The Winning window in the 2005 Best Dressed window competition in Odiham

The Robots are taking over!

The Guns are back! With reinforcements! As well as new stocks of the ever popular Electric Shock Guns, we now stock Shocking Tanks! Being the dedicated professionals that we are we felt we ought to test them out before we offered them for sale to our customers.

In a thinly veiled excuse to play with toys we tested them out on our friends when we had a few drinks to help Garrett celebrate his birthday. He even bought his new friend Candroid along to join in. So fuelled by a few bottles of Red Wine and a glass or two of Jack Daniels we went to war.

The remote controlled tanks are great fun, boys (and girls) toys at their best! Each control unit is fitted with electric shock sensors and a direct hit from your opponent with give you quite a jolt, not enough to hurt (much) but's it's not pleasant and encourages you to learn evasive moves very quickly!

(If you fancy a set of your own, then please take a trip to our little online shop)

Sorry to have to say that once again we have sold all our stocks of these great toys, however we will be restocking very soon and will let you know as soon as they are back again

Friday the 14th of October saw the return of the annual Oktoberfest at RAF Odiham. 81 Red Balloons were asked to provide the decorations for the second year running, and we were invited along to the evening to join in the celebrations. We decorated the Oktoberfest last year, using giant Beer Glass Supershape balloons, which were so popular with the Sgts. mess that they asked us to do the same again, albeit we added a little twist and made some floor standing bunches as well, using the foil beer mugs and latex balloons, in Bavarian colours, of course.

The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810 in honour of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. Originally the festivities began on October 12th and ended on October 17th, with a horse race. The festival was repeated the following year and in later years it was prolonged and moved into September, which had better weather conditions. As the September nights were warmer the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents and stroll over the fields for longer without feeling chilly.

RAF Odiham, as always, hosted a great party, the beer, wine, and Schnapps flowed freely all evening, and one or two of us indulged a little too much (oops!). As well as the ever-present disco, The Munich Bierkeller Men added to the authenticity and provided lots of table dancing, beer swigging entertainment and a great night was had by all.

We’d like to thank RAF Odiham for asking us to do the décor once again, and for the invites to the party, and we promise not to drink quite so much schnapps if we ever get invited again!

During the recent building work, and redecoration of the newest addition to Odihams selection of restaurants - 'St John' one of the builders celebrated his birthday. His colleagues were kind enough to cling film him to a lamppost and cover him in shaving foam - he was so pleased! So in the spirit of the occasion we decided to give him an extra present, a happy birthday balloon. It added the perfect finishing touch to his afternoon. Although he didn't seem quite so happy when they all went back to work and left him there!

St John has been open for several months now and comes highly recommended, the Number 81 household attended their opening night en mass and the food, and wine was fantastic. The menu changes regularly and at the time of writing this bolg post they were offering mouth-watering dishes such as pan fried scallops with pea puree and chive beurre blanc for starters, and how about Rump of lamb with boulangere potatoe, confit garlic and a madeira jus for your main followed by a dessert to die for such as Mascarpone and vanilla Panna Cotta with red fruit or the decadent St John chocolate fondant and pistachio cream. Well worth a visit if you're in the Odiham area. Fine Dining at it's best :)