A Year in Pictures: Week 51

Saturday 17 December


We went with Jon's family to see the pantomime in Ipswich today, which was excellent. There were 10 performers and they did EVERYTHING - when they weren't speaking or singing they were playing all the instruments, including drums, keyboards, saxophones, guitars, recorders, trumpets, plus all the sound effects to go along with the dialogue. Very funny, very professional, a great evening.


Sunday 18 December


This year's Christmas card. This was the best photo out of approximately 250, over three sessions... I had loads where she was smiling and looking away from me, and loads where she was looking straight at me but not smiling. I kept thinking I could get a better shot but in the end I went for this one, which was taken in the first session we did :).


Monday 19 December


This picture and the next two are not authentic (there's a surprise - I wonder how many of my 'Year in Pictures' photos were actually taken on the day I've posted them to??) as Daisy was with Rob until Wednesday and I started having a second wave of being poorly so I can't even post pictures of what I did in Daisy's absence. Unless you want to see a photo of my view of the TV from the sofa. Instead, here are a couple of other photos I took during the reindeer shoots...


Tuesday 20 December


This was after the first reindeer session. She didn't seem inclined to move once I'd got her dressed so I took the opportunity to get a few more shots.


Wednesday 21 December


This was probably my second choice photo after the one I used for the Christmas card. She's smiling AND looking at the camera, but in the end I opted for a full body shot of her, as opposed to having half of her behind an advent calendar.


Thursday 22 December


Someone forgot to brush her hair again last night ;).


Friday 23 December


Daisy loves these ear muffs - but she won't wear them. She happily wanders round with them 'on' her head but as soon as I try and put them over her ears she starts crying... :).

Anyone for Tennis?

I happened to be in the right place at the right time last Sunday evening, and got invited to go to the middle Saturday of Wimbledon yesterday with Susie. Our colleague Dave has been stewarding there for years and had a couple of ground tickets to give away.

Getting there and back was easy: the regular Southampton to London train goes through Wimbledon station, although it doesn't stop, but for the tennis fortnight they add Wimbledon as a stop so we could get off there and walk to the ground without having to go into London and out again.

Ground tickets allow you to go anywhere in the ground and to find an available seat on any of the 17 or so courts except Centre Court, Court One and Court Two; you have to pay extra for allocated seats in those courts. We soon found out that for the most part, anyone you've heard of will be playing on those three courts :), but we had a wander round to get our bearings then took Dave's advice and sat in the first couple of spare seats we could find and watched whatever happened to be on that court. Turns out it was showing junior matches (hence we could get a seat) but we watched some really great tennis, particularly from Oliver Golding, a British 16-year-old who knocked out his American opponent with ease and went on to get as far as the semi-finals - will be keeping an eye on him for the future.

After we'd been watching that court for a couple of hours - in the middle of the day, and it was really hot, so our legs were sticking to the plastic chairs - we left to go and find some shade for a while, and we found it next to the ice cream stand, so we thought it would be rude not to buy one ;). We sat on the hill in front of the big screen and ate our ice creams, but we left to find another court as soon as we'd finished, for two reasons: firstly, we thought it was silly to watch Nadal on a TV screen when we could have stayed at home and done that; and secondly, the hill was really uncomfortable! It looks like a gentle slope with some flat areas when you see it on TV, but in reality anything that isn't flat slopes at a 40 degree angle. The place was packed and the only place we found to sit was on one of the slopes - we had to put our bags underneath our bums to stop ourselves from sliding down the hill ;). So we went off and stood in a queue to get on the court that was showing Paul-Henri Mathieu play Thiemo de Bakker, the guy who had knocked out John Isner in the previous round, Isner having played that match against Nicolas Mahut before that. The courts that don't have reserved seating work on a first come, first served basis, and that seat is yours until you leave it. We noticed that the match was at the tie-break stage in the second set and at the end of the set, enough people left to enable us to get on the court. We watched a couple of sets of that (it went to 5 sets in the end), but then we left to meet Dave when he went on his break. He got us strawberries and cream and cups of tea in the stewards' private lounge :).


