Out And About
In September me and a couple of mates went to Prague for a weekend. In general, we try to find a short-haul destination that’s got something interesting to see or do during the day and has great bars and nightlife in the evening.
Unfortunately for me, that weekend I was still getting over some random bug I had caught from the kids so I drugged myself up and persevered.
We got there flying Easyjet out of Gatwick and stayed in the Hotel Orion which I booked via laterooms.com. Turned out to be a great hotel choice. We had a huge two bedroom...
After we got back from Canada, we had a couple of days to repack our bags before we headed to Athens for a week of sailing around the local waters and a few days exploring Athens.
We flew there and back with Olympus Airlines which went well. No hassle and relatively inexpensive. But it was a late flight there so we stayed overnight at Peri's Hotel. It's a very small hotel but very convenient being close to the airport. As we expected for August, it was wiltingly hot.
Day 1
In the morning, we awoke to an angry sky as we discovered that...
As soon as school ended we went back to Victoria and Vancouver for a month to visit family and friends.
As usual, we start in Victoria where my parents live. We had discussed with the kids what they wanted to do some months before and had come to our goal of going on a "real" fishing trip. By real, it meant catching big wild fish from a boat.
After some research and calling a few friends, we eventually arranged to go out on an old 39' trawler owned by a friend of mine from high school. The boat was harboured in Port...
As a new family activity, I tried to get us all signed up for archery lessons only to discover we were too late. Every club I tried was booked up full. You gotta book this stuff well in advance.
So I went and bought our own bows for the kids and had a go in the backyard. Unfortunately, I discovered that the 20lb reflex bow with aluminum arrows I got for Robyn is pretty powerful. I feared for anyone walking in the field behind our house. Haven't been able to use it yet as I'm stuck on how to construct a cheap and...
In July, my cousin and nephew came to stay for a few days.
As usual, this is when you become a tourist in your own country and go to places you usually ignore. Camden Town is a favourite place to knock about so we spent an afternoon there. We also went to Windsor Castle which I haven't been to in ages. For a road trip, we drove out to Stonehenge and then on to Bath. While Stonehenge I had seen much too recently, it was nice having a walk around Bath. We went through the Roman Baths this time which I...
Didn't quite live up to the song lyrics...
Last May, we joined a big group of friends who do an annual get together in a caravan park on the Isle of Wight. We have sailed to the Isle of Wight before but never explored the island. The kids had a great time playing at the park and the beach despite it being still a bit chilly.
This group also likes a sing-a-long for evening entertainment so I brought my guitar out too. I haven't played much in years but it's motivating me to gather together all the songs I think I can play...
I took Kieran to see some racing up at Silverstone. The Renault World Series is free; you just need to apply for tickets on their website.
The event completely lacked big screen TVs so you don't really see much of the race. The displays around the track were ok but not particularly interested. The highlight was watching Nigel Mansell do doughnuts in his F1 car at the end.
Not a great event but it's free entertainment. We got trapped in the parking lot for a hour or two when we tried to leave. This must happen at any big event at Silverstone.
There's not a lot of bands for whom I would pay top dollar to see live in concert but Blur is one of them. I was dead pleased that I managed to get tickets. So on a nice warm sunny day in July, I took Jenny, Robyn and her friend so go see them. I would say this is the first big concert to which we have every taken Robyn. She and her friend left us and went up near the front of the stage where you tend to get squashed. It thoroughly worried Jenny but that's what Moms...
In June, a friend and I drove down to Le Mans in his Audi TT and camped at the Le Mans 24hr race. I've wanted to do this trip for a long time. It is rather bizarre to see a campground full of sports cars. The Friday night was one long party. It did get a bit frustrating when you want to finally get some sleep but the neighbours don't. Ear plugs are well worth it. Many people also stayed up all of Saturday night but it isn't nearly as raucous. The Stranglers played a concert that evening. ...
I have a friend who's into photography so we went on a little photo expedition to Turville. It's one of my favourite little villages in the area as you can do a nice walk up the hill to the old windmill for a lovely view of the valley. Best of all, the pub does some excellent grub. Tags: UK
If you have two children, I think you find you do a lot with the first child and then forget to do them again for the second child. Or at least do them again when your second child can remember it. At least that was what happened with us and Stonehenge. We realised that Kieran hadn't been there so we set out to correct that with a little field trip since it isn't that far away. And we went to Averbury too since that fits in well with the theme of ancient circles. The museum at Avebury is very...
Our last activity of 2008 was go the Mercedes World and the Brooklands Museum. Just want to recommend this as a really good day out with the kids. For Christmas, we gave Robyn a driving lesson at Mercedes World as a gift. There's no age restriction; you just need to be tall enough. While she was doing that, there's plenty of nice cars to check out. Brooklands was of course a very famous racetrack in its’ day. The museum feels a bit tired and underfunded but the exhibits are very good and you can even have a tour...
