

November
Supporting the Welsh rugby team took its toll on me as four weekends of matches against South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Australia saw enough pints consumed to sink a battleship and enough money spent on said pints and tickets to the games to pay to raise it from the sea-bed.

Carnage on rugby day

December
With the stuffing knocked out of me in November, the stuffing was put back in with a cracking Christmas meal laid on by my fab parents and my siblings. The festive season certainly lived up to its name with a host of parties and reasons to go out, but the guilt I felt after each one depressed me. Going out became hard work and I became grumpy, on boxing day I lectured a friend of mine on how drinking wasn't cool anymore and that we're all reaching a stage where we should be toning it down a little. I was plastered, naturally.

My family, I think this picture's awesome because I have blue hair, my bro has a ridonkulous beard and everyone's either laughing or smirking which is funny because it was taken at a funeral.

January again
I spent a month last year not drinking, I can do another one, right?