If anyone with a ticket for one of the three main courts leaves before the end of the day, they can choose to give their ticket in and it will be re-sold for £5 and the money given to charity. We went to look at the resales queue just after 17:00 but it was massive: Andy Murray was playing on Centre Court that evening, and we concluded that because of that, not many people were likely to leave early, and even if they did there were hundreds of people already in the queue waiting to get their hands on the tickets. We decided that rather than spend the next two hours standing in line with no guarantee that we'd get tickets to Centre Court, we would take Dave's advice and find him at his post on gate 13 of Number One Court, where he sneaked us in :). There were plenty of spare seats - the resales thing only works up to the point where people who are leaving early can be bothered to hand in their tickets. If they don't, the resales team doesn't know that there are empty seats that could be filled by people waiting. We had to move seats twice because people turned up with valid tickets for the seats we were in, but we had no problem finding other empty seats, and ended up spending a couple of hours on that court as well, watching Sam Querrey beat Xavier Malisse (Querrey was then knocked out by Murray in the next round).


We had an incredible day: the atmosphere was amazing, and we were both astounded at the professionalism of all the ball boys and girls, line judges, umpires etc. We made a quick stop at the gift shop on the way out to buy ridiculously overpriced keyrings as souvenirs of our visit, walked back to the station and were home by 22:00. Must do it again sometime :).

Champagne and Chrysanthemums

We got invited to go to the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday. Rob didn't want to go so I took Clare, who enjoyed it a lot better than Rob would have ;).


We only had evening tickets so we couldn't get in before 17:30, but it turned out to be just the right amount of time to spend there for a couple of people who like flowers enough, but not too much. It took us about 2 hours to walk round the entire site and look at all the show gardens - much less time than it would have taken if we were there in the middle of the day, as the crowds had thinned considerably by the time we arrived - then we went to a reception at the Cancer Research UK Garden (who we'd got the invitation from). We didn't take any pictures of that garden as it was full of people by the time we got there, but it won a Gold Award and you can see pictures here.

Below are a couple of the other gardens:

Lights and Colours of the Alps

The Global Stone Bee Friendly Plants Garden

The Waterless Water Garden (I'm not making these names up, I promise)

The Ace of Diamonds Garden.
This garden was in the media a lot because it featured a ridiculously large and expensive diamond, and whilst it wasn't on display all the time, when it was there were security guards all over the place. When we got there, there were no security guards, so I guess we just had to make do with the plastic replica in the middle of the picture...

And finally, an indication of the lengths to which some people will go to indulge their gardening obsession...

A lovely way to spend an evening. I'm not sure I would pay to go in future, but if you're really into gardening I can see the attraction :).

Ingredients: Cake Mix, Dowel Rods, Duct Tape...

We were having dinner with Ben & Jill, Andy & Cathy sometime last year, discussing Andy & Cathy's wedding, which was yesterday. Before I go on to the main topic of this blog post, I'll just stop and say that the wedding was wonderful, Cathy looked beautiful and apart from Rob nearly making someone on our table seriously ill with his talk of exactly how laser eye surgery is performed, we had a fabulous time.

During that dinner last year, Ben mentioned the concept of a groom's cake, which is a tradition we don't have over here. Suffice to say that within 90 seconds, Rob and Ben had taken it upon themselves to provide Andy with such a cake.

Every so often, Rob would think of a new idea for the cake. Things like a carrot chocolate vanilla sponge cake, that sort of idea. While we were on holiday in March we discussed the possibility of them making a cake in the shape of a computer keyboard, and by the time we got back from holiday Rob was keen to get practising.

Turns out Ben & Jill were having similar discussions, and they even got as far as arranging for Ben pick up boxes and boxes of cake mix, frosting mix, food colouring and flavouring on one of his trips to the States. Ultimately the decision was taken to make a cake in the shape of a Zoom lollipop, which looks like this:


Once Cathy, who was making her own wedding cake (she also made our cake last year), found out that the boys were serious about making a groom's cake, she told them that she wouldn't bake a sponge cake as well as a fruit cake. Which meant that if anyone didn't like fruit cake, the groom's cake was the only alternative. Which meant that it actually had to taste good.

Here's a shot of the boys in action on practice day:


The practice session went well, in that it didn't all work but decisions were then made on how to modify the plan so that it would all come together for the real thing. And it did! Well, almost:


OK, so it's a little wonky, but it wouldn't be recognisable as the boys' handiwork if it were perfect; this was the first cake either of them had made outside of Home Economics class at school, after all.

Not only is each layer the right colour, but they were also flavoured accordingly: strawberry for the red layer, lemon for the yellow and lime for the green. Although the lime one was very strong, despite the fact that Ben put exactly the same amount of flavouring in than he had for the lemon and strawberry ones. In the end they decided to ask the kitchen not to serve the lime layer for fear of damaging people's tastebuds.