Last year I said I wouldn't take the kids back to the Notting Hill Carnival. Well, we went again. This time we went to the adult day on the Monday. We also had the use of an apartment in Notting Hill right in the middle of the carnival area. The friends who owned it had taken off to France to escape the noise.
It was much bette this year. We got there early in the afternoon so we didn't have to wait for the parade to start. The only problem was that there are often large gaps between floats. We just kept...
On my birthday, we went down to Earl’s Court to see the Doctor Who exhibition. I've seen every episode of the new series. The exhibit was much as you would expect. Lots of costumes and artifacts and an interesting display of how they make the aliens. A TARDIS and K9 was there. Of course, the best bit was the Cybermen and the Daleks. Walking back to the car, we found a real police box on the Earl’s Court high street.
Tags: UK, Family
Some weeks ago we took R* go karting with a couple of friends at Teamworks Karting in Reading. Karting is always good fun. Heck, I like any motorsport. This was the first time I had tried electric ones. It makes sense for an indoor track and at 10hp, they could do 40 mph down the back straight. Fast enough. However, they do lack the excitement of a revving noisy engine and the smell of petrol and fumes. It’s just not the same! Give me petrol any day.
The facilities at Teamworks were brand new and excellent. You can have up to...
Jenny and I went for one last diving trip before the end of our travels. We flew to Kota Kinabaloo, met up with Jenny’s brother who flew in from Singapore and the next day we all flew out together. Pulau Layang Layang or Swallow’s Reef lies 300km northeast off the coast of Sabah. It’s part of the Spratly Islands which are militarised for various territorial claims.
The plane we flew in was tiny. It held 15 passengers, two pilots and our bags and supplies piled up in the back. Just behind the pilot was a box marked as the life raft. It...
Went down to London yesterday with a friend to see the recording of a new Radio 4 comedy show at the Drill Hall. It’s a chat show format hosted by Marcus Brigstocke where he has a guest and gets them to try things they’ve never tried before. His guest was Tim Brooke-Taylor of Goodies fame.
It was free and very good fun. Tim had to order pizza, go to the gym, listen to rap music, eat sushi and buy porn. The pizza call and sushi were done live; the rest were things he had done previously. Buying porn was the funniest but...
We’ve been back home in the UK for two weeks now. After being away for seven months, it felt pretty strange coming home. Everything is very familiar but new at the same time. It’s very clean and green. Plenty of open spaces and it’s not crowded. It’s great going outside without the energy-sucking sweltering heat sapping your motivation. Skin isn’t sticky. Traffic is orderly. No ants or mossies. Of course, prices are outrageous.
Best of all, it sure is nice sleeping in one’s own bed and being surrounded by one’s own stuff.
We’ve got dozens of projects keeping us busy. I need...
We got back to Malaysia at the end of April and had one more month left before our flight home. We decided to take the kids on a beach holiday and I also wanted to fit in one more diving trip.
Pulau Redang is an archipelago of 9 islands 12 miles off the east coast of Malaysia. The entire place is a marine park and it’s famous locally for fine beaches, clear water and excellent snorkelling. It’s not really on the international tourist circuit and is mainly visited by local tourists. There’s around a dozen resorts catering to different budget levels. There’s no...
More catching up. After Tokyo, we spent a week in Beijing. I haven’t found Chinese cities to be very pleasant places and Beijing is fine example of an ugly city. It’s built on a flat featureless plain and smothered by air pollution. The worse air pollution I’ve ever seen. It’s hazy just two blocks away! Beijing has massive multilane roads clogged with traffic and is not at all pedestrian friendly.
Luckily, the buses and subway work well and taxi’s are plentiful and cheap. It wasn’t hard to get around. We dropped the idea of riding bikes as it would put K* in...
I love Tokyo. It's such a great hive of activity and concentrated Japanese culture. We took the kids around some of the main districts and mostly spent our days wandering and shopping.
Our first stop was Akihabara ("Electric Town") to check out all the electronics. The kids loved it. Lots of stuff but nothing particularly cheap. I picked up a new pair of earphones. I also had to witness this trend of waitresses dressed in french maid uniforms. Indeed it's true. There's even manga all about maid power! We also wandered around Shinjuku the same evening just enjoying all the neon.
We...
