Laurence Andrews

CoolHead Visit London

What do you do when your favourite Finnish brewery has a tap-takeover in London? Well, there’s only one option. Hosted at the fantastic Brew By Numbers in Peckham Rye, CoolHead brought ten beers to showcase for one day only with a chance to meet with their Head Brewer. Brew By Numbers or BBNO have a great unit under two railway arches in Peckha... Read more

2019 - The Year of Advancement

New year, new theme! Well, it doesn’t feel much like a new year anymore, as I write this in February(!), things have been moving very quickly indeed. 2019 will be the the second year using the theme concept and I’m really excited to get started having learned all that I did last year. This year’s theme is The Year of Advancement. With a focus o... Read more

That time I went to... Rome & The Vatican State

August 2017 and the project to deploy SD-WAN at Cushman & Wakefield was just kicking off. Given the scale of the project I felt that it’d be sensible to make sure we give the first site some extra care and attention before we let the train leave the station at full speed. Turned out that the best location was Rome, Italy since it was reasona... Read more

Quick Beer in Hastings

Last year I did very poorly on my quest to explore the UK and complete my Rail Map. The only piece of new milage I managed to complete was from Birmingham New Street to Worcester Shrub Hill. This was unplanned, a last ditch attempt to get home from Birmingham via Oxford during the January snow. My failed attempt left me stranded at Shrub Hill wh... Read more

Cologne, Germany

There was a lot of rain - but it didn’t stop any of us having a fantastic time in Germany’s Rhineland this Christmas. Years past we have been very lucky and have spent time away in warmer destinations but with the year of smart we decided that we’d keep things real, spend time closer to home with family and hit some Christmas markets instead. Th... Read more

Something a bit Different!

Keeping with this year’s theme, The Year of Smart, I participated in my first non-technical training programme. The course was run by the Centre for Creative Leadership, a US-based non-profit organisation who focus on leadership development. CCL run the Maximising Your Leadership Potential course only three times a year at their Europe HQ in Bru... Read more

Quick trip to the Costa del Sol

Halfway through the year and time to catch a breath! A trip to Spain was the perfect opportunity to get some sunshine and relaxation time. We’d both been to the Costa del Sol before, Victoria many times more than I and can’t fault it, beautiful weather, delicious Spanish food and great places to visit. We couldn’t wait to get on that plane! W... Read more

May 2017 - The Missing Blogs

May started with a challenge which I had not been looking forward to; mine and @geekyjames’ first Tough Mudder. For those that don’t know, Tough Mudder is an outdoor obstacle and endurance course, the ethos is to build camaraderie among participants in order to complete the obstacles, many of which are not possible without teamwork. We decided t... Read more

March 2017 - The Missing Blogs

March was a much quieter month than the previous two, but the start of 2017’s scuba season. One of my annual goals was to gradually purchase all of my equipment for a Liveaboard diving trip to Egypt in September; I had before now been reluctant to buy too much to avoid getting things too quickly and then wishing I had purchased the more expensiv... Read more

February 2017 - The Missing Blogs

February started with friends, having dinner out and settling into our new home after a busy Christmas and beginning to the year. We spent time absorbing Upnor, taking walks along the beach and past the castle, enjoying the pub and surrounding area. We watched as the boats slowly begin to re-populate the river, the process is now an unexciting a... Read more

The (Sleepy!) Pearl of The Adriatic - Dubrovnik

Last year was always going to be difficult to top, Monaco was absolutely fantastic and we had a wonderful time; we relaxed, enjoyed good food and embraced the rich and famous lifestyle – we even flew in a helicopter! This year I was determined to try and continue our February city break tradition and after nowhere near enough research or prepara... Read more

BrewDog Leeds - Review

My close friend @geekyjames and I are unequivocal fans of BrewDog, the Scottish craft beer company. Known for their iconic Punk IPA beer and brash attitude towards typical business convention they are without doubt one of the most notable new breweries globally. The company is expanding rapidly and has just opened a brand new brewery in Columbus... Read more

Lille - A Trip Away

Hot on the heels of our last adventure away we thought it was time for another quick break. Lille is somewhere both of us have travelled though several times, but never stopped. Of course by ‘passing through’ I actually mean whizzing past on a high speed Eurostar train – it’s not like we’ve even seen Lille before. Since the construction of the C... Read more

Oktoberfest 2010

This was a long time ago, it’s actually pretty scary. Anyway, here I am three years later finally tapping out a blog post about it! Oktoberfest 2010, for those that don’t know is the largest ‘fair’ in the world celebrating that glorious golden liquid in which the Germans are unquestionably awesome at creating. Around 6 million people visit the ... Read more