Jill was concerned about the top layers sinking into the bottom layers, so I made a quick dash to the shops on the way round to their place to buy cake bases and dowel rod. And as I couldn't find our hacksaw and didn't know if Ben & Jill owned one, I bought one of those as well, to cut the dowel to length. What kind of cake necessitates the purchasing of a hacksaw??? I could only find large cake bases so we had to cut them down to size, and in doing that we exposed the compressed cardboard on two sides of the base, so we covered the exposed edges with duct tape. Because no cake is complete without adding a couple of lengths of duct tape.

It was all a bit of a laugh (although I won't deny that the boys did start feeling the pressure a little), and in the end it actually tasted really good. What's next, boys?

New York: Friday

I love New York. I woke up Friday morning, thankfully not too early as is usually the case the first morning after I've flown west, and felt strangely surreal about meeting famous people last night. I like to think that people are just people and I don't get fazed by celebrity, but I think that's only because I've never met anyone quite so famous before. Actually the whole experience was a bit surreal - what do you say to people you think you already know in some way? You can't exactly ask them 'So, what do you do?' and they aren't interested in what you do (although I did discuss Manchester and the North West with Daniel Craig, as he's from that area too). Still, an interesting, if a little bizarre, experience.

Moving on. We got up, dressed and went to a deli round the corner for breakfast, then headed off to the Empire State Building for the now-compulsory bird's-eye view of the city. The weather was fantastic for that time of year: bright and not too cold at all. We got the usual shots from the top of the Empire State, and this time we paid to go to the 102nd floor, which quite honestly was not worth the money. It was much quieter, but it was inside so all our pictures were taken from the other side of the glass and only gave you exactly the same view as the 86th floor, albeit you could spend as long as you liked gazing into the distance as there weren't hordes of people waiting to stand in your spot.

We got the subway up to 57th & 7th and had lunch at Carnegie's deli, opposite Carnegie Hall. They are famous for their portion sizes, and in hindsight it possibly wasn't the best place to eat considering we didn't want to over-indulge too much this weekend. But it was definitely an experience! Rob ordered a turkey, bacon & swiss sandwich and got this:


He made a valiant attempt at it but really didn't come even close to finishing it. I ordered a hot bacon & egg roll and I finished it, but it was less than half the size of Rob's...

After lunch, we went for a walk through Central Park, and it was perfect weather for it. I took a couple of shots:




We went for an early meal at Tao on 58th Street. We'd eaten here when we came in 2005, and we ate at Tao Las Vegas in March, but this time we weren't so impressed. The food was very nice, in fact I had shabu shabu for the first time since Kyoto in June, but the place was just a little too pretentious. OK, very pretentious. But at least we lowered the tone a bit. A lot.

We deliberately booked an early meal as past experience tells me the second evening is when I'm at my tiredest (although maybe it just has to do with sitting still), so we went back to the hotel and crashed out afterwards.

You Don't Fancy Us, Do You Miss?*

After some shopping on Oxford Street for a Christmas present for Jen, and a thoroughly unimpressive lunch at the cafe in John Lewis, we headed over to the Victoria Palace Theatre for the matinee performance of Billy Elliot: The Musical.

This is a show that Jen and I have overlooked in the past because there was always something else that we wanted to see more. Mistake - this musical should be at or near the top of any theatre-goer's list; it's incredible. Being a show about dancing, the choreography is amazing, but what makes it amazing is that it's all done by a 10-year-old boy. It obviously wouldn't be nearly so impressive if it were a performance of some ballet troupe or other.

The language was unbelievably blue, although we knew to expect that. As it's set in the North East of England, and being a North-Easterner myself, it made me strangely proud of my roots - something I don't say all that often.

This show has everything. I laughed, I cried (a lot), I was blown away by the choreography. I just wish I hadn't waited so long to see it.

* The title is a line from the show - after Mrs Wilkinson suggests that Billy audition for the Royal Ballet School and tells him she will give him free, private coaching. Brilliant.

It's Show Time...

Jen and I just went on another of our crazy 3-West-End-shows-in-a-weekend-plus-shopping-and-eating-too weekends. We arranged it fairly recently, and having just watched this video for about the thousandth time since seeing the show last year, I stipulated that one of the shows had to be Jersey Boys, not only because I was desperate to see it again, but because I knew Jen would love it too.