Got a lot of catching up to do. We left Kyoto by Shinkansen and spent one day on the Izu Peninsula before heading into Tokyo. The Izu Peninsula isn't far from Tokyo and is reknown for it's hot spa's. Plenty of things to do if you can spend the time there. The hope was to get a view of Mt Fuji but the weather simply didn't co-operate. Lots of rain and no views.We stayed at the Nanzanou in a small town called Izu Nagaoka. We had an absolutely fabulous room. It was the sakura suite. It was about thirty tatami...
Before flying to Japan, the kids considered China and Japan to be basically one in the same except that Japan had sushi. If they learned one thing on this trip, it’s that these two countries are vastly different.
Arriving in Osaka was a welcome relief from China. It’s so clean! It’s so orderly! People queue even to get on a subway train. In China, people don’t even let you get out of the elevator before they step in.
We caught the train to Kyoto and were thrilled to spot cherry tree’s in full blossom along the way. Our timing wasn’t so bad...
China was much as how I expected it from what reading I had done.
My biggest impression was the dreadful air pollution. I've never seen anything like it except maybe L.A. in summer. There's also the legendary booming economy that's evident around the cities. There's plenty of well off people and plenty of poor. All true.
Spitting? Yep. Smoking? Everywhere. Dreadful toilets? Absolutely! Communist? No way. This is capitalism in overdrive.
I also found myself constantly getting stares. Now I know what it might be like to be beautiful! So I felt free to stare right back. It's a bit weird. My daughter...
After mulling over our options, we decided to hire a 4x4 and driver and explore northern Sichuan rather than fly somewhere else in China.
Domestic tourism is massive in China. With growing wealth, the Chinese must be travelling more and more so all the standard tourist sites are very busy even in low season. I would hate to see these places in high season. By getting our own wheels, we hoped to get away from standard tour routes and see the countryside.
Our driver and guide was a friendly Tibetan fellow by the name of Gonpo. It was great to get his...
We're been in Chengdu for a few days now. Right from the trip in from the airport, it's obvious that Chengdu is a richer city than Xi'an. There are forests of new apartment blocks sprouting everywhere. Construction appears frantic here. There's also landscaping and attempts to make the place look nice which lacked in Xi'an. The downtown core is larger and more modern. There are poorer neighbourhoods and places we were told to avoid.
We were greeted at the airport by our driver and guide as the first four days of our trip was a private tour. They took us to...
Made it to China. We almost missed our connection to Xi'an due to the massive queue/scrum for the domestic flights airport security check taking over an hour to get through. Great introduction to China - especially all the shouting and scuffles with security guards. And then they kept changing the departure gate for the flight!
I can't believe how terrible the air pollution was in Xi'an. Caught myself trying to take very shallow breaths just to avoid breathing it. It's so bad, you can barely see any blue sky. You have to look straight above you.
We stayed at the Bell And...
At the top of my list of things to do while in Malaysia this time around was to dive the island of Sipadan. Sipadan is considered one of the best dives site in the world.
So I booked us on a 6 day/5 night package at Borneo Divers Mabul Resort. Mabul is the island next to Sipadan. You can’t actually stay on Sipadan as it’s now protected and visitor numbers are limited.
There are four other places you can stay. The Sipadan Mabul Resort (SMART) runs a high end Water Village as well as some value-oriented beach bungalows. There’s another water...
After Uluru, we returned to Melbourne for a few more days before flying back to Malaysia.
According to latest survey by The Economist, Melbourne is the 2nd most liveable city in the world (Vancouver is #1). I can believe it. It’s an easy grid-based city with plenty of green area’s and lots to do. It’s big enough to be interesting but not so big as to be overwhelming. Southeast from Melbourne is the Mornington Peninsual which has some lovely scenic areas and quaint towns. The Dandenong Ranges National Park was a nice place to hike. We also went down to Authurs Seat...
We’re back in Malaysia but I still need to finish up blogging about Australia. I’m also trying out BlogJet as a way of writing these posts.
From Melbourne we flew to Ayer’s Rock to visit Uluru. In some ways, I had been dreading this part of the trip as it’s the middle of summer and I expected some terrible heat. And, after all, it’s a lot of money to go see a big rock. I couldn’t convince Jenny to drop this part of the trip as she really wanted to see this icon of Australia.
While flying there, you get to appreciate the...
From Brisbane we flew to Adelaide and picked up our 6-berth campervan so we could meandre our way to Melbourne. This was our first go at a campervan holiday with the kids. We had six days and 1000km to cover.
With all the little detours, we actually covered over 1500km. Dozen's of national parks, dozy little towns and everchanging scenery. Huge streches of beaches with pounding surf. Highlights for me were the bat caves at Naracoorte and the Tower Hill reserve where we spotted wild koala bears and kangaroo's. The Great Ocean Rd scenergy was nice but I think it's rather...
