Twas the night before Christmas...(well, almost)

Christmas eve is on the morn and so much has happened in these last weeks since Ava's arrival. She has grown incredibly that it is almost unbelievable to recount the harrowing experience of the first few hours of her life.

What's going on in the world?

"In my best Christmas outfit!"

Tomorrow morning Mum arrives which will be great. Tonight I'm off to AJ's place to have a beer with he and his family at the Anchor and to borrow their car for a week or so. They have been extremely generous with their car as we were able to use it when Ava was born and now again they've offered it to us over the Christmas period whilst mum is here.

Last week we had a lovely evening at their place on the Friday following exams, and following pub golf! It was far more sedate than the previous day, which for me ended at around 8.30 pm after our 1pm tee off. I fared better than others, in particular Pattycake Butler who woke in a field surrounded by sheep!



Merry Christmas to all back home. Hope you're enjoying pictures and stories of our time over here.

Exams are over, let's play golf!

11.30am. The end of our 1st set of Oxford exams. The relief is palpable but there is also a certain sense of forlornness - what to do now??

Answer - play golf. Not just any golf - PUB GOLF!

The course (in effect a pub crawl around East Oxford) had been designed by Andy Jury and he and I then determined par for each course (ranging from Guiness, alcopops, red wine etc drunk in a certain amount of sips, aka shots).

There was some early congestion on the leaderboard but at the end of the tournament the pre-tournament favourites 'The Torpedoes', resplendent in pink, reigned victorious with 3 of their fourball team going around in a perfect round of 9. Their remaining member took a two on the par 4, double jack & coke 8th hole.

Well done to organisers and victors alike!

A sedate start to the round - the 1st hole at the Cape of Good Hope

Nerves before tee-off

My 4-ball - Chris, AJ and Andy

The Torpedoes - tournament victors (James, Jesse, Tom & Pattycake)

Tom & Jesse toward the end of their round

The course was full of hazards!

The gallery heading up the 4th fairway (outside our house)

Exams.........(and celebrations)!!!

I had a week of exam preparation following our final classes during which I tried as much as possible to assimiliate the learnings of the past term. To break up the study, I ventured to Cambridge on the Tuesday of 9th week to watch the Greyhounds win their varsity clash against Cambridge LX XV. It was a close fought encounter but we came from behind to snatch an impressive victory at their home ground, Grange road. Unfortunately, given my hernia operation two weeks previous, I was not available for selection which I had hoped would have been the case.

The following evening myself and two classmates, Jesse Moore (Canada) and Anoop Swaminath (USA) had dinner with my college Master, Giles Henderson, to discuss a possible consulting project for an Indian businessman based in Dubai who wants to establish a fund to help villages that exist below the poverty line in developing countries. It was thoroughly interesting to learn about activities in the developing world as Jesse and Anoop recounted their experiences working for CARE and The World Bank respectively. We hope to learn more in January as to whether this project might take place in India over the summer.

As for exams, I can only say that I was very happy when they had ended! It was quite unique as you are required to wear sub-fusc during exams (see images below) and it is tradition to wear a flower in your buttonhole for each exam (white for your first indicating you're a first timer, red in the last as you've been bloodied and pink in the intervening days)!

6 exams in 4 days was no easy feat, particularly as we had learned quite a lot over the course of the term. Nonetheless, I was pleased with each of the exams and am quietly confident of having done as well as I had hoped on all but Financial Reporting, which was widely viewed as being deceptively difficult (and not entirely representative of what we were told we would be examined on)!

After our exams, we decided to let our hair down, consuming champagne, beers etc immediately after the exams as the following pics illustrate.

Tom, Jesse & John celebrate the end of exams

Tom, John & I after the last exam

The Mo brigade - AJ, me, Matt, Jesse & Allan

A collection of very happy (and relieved) classmates

The Kenyans enjoying Tusker beer!

Ava's first few weeks

Finally an entry from me, Claudia. Well Ava is nearly 3 weeks old and is an absolute angel. She has had many visitors, lots of presents, cards and happy wishes, and she is generally settling into life marvellously. She has had a 2 week visit from her Gran (my mum, Sheila) which was fabulous. Lots of cuddles, help around the house and great company and advice have made the first few weeks really lovely. Uncles James & Tim have also been to stay and deliver lots of teddy bears & pressies to their first niece. We are now on our own again until Andrew finishes his exams at the end of this week, when he will be able to take on more Dad duties.