After an initial confusing few minutes before we realised there were 2 H&M stores at Oxford Circus, our meeting point, we finally found each other and just had time to drop Jen's bags off at the hotel before heading over to the Prince Edward Theatre.

I would live in the dress circle of the theatre if I could. I love shows so much that I don't think I'll ever tire of them. And while I wish Rob liked them more, as long as he doesn't force me to go and see horror films with him I won't force him to see musicals, plus I've always got a willing companion in Jen.

I've written about this show before so I won't repeat myself again, but suffice to say that it didn't disappoint. Again, the language was a bit blue, but it certainly wasn't the worst we would hear this weekend, and all four principals were fantastic. Actually, one was a little off, but it didn't detract too much. What did annoy us slightly was the woman sitting next to Jen, who clearly thought people had paid good money to hear her sing. Despite that, we both enjoyed ourselves immensely, and after a lovely post-show Italian meal in the restaurant next-door to the theatre, we headed back to our hotel.

Nawlins

We arrived in New Orleans on Monday afternoon and went straight to the gym to blow away the travel cobwebs - and also because we hadn't been on Sunday, like we said we would :). Between Monday evening and Thursday evening I didn't see Rob a whole lot as he had conference stuff to do and people to see, but I spent the week hanging out with Keri, Annabelle and Corgan, which was very cool.

Tuesday we went to Audubon Zoo, which was a trolley ride away from our hotel downtown, then we had a walk through the Garden District on the way back to the hotel. On Wednesday we had a walk around the French Quarter and got roped into taking a horse & carriage ride round the area, which we hadn't planned on doing, but it was great. Thursday we visited the Louisiana Children's Museum then walked back towards the French Quarter, stopping at Cafe du Monde for some beignets. Then on Thursday evening all the SpringSource people who hadn't already left to go home went out for a meal on Bourbon Street. Afterwards I went with a few of the guys to the bar in our hotel, but left after one drink just after midnight, when I heard they were planning to stay out for a while. Rob didn't get in until 05:00, which pretty much put paid to us doing anything on the Friday as he went straight back to bed after breakfast at IHOP, so I went to New Orleans City Park with Keri, Keith and the kids. On Saturday after the Donalds left, Ben, Rob and I had a look around the French Quarter (me for the third or fourth time; them for the first) then we left Sunday to come home, arriving this morning. Actually, I came home; Rob went straight from T5 to T2 at Heathrow to get on a plane to Prague for another conference...

New Orleans is an interesting place. Our horse & carriage tour guide told us that the French Quarter didn't actually get damaged all that much during Katrina - everywhere up to about 12ft above sea level was flooded, but the French Quarter is 14ft above and was barely touched. My first reaction to that was 'Great!' At least the main historial and tourist area wasn't badly affected. But that then led me to ask 'So what's its excuse for looking so shabby?' Sure, it's old (well, by American standards it's old), and I guess that brings with it a certain amount of charm, but I think the French Quarter in particular has crossed the line from 'charming' into 'a bit tired'. We didn't find a whole lot of jazz in New Orleans. What we did find a lot of were bars and strip joints. Which I'm sure will interest some people, but me not so much.

All in all, a worthwhile trip to visit a new city; glad I've seen it, the weather (barring one afternoon and evening when there was a storm) was much nicer than at home, and some areas - the Garden District and Audubon Park in particular - are beautiful, but it's no New York.

I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few: -

At the Zoo

French Quarter

St Louis Cathedral

Corgan making bubbles at the Children's Museum

Cool Statue/Monument in Woldenberg Park

Steamboat (obviously)

Capital City

This week it's the fifth annual SpringOne conference, but this year it's in New Orleans in October rather than Florida in December. I didn't go last year - a combination of no holiday entitlement left and no money, plus the fact that I'd been for the previous three years - but with the change of location this year, I decided to go. We knew there was no way we could get a direct flight there from the UK, so we took the opportunity to do something we've been talking about for years - at least, since we started watching the West Wing - and spent the weekend in Washington DC. Turns out there was a flaw in our plan though, as none of the direct flights from DC to New Orleans was with anyone who partnered with our trans-Atlantic BA flight, so we ended up connecting in Dallas, but it was pretty painless, as connections go.