We took the train from Sydney to Armidale and visited a friend there. It's a small university town in the middle of a ranching region. Nice cool climate as it's up on a plateau. It's also very white which was very noticeable. There's lots of Asian's in the more urban area's of Australia. Unfortunately, there was too much pollen in the air so I was overwhelmed by an allergy attack.
From there we took a scenic drive down to Coff's Harbour. It's a nice windy drive through an area reknowned for a great many waterfalls. I discovered there were such a...
We're now in Australia for five weeks spending the first ten days in Sydney. I am dead happy to be back in a meat and potatoes country - a land of beer and BBQ's!
I've heard plenty about Sydney beforehand so I had some pretty set expectations. Sure enough, it was everything that I had heard. It's a city that I knew I would like.
Physically, it really is quite similiar to Vancouver but with a warmer climate. Vancouver has a more dramatic setting with the backdrop of mountains while Sydney is quite flat. Sydney harbour has a much longer shoreline with...
We were lucky enough to spend a day volunteering at Prechrouk School while we were in Cambodia. Normally volunteers would spend at least two weeks teaching at the school but the Sage Foundation kindly let us volunteer for only a day as one of the Cambodian teachers, Vanak, was happy to have us help him teach English to the Year 8's and 9's.
The school is about an hours drive West of Siem Reap in a rural area not visited by tourists. The road isn't completely paved and the school has no water or electricity. There's no playing field or playground equipment....
It's often a struggle to book a holiday. One option is to use a tour agent in your home country but I always feel you pay way too much for what you get. Essentially you're paying for a lot of marketing and sales overhead for a bulk travel product. You can also do it all yourself but it takes a lot of time and research and it's hard to get the itinerary all lined up nicely. You can easily end up paying rack rates and wasting a lot of time.
So an alternative is to find a local travel agency in...
The modernity of Bangkok was a relief after Cambodia. We stayed at the Vengtai Hotel not far from the Khao San Road. Not very luxurious but clean and comfortable.
Unfortunately, my daughter came down with a high fever on arrival. I still had a bad cough and an on-again, off-again low grade fever. The two of us spent the whole of our time in Bangkok holed up in the hotel. Very boring.
Jenny and K* managed to cover lots of sights and get in some shopping. Luckily, they avoided catching what we had. R*'s fever finally broke before we were due to...
While Siem Reap is a small provincial town with rural sensibilities, Phnom Penh is very much a big city. It's crowded and the people aren't as friendly. The girls often dress with a sense of fashion and there's plenty of flash cars to prove that some Cambodians are wealthy.
Cambodia has a reputation as a very corrupt country. We we're never directly affected by corruption but we heard lots of stories. For example, the terrible road between Siem Reap and the Thai boarder never gets fixed because its alleged that Thai Airways pays a bribe to keep it that way. The guides we had...
We've had a really good week here in Siem Reap. First, its a bit of a luxury trip for us. We're in a decent four star hotel rather than our usual three star or less. It's called the Angkor Holiday Hotel. It's a rather soulless design catering to tour groups but it's very clean and comfortable with aircon, a pool, a good breakfast buffet and our own safe in the room. The place is only two years old. The service from the staff is outstanding - friendly, prompt and eager.After a week here, one of my strongest impressions is just...
Tomorrow we're on the road again. We have a two week tour of Cambodia that I arranged with Sage Insights (update: Sage Insights is now called AboutAsia Travel). This is a complete change as usually we do everything ourselves but Sage put together a compelling itinerary for a reasonable price and the profits go to a good cause. One of the highlights of the trip will be volunteering as a family at a local primary school. It should be a great eye-opener for the kids (and us!). We're also spending four days in Bangkok since Jenny's never been there. It was a...
Recently got back from ten days in Bali with Jenny and her brother John. It's the least I've ever been prepared for a trip. I didn't even have a guidebook or a map! But my focus was on diving rather than culture so my only preparation was reading about the various diving locations.
We arrived and immediately jumped into a taxi for a two hour drive up to Amed. Along the way, I realised to my horror that I had left my Samsung T9 MP3 player on the airplane. Doh! I'm pretty good at losing small things and now tend to...
Our last day back in Rome was a wash out. We spent ages tracking down places to stay and being Monday, the places we wanted to go were closed. Doh! Bad timing. We had hoped to either go to Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa or Ostia Antica. Instead, we just did a little wandering around Frascati. Bit of a waste really.
If you're ever flying out of Ciampino airport (eg with Easyjet) and need to stay nearby, I can highly recommend a hotel called Hotel Dei Consoli.
There was ugly traffic getting the airport and the flight was delayed by almost an hour but...
For the last three days of our trip, we rented a car in Sorrento drove back to Rome.