Christmas is fast approaching with Ava's other Grandma Mary coming from Sydney, along with Tim. Not sure that Ava will know what Christmas is all about - but we will certainly enjoy spoiling her on her 1st Christmas.

Week 8 update

It's now the end of Michaelmas term (Wk 8) and we have one week off before exams commence. Given that they will be the first exams that I have sat since 1997, I am somewhat apprehensive. Nonetheless, despite the demands of study and the obvious joy of Ava's arrival, since my last post, I managed to fit in some other extracurricular pursuits:

- I played for the Greyhounds (Oxford Uni 2nd XV) against Exeter Uni and was warmly congratulated by the coach afterwards for my game. Unfortunately I proceeded to try and jump a fence to get home quickly to save time and ended up spending 4 hours in the emergency department to have 20 stitches inserted into the palm of my right hand;
- Claudia and I attended the Pembroke black tie MCR dinner (held once every term). It was a great evening which started with pre-dinner drinks in a lovely formal hall, proceeded to a 3-course dinner and then rounded out the evening at the Living room into the wee hours. It was yet another quintessential Oxford experience;


Pre-dinner drinks in Broadgates Hall

Pre-dinner drinks with Jenny, Caio, John and Simon

At dinner with John Stanton

A view of the Dining Hall from the rear

Tass Hongskrai enjoying wine with Caio Buzzolini


Faryal Sadiq and Ashton Lee enjoying their evening

- I managed to pre-empt Ava's birth with my own medical crisis and was duly admitted to emergency and operated on as I had an umbilical hernia! The day afterwards, Claudia was admitted to hospital and Ava was born;

- Attended the business school's SAS distinguished speaker's series and was interested to learn of the Private Equity sector from Damon Buffini, Managing Director of Permira Private Equity which was extremely interesting given that I only had assumptions as to what PE firms did (buy underperforming companies, change management, institute structural changes and sell at a profit). Although my assumption was quite simplistic, the nature of the business, albeit far more complex, is not too dissimilar in terms of its profit generating modus operandi;

- Attending my 1st Bacchus (Oxford Wine Society wine tasting). I had attended a wine tasting course earlier this term which was highly informative and we had tasted some great wines. On this occasion we tasted Firesteed wines and those of Fess Parker. All of the wines that we tastes were Pinot Noir but it was amazing to see the differences between the two producers - Firesteed from Washington State (Nth West USA) and Fess Parker from California. We were given the opportunity to taste their standard gear as well as their premium ranges (selling at up to £50 per bottle) and I can tell you it was some great tasting wine, particularly the Firesteed Citation Pinot Noir which was my pick of the night;

- Claudia went into labour on the day of Silican Valley comes to Oxford, which is when high profile speakers from companies such as Google, Facebook, Linkedin etc come and run workshops and plenary sessions, so unfortunately I was unable to attend but from all accounts it was a great day;

- The School and my College were fantastically supportive during the week following Ava's birth. Fortunately, I was able to attend two dinners at the college in the two weeks following her birth to thank personally my college advisor and the college master. The first of these dinners was with Owen Darbishire, a lecturer in Management studies who also doubles as my college advisor. Each student is afforded the opportunity once a year (or more if they're lucky) to dine with faculty at the high table in the Dining Hall. What does this entail you might ask? Firstly, sherry in Broadgates Hall followed by a 3-course meal at the high table (whilst everyone else has one course), accompanied by generally very good wines (I noticed a Houghton Cabernet Sauvignon 1996) and then adjourning after dessert to the Senior Common room and engaging in an Oxford tradition of 3 rounds of port, madeira or sticky wine with dried apricots and nuts and also a mandatory inhaling of snuff. It really was one of those occasions when you pinch yourself, particularly as I was seated with Biologists, Zoologists and a couple of PHD students! The second of these dinners I plan to descrive separately as it relates to a potential summer consulting project that I may embark on;

Our little principessa

At 12.02 am last Tuesday (the 21st of November) our daughter, Ava Sophia McInerney, was born. It wasn't the easiest of entrances to the world but after some fantastic medical care at the JR Radcliffe hospital
here in Oxford, she is now home, safe & sound.

She weighed 6lbs and has a healthy head of hair! Claud is also doing well and both of the girls came home last Friday. Ava is now sleeping well, feeding vigorously and is simply a joy to be around!!



Finn seems nonplussed by his new sibling but so far has not minded the new company or expressed any signs of jealousy which is comforting. We had countless congratulations and presents from all over the world, all of which we are thankful and grateful for.

I hope to post more pictures as she grows and certainly will once Grandma Sheils arrives and is settled in for her 2-week stay.