It was pouring down when we got to DC on Friday afternoon. In fact, just walking 5 or 6 blocks from a restaurant back to our hotel was enough to soak Rob's shoes and socks right through, so he resolved to find a pair of slightly more waterproof shoes on Saturday morning. In true man-on-a-shopping-mission style, he walked into the men's shoes department of Macy's, picked up the first pair he saw, tried them on, liked them and bought them. And put them on straight away, leaving his rain-soaked shoes at the store. He remarked that these new shoes were great because they struck a balance between smart and casual - they didn't look out of place with jeans but they were equally good with smart trousers, so he would probably wear them next week at the conference, instead of wearing the shoes I had packed for him. That was when I remembered I had forgotten to pack his more formal shoes…


Weather-wise, Saturday was pretty much a repeat of Friday. After Macy's, we got the Metro over to Capitol South and had a look around the Library of Congress, then we walked across the road to the Capitol Building and did the free tour. We walked up the Mall towards the Washington Monument but it started raining really heavily so we ducked into the Air & Space Museum to escape the rain for a while. Turned out everyone else had the same idea - it was packed. So we got the Metro up to a micro-brewery Rob had found and had a late lunch. We were pretty wet and cold by then - we had brought waterproof jackets with hoods etc, but once my jeans were wet through and my legs got cold I started feeling a bit fed up. Plus we were both quite jet-lagged so we made our way back to the hotel via the White House, got in our pyjamas, watched a movie, ordered milk & cookies from room service and went to bed at 9pm. Bliss.


Sunday was colder than Saturday, but it was dry, which made for a much better sightseeing experience. We started out at the Jefferson Memorial and walked to the Lincoln Memorial via the Washington Monument and World War II Memorial, then we walked across the bridge and into Arlington Cemetery. We got to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier just in time to watch the changing of the guard ceremony, and we also saw the Kennedy graves. Then we walked up to the Iwo Jima Memorial, jumped on the Metro at Rosslyn (remarking that we hadn't realised that the place where President Bartlet got shot was quite so close to Washington) and rode back to our hotel.


I loved the Jefferson Memorial. It was far more beautiful - and less crowded - than the Lincoln Memorial. I really liked Washington generally: it was quite European in its feel; it reminded me of somewhere like the Ringstrasse in Vienna. Well worth a visit.

Next stop: NOLA.

The Pines

Our staff team (minus Smithy who was ill) just got back from 2 nights away to discuss the various aspects of the Church's work. We went to a house called The Pines in Coldwaltham, which is a place in the middle of nowhere the other side of Chichester. I went for a run each morning, and yesterday morning the sunrise was beautiful, so I resolved to take my camera with me this morning. Trouble was, the sunrise was rubbish this morning. Typical.

Still, I took some pictures while I was on my run. I really must read that Lightroom book I borrowed off Andy and learn how to use it - these pictures are just slightly retouched using iPhoto.

I think this one would look nice if I could black-and-white out the background. It's pretty much there already.

It took me forever to get this shot. I had my zoom lens on the camera, and it took me so long to find the dragonfly through the viewfinder that by the time I did, it had flown off again. I'm really pleased I got this one in the end.

I Heart the Big Smoke

Rob & I spent this past weekend in London. We got the train up on Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel and went straight out to meet Brent, Joe & Tara for a meal. It was amazing - it called itself 'Healthy Meal' but there was so much of it; I'm not sure it was all that healthy to eat such a large amount of food in one sitting :).

Saturday was our shopping day. I mentioned at work last week that I was looking to buy a ring in London and one of my colleagues told me to call her friend, who owns a jewellery wholesale business. I spoke to him on Friday, and he gave me the name and address of a jewellery shop in London that they supply. When we got there on Saturday, they had been told to expect us, and they gave me about 17% off the price of the ring I chose, plus a bottle of champagne to take away. Result! It's not what you know...

I also got a watch and a handbag, and two separate opportunities to speak some Italian. Rob got a key ring. But it's a nice key ring.

In the evening we met up with Joe and Tara again and went to see The Shawshank Redemption at the Wyndhams Theatre. I don't know how faithfully the West End production sticks to the original play, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (or even how the film fares against the original, for that matter), but as a stand-alone piece it was pretty good. By no means as good as the film, but there's only so much you can do with a play about a prison escape when you can't actually portray the guy crawling through miles of sewage pipe. There were some noticeable differences between the play and the film, but as I said, taken in isolation it was a great way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday night.