Driving is a bit of a nightmare in Italy but you just learn to keep cool, expect the unexpected and make slow deliberate maneuvers. And you don't expect anyone to stick to any rules. You don't even get lines on motorways sometimes!
But I really wanted to drive the Amalfi coast myself. It's just one of those things. In fact, I'm starting to hatch an ambition to drive all the famous roads I can think of.
By the time I managed to drive from the...
I'm back in the UK catching up on these blog posts.
The train from Rome to Naples went smoothly. We had bought the ticket the day before which was a bit tedious. Whenever possible, we learned to avoid any kind of Italian bureacracy and queuing. It's very slow with tellers not working particularly hard and its easy to get in the wrong line and get sent to the back of another one.
From the station, it was easy to catch the Circumvesuviana train over to Sorrento. Public infrastructure in Italy attracts a great deal of graffiti and it seems to intensify the...
Finally got to an Internet cafe here in Sorrento and got some time to catch up.
The train from Milan to Rome was excellent - a fast Eurostar. We were worried about buying the tickets on the day we were travelling but it turned out that wasn't a problem. The ride was smooth with plenty of leg room. Much better than flying.
From the train station in Rome, it was't far to our apartment near the Spanish Steps. I was very pleasantly surprised when we got there. I usually brace myself for disappointment when we arrive at any apartment. Picture and descriptions...
So out of Munich we made our way to Neuschwanstein to see the famous fairytale castle of King Ludwig II. It was still pouring with rain when we got there so we voted not to visit and just take a couple of photo`s from the road. It is surrounded by autumn colours and would have be beautiful if there had been sunshine.
We stayed the night in Lindau. We arrived late and left early so we didn't see anything. I'm sure its a nice place in the summer.
Next day, the kids were curious about the tiny country of Leichenstein which was...
So we did make it back to Oktoberfest in the evening and saw the lights from the top of the ferris wheel. However, it was raining quite heavy.
And it was still raining the next morning. We left Munich and dropped by the Dachau memorial on the way out. Dachau was the first concentration camp created by the Nazi's and was used for the whole 12 years the Nazi's were in power. It wasn't an extermination camp but rather a camp for political prisoners but it was horrendous nonetheless.
The museum is excellent and most text is in German and English. It...
We've been in Munich two days now. The first day was warm and sunny so I couldn't resist going to the Oktoberfest right away. The kids loved the funfair and R* even tried a serious rollercoaster (Olympia Looping) and loved it. We managed to have lunch in a beer tent and soak in the atmosphere.Late in the afternoon we wandered around the old centre of Munich and Jenny got in some shopping. It really is a pleasant city.Today the weather has turned. It's our first day of rain and it's much colder. We spent the morning catching up with laundry...
On the way up to Munich, we drove through Obersalzburg. Well, the satnav took me to the new Hotel Turkin which used to be next door to Hitler's Bergenhoff. We soon found our way to the car park and bus station from where you get tickets to visit Hitler's Eagles Nest.This whole area is where members of the Third Reich had their homes. Their homes no longer exist but the network of bunkers are still there to be visited. We went into the Obersalzburg Museum but unfortunately, the displays were all in German. I tried explaining some of the imagery...
It took four hours to drive up to Salzburg from Venice yesterday. The trip went quickly listening to some stories, practising math and playing some games. The flat plains around Venice quickly erupt into the alps. It's a very pleasant drive on good motorways. My only complaint is that the tolls are not cheap.
As soon as we got into Austria, I bought a vignette (tax disc) so we could drive on the Austrian roads. It's only about 8 euros for a month.
Before reaching Salzburg, we made a detour to visit the salt mine at Bad Durrenburg. Salt has been mined...
On the way to Venice, we stopped by Verona to check out the Roman arena where those famous opera´s are held. Not as big as we expected but still, it looks great for a place that's a couple of thousand years old!
We had a difficult time finding a place to stay near Venice. Don't bother going down to Fusina even though you can catch a ferry from there. However, the area along the river Brenta around Dolo and Mira turned out to be quite nice and we eventually stumbed upon a gem of a place called Villa Ducale.
It the...
I'm in a dreaded Eurocamp late at night in an Internet kiosk. It's not easy to find Internet access. Wish I had brought a laptop now as wifi access is everywhere.
The Italian lakes live up to my expectations. Very beautiful. We stayed in Benova which is north of Stresa on Lake Maggiore. We visited Isola Bella which is an island with a fabulous villa and garden on it. Next we wound our way over to Lake Como which is even better. Much more dramatic landscape with very steep hills all around it. The lakes are supremely picturesque but rather boring...
