Weekend Round Up

As your computer is out of comission, I am giving you a blog weekend round up!



First of all though, here are the new summer work shoes (to wear with trousers) - which are so damned ugly, they are almost cool. (But not quite.) They are not very executive but once they are broken in, they should be very comfortable and the most important thing is that I can walk to/from work in them without being crippled.

Now I almost photographed these wearing my red socks but I didn't want you to fall backwards off your chair and leave the room screaming - your colleagues might think that I am subjecting you to cruel and unusual punishment!


Otherwise, here are my individual match results for you to scrutinise and the full match results are in their usual place over on my Captain's blog. (It is almost up to date.) I think that you can click to enlarge them:

Then, of course, the fateful BBQ at K & I's where a few glasses of wine mixed explosively with something I ate yesterday that violently disagreed with me and caused me to spend a fair amount of the night plus some of this morning locked in a toilet cubicle in the ablution block on my campsite, just feeling like I wanted to die. A feeling made worse by my hangover.

Here I think that I is using the BBQ charcoal bag as a heat indicator i.e. when the bag goes up in flames, the BBQ is ready to cook on:

Like I said earlier, when I went to the supermarket, there was not even a bag of salad left. Anything that could be cooked on a BBQ, or served on the side, had gone. It was still 25 degrees at 7pm and trust me, the whole of the South of Britain was consumed with our Summer obsession of burning food badly over charcoal - I suspect that the hole in the ozone layer increased significantly last night.

So today has not been very productive. I am missing you too, so I have been feeling very sorry for myself. This is why I made chilli cornbread this afternoon, for the first time ever. It tasted right (albeit not as good as yours) and the 4 chillis (2 green and 2 red) that I chopped into it are helping me to prove to myself that I have the consitution of an ox - at least, my tummy is holding up so far. Does it look okay to you?

70th Birthday Gathering

Last weekend, as you know, I packed myself off to Hereford for my stepfather's 70th Birthday gathering.

It was actually quite a small gathering of 12 consisting of my parents, brothers and sisters (full, halves and steps), some of whom brought their partners, plus one cousin and my nephew.

You know, it went well, as family events go - I am not sure whether this can be attributed to the fact that we are all grown up now or the fact that my mother phoned everyone ahead of time and promised to dispatch us forcibly to the moon (via the end of her foot) if there was any bad behaviour.

We almost all managed it too. Phew.








So here is my stepfather - a portrait of the artist on his 70th birthday - as he is the oldest student of his local art college where he is doing an Art Foundation course.

Interestingly, he has some of his new work up around the house and they are very different to the style of work that he used to produce - I think that the course he is doing has really given him the chance to explore new things.

He is holding the watch that we all clubbed together to give him. It is an English case, swiss action, half hunter, key wound pocket watch and the case is hall marked Birmingham 1886 - he loves it. Phew.

I will edit this to post the link to the photos when I have finished uploading them all to Flickr. Some faces you will recognise, others you have yet to meet (no doubt you will in due course)!

Cozy Bedroom

The blinds were delivered from the factory today! I could not wait to install them in the bedroom so I left the office early under the cover of heavy snowfall. I explained to my department that they should leave early because I did not want to take responsibility for what would happen to them on their commute in a heavy Vancouver snowfall.

The blinds are up! The temperature in the room went up 2 dregrees as soon as the last one was hung. Two weeks ago, G & I had a quick discussion via SMS, 8 time zones apart, on the different alternatives for this window. In the end we decided on a combination of blinds, and fabric drapes.

I had the option of purchasing vinyl and saving $150 or so. I opted for the real wood, and G went with me on it. The basis of my decision was that for the extra few dollars, I could eliminate some plastic in my life, and add real warmth to the room. If we get a few extra hours of sleep I think it's worth the money.

G, please note the copy of 'History of the Anglo-Saxons'. If you can't sleep, I would recommend thumbing through this book. I defy any human to read more than 6 consecutive pages without passing out. On a more practical note, we have a 1/2 cord of dry firewood set to be delivered on Friday morning. If the weather in Vancouver remains in it's current state, we will use every sliver.

West Shore Camp Photos

London calling!

Okay, if you take a quick look at the links on the right you will find a link to the West Shore Camp photosets on Flickr. I have uploaded some of my recent photographs for you to enjoy...

...I hope that you like them and that you will participate by uploading some of your own!