On Sunday we got up early and walked down to HTB for the 09:30 service, then afterwards we made our way back towards the hotel, walking past Harrods just as it was opening :). We had a quick browse around before going back to the hotel to check out and get the train home.

The more I go, the more I love London. I couldn't live there, but it's great for a few days.

So That's What That Thing Does...

Rob bought me an SLR camera over 2 years ago, just before we moved down here, and I have never used it out of Automatic mode. Until today...

We both went to a 'Getting to Know Your Digital SLR' course at Portsmouth Dockyard today, and learned the basics like setting aperture, checking shutter speed, adjusting white balance and ISO settings, the rule of thirds and hotspots. I learned about depth of field and had fun taking pictures around the dockyard, experimenting with my camera's settings, getting blurry backgrounds, moving the focal point from one side of the picture to the other, etc. Here are a few un-retouched first attempts.

This is the Life

Yesterday we went up to Hook to meet up with Rob's best man and his girlfriend. We had a really lazy couple of days - it was bliss. Spa treatments on Saturday afternoon followed by a dip in the jacuzzi, afternoon tea (heavy on the cakes again, not so much with the sandwiches) then a walk round the grounds, a delicious evening meal and a celebratory bottle of champagne - which I felt compelled to drink most of, as the others weren't drinking, and I didn't want to see it go to waste…

Today we were back in the spa for an hour, then we had a lovely lunch before setting off back towards our respective homes. Good times.

Too Old For This

I went out for drinks last night with some friends. It was my first night out in Southampton since we moved here almost two years ago, and apart from Catherine's hen night in Manchester a few weeks ago, the first time I'd been clubbing for at least four years, probably longer.

The good news is that 14 and a half years after I became legally old enough to drink, I got asked for ID at one of the clubs. The bad news is I don't think I'm cut out for clubbing any more. Here's why: -

1. I was significantly older than most of the girls I saw. Not the men - there were lots of aging divorcees trying to remember how to look cool - but I felt a decade older than most of the girls. Which was probably true.

2. I only recognised about 10% of the songs we danced to. And the ones I did know, I remembered from the time they were originally released in the early 80s, before they got remixed into dance tracks in the last couple of years.

3. I kept getting more and more astounded by the length of the belts skirts the girls were wearing, and thinking things like "She'll catch her death of cold in that!"

4. Someone pinched my bum at one point and I was so mortified I nearly cried.

5. I asked "HOW MUCH???" when the barmaid told me what my round of drinks cost.

6. When the dancefloor is busy, I tend to keep my feet still and move from my knees. Well, I'm clearly too old for that these days - my knees are creaking something awful this morning.

7. I kept thinking to myself "Why does the music have to be so loud? And why aren't there more places to sit down???"

Ah, the joys of growing up.

She was there, but didn't come out and say Hello

Ben and Jill invited us to go to Windsor with them on Saturday. What a great place! I can't believe it's taken me more than 30 years to see one of the UK's most popular tourist attractions. Here's all of us (minus Mum, who's taking the picture) in front of the Round Tower.

Rather than tell you all about the things to see there (you can just go and see for yourself), I'll just go over a couple of memorable moments from the day: -

When we got there we had to go through airport-like security. This took longer than it should have because, as usual, it didn't occur to people to take their coats off until they got to the front of the queue, despite the fact that they'd seen everyone else taking their coats off. Maybe they thought the rules would change when it was their turn? More amazing, though, was the fact that the bloke in the party in front of us had a knife on him and he had to hand it over, have it labelled and be given the drill on how to pick it up when he left. Seriously? A knife? This was no swiss army knife either; what made him think it would be a good idea to bring it in the first place? This is Windsor, not South-East London...

We arrived just in time to watch the changing of the guard so we got ourselves a good vantage point, just behind an area of lawn that had 'keep off the grass' signs all over it, so we thought our view would be good. It was, but not as good as it would have been if all the people who ignored the signs hadn't stood in front of us. It was so funny watching people 'sneak' across the grass - they looked like they were in a pantomime, you know the types, crouching down and tip-toeing, kind of slow-motion creeping. Because that makes them look less conspicuous.

While we were looking round St George's Chapel, the custodians told us that the fire alarm was going off and we all had to evacuate. Mum, Jill, Ben and I were all closest to the door of the opposite side of the building from the entrance, and in the time it took us to walk round to the front - only a couple of minutes - they were letting people back in again. Turned out there's an area near the front of the chapel, as there is in a lot of churches, where you can light a candle if you want. Apparently there were so many candles lit that they set off the fire alarm. Had it never occurred to anyone before now that this might happen???