No, I definitely wouldn't want to live in Milan. The Science and Technology Museum was very good. We went there to see models of Leonardo da Vinci's inventions. The man was brilliant and we've been talking about him quite a bit with the kids. That was the highlight of the day for me. Well, maybe it was the ice cream. Jenny and R* are at La Scala seeing Don Quixote so I'm sure that will be their highlight. Neither K* or I wanted to see it. We just spent some time in the park instead.
Looking forward to getting our rental...
It's the morning of our second day in Milan. I'm sitting at an ancient Windows 98 computer in the hotel lobby. I'm really not sure this post will work as I'm getting lots of errors popping up. A friend who lived in Milan for a couple of years described it as a sh*thole. I wouldn't condemn it that badly but I'm not that impressed after one day of wandering around.
The Duomo and glass covered gallery are amazing of course. We also went and saw Leonardo's "The Last Supper" at the Santa Maria del Grazie (or however you spell it). That...
We've been in Paris for almost a week and I finally got access to the Internet. I'm sitting at a small Internet cafe is St Germain while K* plays on his Nintendo DS. The meter is ticking.
We have a great apartment. Small but clean, comfortable and well kitted out. It's only one block from the St. Germain metro so it's easy to get about. Even the shower is good! Definitely a luxury.
We've done most of the classic sights around Paris: Notre Dame, Sacre Couer, d'Orsay, Pompidou, Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. The top of the Arc de Triomphe at...
Took the kids down to the Notting Hill Carnival yesterday. It was children's day not the full-on carnival day. Unfortunately, I got us there too early. We arrived at 10:30 (the website said it started at 10!) and the first float didn't get to us until 12:45. There were also some long gaps between floats so the kids got bored. They didn't like the whole vibe and soon wanted to go home. It's a case of you win some; you lose some. If you ever go, you should aim to get down there around 1pm. Next time, I'm leaving the...
As you can tell from the previous posts, we have just got back from three weeks in British Columbia. We were there to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary which went very well. We tried to get around to seeing as many friends as possible but unfortunately, we never can fit everyone in. We also tried to get out and do some summer activities with the kids as we usually visit in the winter in order to get some skiing in. Luckily we had some great weather. We rambled around Lynn Valley and some beaches, rode bikes around Stanley park and went sea kayaking a...
While we were staying in Sidney (British Columbia), Jenny and I did a PADI dry suit course. I've often seen British Columbia listed as one of the best places to dive in the world. Given that I enjoy diving and frequently visit the region, I figured I had to give it at least once chance. Of course the water is a tad cold so there was no way I wanted to do it in a wet suit hence the dry suit course.
We did the course with Sidney Surf n Dive and while they're nice folks, I can't say I was...
We managed to do some sea kayaking while back in British Columbia. First we made a trip to Pender Island and did a three hour guided tour with Kayak Pender Island. It's a nice little outfit and easy to get to; there's a direct ferry from Swartz Bay. On the other side, you can just walk there from the ferry terminal. The highlight of the paddle was going past a small rocky outcrop that was home to several harbour seals and their pups.
About a week later, we went kayaking with a friend in Deep Cove, Vancouver (thanks Willy!). That's where we are...
A couple of weeks ago we went up to Cliveden in Jenny's annual pursuit of bluebells. We were a little late but the woodlands were still well carpeted. The previous week, we had gone somewhere else but had had little luck.
With the kids on Easter break, we spent a day up at Bletchley Park. It's famous as the site of the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) during World War II. It's here that Alan Turning worked on the Bombe machine and Tommy Flowers brought the Colossus into production in their work to break German Enigma cyphers.
Ok, maybe not the most exciting place to take the kids but I've been wanting to visit for ages. Bletchley Park is hugely significant in both its role in winning the war and contributions made to Computer Science.
It's not a very big place and it...
Just got back from a ski trip to Austria with a couple of friends. Went to the same place we went last year staying in Altenmarkt which is less than an hours drive south of Salzburg.
Last year we went in February. It was cold and there was lots of snow. This time it was much warmer and there was no snow in the valleys.
First day, we drove up to Zauchensee. We were all quite concerned about the snow conditions but things started looking much much better as we drove up to the resort and got above the snow line. That...
Kung Hei Fat Choi!
Chinese New Year again and this time it's the Year of the Golden Pig - R*'s year.
We celebrated by going down to London's Chinatown with some friends on new year's day and having dim sum. We arrived before the restaurant opened to make sure we could get in. Our friends were dim sum virgins so we had fun introducing them to all kinds of dishes. Afterward, we joined the thousands and thousands of people who had come to see the parade and festivities at Trafalgar Square. The picture is one of the many lion dances that took place...
It's the beginning of the year so it must be travel show season! Last week we went to Destinations: The Holiday and Travel Show while a few weeks before that I also went to the Adventure Travel Show.
