Last week at NOTHS

So last week was my last working week at NOTHS. I start my new job on Thursday! Very excited.
We had a hackathon the last 2 days. With the weather being mazing, the company got an ice-cream truck to come in and free ice-creams!

Most of the evenings were spent on the green with drinks and snacks from nearby pubs and Sainsbury's.  We had to keep moving as some love the sun (like myself); others, not so much. 

We had some leaving drinks on the last day. There were 2 other people also leaving that day so there were a lot of people out. My group sat inside (we had a lot of the sun haters) and just relaxed. And I am happy to report I didn't get drunk! :) Though mainly because I had to be up early the next day to meet some friends form the States. 

Quiet leaving drinks.

Colour Truck and Wifi Wars

NOTHS have been doing events in cities across the country recently in the "Colour Truck" and brought it to richmond for everyone to have a look on Tuesday. I think it is to promote the company and some of our products. Outside the truck there was an inflated dome with coloured paper. So of course I went in.

Not too impressive or fun to start

Starting to kick up a storm

Paper blizzard

Inside were free samples of fudge and a hot drink of caramel and frothy milk. And some very tasty peanut brittle.

Getting a drink

Fire place

We sell some random stuff!

On Tuesday evening, I went with Clair to Wifi Wars at the Royal Institute. Honestly most of it was because it was at the Royal Institute which is am awesome building and where Faraday did some of his work. Wifi Wars is a comedy show were the audience join in by playing games on their phones. It is also now a TV show based on Dave apparently. 

Unfortunately due to road issues and our tube being stuck behind them, we had to take an alternative route and got there later than we wanted. So had seats up in the heavens. Not the best.

Wifi Wars

There were consequences for the team captains if the team lost. Hence the being dressed as a Christmas tree.

Mid show was a sketch by a group (I forgot the name) about electricity. It was simple stuff but fun.

Showing conductivity

Leaving the Royal Institute. 

And now it's home for Christmas! :)

NOTHS Christmas Party

This week was a really long one with the NOTHS Christmas Party on Wednesday. Getting there was a mission as it was in Shoreditch, the other side of London from the NOTHS office. But I changed at the office and ended up at a friends house for an hour before hand.

They had people making balloon hats and brackets and wings. There was a photo booth downstairs and a karaoke booth upstairs. The choir (I am a member) sang at the start and we started having fun.

My hat

I asked for something discrete

I was really sad when my hat got popped! :(

Betty and her wings.

The guys were not as impressed.

Photo booth!

The party was fun but got packed and after a girl slipped her G&T own the back of my dress I decided to give up. I then realised I had left my house keys in the office. Thankfully Ruth lives near the office and has after hours access. And she wanted to leave early. (At least she said she did - I brought her mince pies to say thank you anyway).

NOTHS sports day

Thursday was the summer party at NOTHS. The theme was sports day and they take competition very seriously. The 4 houses were named after the four locations the office has been at and each had its own mascot. I was in House Kew (we ended up with a cucumber because we were just too cool! And couldn't think of anything else). The others were Bardolph (dolphin), Mortlake (duck) and Red lion (guess). The psychological warfare started early in the week!

trying to psyche us out.

We even got T-shirts. Like quite a few people, I had to change mine for a larger size - they were designed for midgets! Not sure if a left or cucumber is a better mascot. Neither really inspire terror in the enemy.

House Kew!

Some took it more seriously than others. Well to be fair, everyone took it more seriously than our team. In school we would be the kids seeking off to smoke (or in my case, to the library). We tried but we also found the bar pretty early on in the competition.

Stretching

We tried some team spirit.

The ducks doing their warm up - with flapping arms.

Clair and I did not really get into the spirit of racing, so snuck off to the bar quite a few times, despite being different teams. My knees were not going to like it so I decided to just focus on the photos and occasionally cheering. I don't think the rest of my team believed I have bad knees (despite limping heavily all around the office last Friday - it was real!). They kept giving me dirty looks when I didn't volunteer. We were the smallest team as well, so when they needed 20 people for the race, there were only a few of us left. Very dirty looks. But no way was I messing my knees up doing this! So I brought other people drinks instead. :)

My team spirit improving - free pimms.

Getting ready for the first race.

The races were, for the most part based on the normal sports day games, though towards the end they gave up on that.

Giant egg and spoon race.

Skipping - this guy had been practicing!

Trying to psyche the other team out with close quarter cheerleading. 

I think my favourite was the sack race. There were some interesting styles, great faces, and a few accidents.

Concentration.

And we're down.

High jump?

Close (-ish)

Cowboy style.

The three-legged race was a disaster. The bands kept falling off.

There-legged race.

More concentration.

Hockey

After a point, it just got odd. There was a giant feet theme.

Big foot football

The oddest was 2 big feet with 5 people on them, walking. Some of it looked more than a little awkward and uncomfortable. Some teams figured it out. Some not so much. It got a bit painful to watch.

Walking big feet

Not getting it.

The last was the tug-of-war. People really got into this. The rules were 3 girls, 2 guys per team (which considering most of the company is female makes sense).

Going for it.

Go team!

I had to move pretty quickly after taking this photo.

Nearly there - we lost!

Kew House got 3rd places. But we missed out on second by only 1/2 a point! (And there was definitely some cheating going on!)

Winning team celebrating.

After the games (and awards), there was food (BBQ) and a school disco! Plus an ice-cream truck. Honestly, that was the best bit!