Liz was there - the flag was flying - but for some reason, she didn't find it necessary to come out and shake our hands. Maybe next time.

The Ceramics are Back...

Mine on the left, Jen's in the middle and Jill's on the right.

Nightingale to Papa Bear, come in, over...

Got back from New World Alive late last night - it didn't finish till this lunchtime but I wasn't on duty this morning so I got permission to leave after I finished my shift at 6pm yesterday. My parents are arriving on Monday night and I need to strip the paper off the walls in the hall, stairs and landing before they get here, so I need all the time I can get my hands on.

I had a great time volunteering as a steward - although the weather was lovely all week; I might have had a different experience if it had been pouring down. I worked the same venue each afternoon between 13:00 and 17:30, then Tuesday and Wednesday I worked the late night shift between 21:00 and midnight, and Thursday I was in the main marquee for the early evening session. I particularly enjoyed it when it was my turn to have the radio - Jonny took it upon himself to give everyone code names. His was Papa Bear, Stef was Black Bear, Becs was African Savannah, so I styled myself 'Nightingale'. Well, why not? It was my choice... :)

Seriously, though, I felt like I was making a difference - my contribution, however small and insignificant, was enabling the attendees to get the most out of their week. I also got to hear some fantastic speakers while I was there - the two sessions in my venue each afternoon were on medical ethics and social justice and I got to hear most of the content, which was really thought-provoking. I was particularly struck by two statements I heard on Thursday - in the medical ethics talk, we learned that the western world has made massive leaps forward in the area of stem cell research over the last 6 months, to the extent that the legislation surrounding stem cell research passed late last year is already as good as redundant, then in the social justice talk we heard that 900 million people in the world have no access to clean water, and 2.5 billion don't have a decent toilet. That's crazy - almost half the world has no sanitation, while the other half is making scientific strides quicker than its own legislature can keep up.

So, despite the fact that I was at least a decade older than most of the other stewards (almost all of them were recent graduates), and that I had to wear a fetching yellow jacket all week, I had a really good time and I'd definitely be up for stewarding again.

More Pottery Painting

Jen came down on Wednesday for a few days - always a pleasure, never a chore.

On Friday we toyed with the idea of spending the day in Bath before going to Shepton Mallet to see our cousin Alicia in a show - her performing arts school was putting on 'Old School Musical', a showcase of musicals over the last 100 years. In the end the weather was awful for the daytime on Friday and we didn't really relish the idea of walking round Bath in the pouring rain, so we stayed home and just went over to Shepton for the evening. Alicia was fantastic in her show - she sang a solo of 'Wash that Man' from South Pacific and did various other dances routines, mini-solos and a monologue. She looked like she was really enjoying herself - which could not be said for all the performers ;).

On Saturday Jill came with us to paint pottery at a place I found in Winchester. Just like last time, mine took far longer than anyone else's - in fact we got moved to a smaller table because we'd overrun on our time allotment and I still wasn't finished. I was concentrating so hard on getting it done I let my coffee go cold - twice. We all had a great time though - I'm really looking forward to seeing how they've turned out. Here I am doing the aforementioned concentrating.


Jen left this afternoon for two reasons: firstly, because she lives so darn far away and it will take her the best part of 5 hours to get home, and secondly, because I need time to get ready and pack for going to Wales tomorrow morning. I'm stewarding at New Word Alive and I'm really looking forward to it. As Rob says, I don't do anything during the week, so why not?

Can't Beat Jelly & Ice Cream

Ben, Jill, Andy and Cathy came over last night for Rob's birthday. We had finger food, jelly and ice cream (Ben couldn't get on board with the idea of J&I together in one bowl so just had ice cream), and a Spider-Man birthday cake - which we actually didn't cut into in the end because we had loads of other desserts, so Rob's going to take it to the office tomorrow.

In between all the food we played some games, including a very competitive round of 'move the chick peas from one bowl to another using only a straw' - not sure if it has a shorter name than that ;). Here are Rob and Jill in their first-round heat:


And here's the eventual winner:


The ongoing girls/boys battle ended as a draw on the night - 2 games won by the girls, and 2 by the boys - but the boys are still ahead overall at 3-2. Not for long though - the girls will storm ahead next time ;).