The Adventure Travel Show was the smaller of the two and held at Olympia. As you might expect from the title, it was aimed mainly at gap year students and people seeking adventure sports and uncomfortable trips to remote locations. Think "expeditions". It was interesting and would be fabulous if I was single but there wasn't a whole lot for families. It was...
Last month, K* had a day off school so Jenny and I took him down to the British Museum. He's been studying Egypt so we thought it would be good to show him the Egyptian collection, particularly, the Rosetta Stone.
I'd forgotten how long it's been since I last went there. It was before they did the big renovation which was years and years ago. It's quite a surprise to see the new interior. Very nice. The British Museum is a fantastic place and its reminded me I really should take the kids there a few more times to explore the other collections....
Monday night Jenny and I took my uncle and went and saw the jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim playing at the Royal Festive Hall. He was playing a solo concert as part of the London Jazz Festival.
He's a great musician. No doubt about that. He just plays continuously for the entire set without a break. Sometimes the music sounds more like classical than jazz; it's a fluid fusion that meanders between both and refuses to be boxed to any rigid style. I haven't heard anyone quite like him. To me, it's a rather cerebral and contemplative style. Something you relax into rather than...
So, as I posted earlier, I went to Berlin for the weekend with some mates. We picked Berlin as it sounded like it had a good mix of culture and nightlife. Since I had the time, I got saddled with booking flights and hotels. I picked a reasonably cheap hotel near the center of Berlin called the BB Hotel and booked it through www.bookings.org. There wasn't much availability as a big consumer electronics tradeshow was in town. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very gay hotel in a very gay part of Berlin. I have nothing against homosexuality but...
The weekend after I got back from sailing was the August bank holiday weekend. Every year, we're usually away but as I was home this year, I managed to get down to the Notting Hill Carnival. It's one of the largest street parties in the world with about half-a-million people attending that Monday. Honestly, I've never seen so many people in one place before. Check out the official website.
It was relatively easy to get to. My buddy David and I took the train down to Paddington and then the Hammersmith & City tube line right to where the action was....
I went sailing to the Channel Islands for a week last August. Originally, I was booked to go with the Hamble School of Yachting but they didn't have enough participants so they transferred me to the British Offshore Sailing School at no extra cost. This was an excellent deal since BOSS charges more and my impression is that BOSS is a bit more "hard-core".
The odd thing with this kind of holiday is that you never know who you're going to end up sailing with and a yacht is a rather intimate environment. Turned out John Williams was our skipper - nice...
Our last little excursion before Jenny took the kids to Malaysia was a drive to see the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.
I had first heard about this a few years ago and always thought it would be interesting to see. It's Europe's largest simultaneous launch of hot air balloons. Great photo opportunity. Unfortunately, the winds were too strong on the day so the launch was cancelled. And worse, my camera battery died so this is my only balloon picture! There's some more pictures on the fiesta gallery website.
What I didn't realise was that the fiesta is also a massive...
With R* busy on her watersports week, I took K* over to see the Bekonscot Model Village one afternoon. He's getting a bit old for this kind of stuff but he still seemed to enjoy it. We took R* years ago when she was small and you tend to forget about taking your second child to all the places you took the first one. It blurs together doesn't it?
Bekonscot is the world's very first model village and it still is a superb place to take a young child. I would recommend it for three to six year olds.
R* has been doing very well with her swimming this year. At the beginning of August, we sent her to a watersports week at a local lake.
She tried out dinghy sailing, wind surfing and kayaking. She enjoyed the sailing and felt she was good at wind surfing.
Of course, you can see my cunning plan here, can't you? Get the family sailing, one at a time.
Marvellous In The Park held at Wellington Country Park last July was as good as usual this year. Our only mistake was leaving too late and getting caught in the massive traffic queues to get in.
Nevertheless, we found a good spot not far from the stage and watched the cover bands of Santana, Fleetwood Mac and Queen. The Queen cover band was very good and had the sound and vocals just perfect.
It ended with a decent fireworks display and we hung about afterwards drinking coffee and hot chocolate waiting for the traffic to clear. Always a good day out.
We went to Art In Action last weekend held at Waterperry Gardens near Oxford. It's a very well run event with a dozen or so massive tents spread about the grounds full of art exhibitions and artists demonstrating various techniques (the "action" bit). I've been thinking for sometime I should take up an art so I'm inspired at the moment to work on my drawing skills.
What attracts me is the effectiveness of visual communication to get a message across. It's more easily absorbed than a narrative especially when its spiced with humour. I love political and social satire and...
We went sailing last weekend with some sailing friends of ours. We stayed overnight on the yacht moored in Gosport (Portsmouth), got up early on Saturday and then sailed up to Yarmouth via Newtown on Saturday. Sunny and lots of wind. Excellent sailing! Woke in the middle of the Sunday night to what sounded like a raging storm. In the morning, I briefly considered getting Jenny to take the kids home on a bus but we dropped our mooring lines with all onboard. It sounded worse than it was. The rain cleared up by the time we stopped in Cowes for...
I spent Friday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with a friend of mine. The traffic to get down there wasn't as bad as I expected. This is the second time I've been and the format was much the same.
Lots of great cars on display. A 1938 Phantom Corsair caught my eye with a cartooneque modern shape. Also a new concept car based on the classic Lamborghini Muira (66-73). Loved the burgundy Ferrari F430 and a import from Brazil by Lobini.
The supercar paddock was fantastic and had such delightful items as an over-the-top Maybach and a Bugatti Veyron.
Between checking out...
Last Saturday Jenny and I headed down to Hyde Park and caught the Roger Waters concert. It was just too irresistable with the promise that he was going to play the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon.
It was excellent and we managed to stand up close to the stage for a great view.
The day was stonkingly hot so we got there late missing a few bands that played in the afternoon. We did get to see Texas though. She had a difficult time because they were also showing the England vs Portugal game at the same time on a...
I feel guilty. I worry about climate change but I like fast CO2 spewing cars too. It gives me angst attacks.
A group of us zipped down in our sporty cars last Sunday morning to the Goodwood Motor Circuit to participate in the Goodwood Breakfast Club. The theme this month was supercars. The idea is simple. If you arrive at the circuit and your car belong to the month's theme, you park in the viewing area outside the cafe. If your car doesn't fit the theme, you park with everyone else. Our friend driving a Lotus Espirit got to park in...
Just bought tickets for the Marvellous Festival coming up on Saturday, July 22nd - featuring cover bands of Queen, Fleetwood Mac and Santana. This will be the third year we've gone. Wanna join us?
It's a question that's been on my mind ever since I got the 993 a few years ago.
Going straight is, of course, not complicated. The only thing I can tell you is that there's no point revving the engine and dropping the clutch. A factory standard non-turbo engine dies doing that. As for braking, it's worthwhile learning to toe-heel well and keep the car balanced as you slow down.
But the correct way to take a corner is open to more debate. The huge weight of the engine behind the car's centre of gravity makes this a critical question. While this...
Another trip we did over the Easter weekend was to visit Warwick Castle and enjoy their medieval weekend.
They invite numerous different medieval re-enactment groups to camp on the grounds on the castle and demonstrate daily medieval life. The groups were highly authentic and it made for a splendid atmosphere. Warwick was a large gathering but the top re-enactment event of the year, I was told, is the Battle of Bosworth each August.
The two highlights of the day were an re-enactment of a battle and the firing of the trebuchet. The re-enactment was a little hokey but good fun. Particularly impressive was the large number of longbowmen...
During the Easter break, we drove out to Rochester and visited Diggerland. As you might expect, it's a theme park but instead of typical rides, all they use is standard construction machinery. Once you pay your entrance fee you try any of the machinery as long as you're five and above. The controls are a bit confusing at first but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it.
It's brilliant for the kids. Where else can they get the chance to operate heavy machinery? The picture shows Jenny and K* having a go on some of the bigger diggers. ...
Last week both kids were home for Easter break so went to a few places. Our first trip was to the Explore-At-Bristol Science Center. There's no static displays; it's all hands-on. Very, very good and well worth the trip out there. Not as crowded as the London Science Museum. We also saw a 3D movie at the IMAX about sharks but it was so-so. The picture is a thermal image of R*.
It was the first time we had driven into Bristol as we usually just scoot past it on the motorway. First impressions were of a bland stock of post-war...
I'm flying to Austria tomorrow morning to go skiing with a couple of buddies in the Zauchensee. It's my first trip to that country and I'm looking forward to seeing a little bit of Salzburg if time permits. Don't think I'll be doing the "Sound of Music" tour.
We got really cheap flights with Ryanair out of Stanstead. Unfortunately the flight is at 6 am so I've got to leave home by 3 am. Ugh. Worse yet, there's been an accident on the M11 so they closed the motorway. It might be a bit of nightmare getting there even at that...
Last Tuesday, I took the kids to see the Terrible Tudors live on stage at the Wycombe Swan. It's a play (more of a panto really) by the prolific Terry Deary who authored the most excellent Horrible History series of books The man should be given a medal for making history so interesting to children.
The stage show was excellent. We all enjoyed it and can now tell you a lot more about the Tudors. R* is studying the Tudors in school so the timing was great. They start with nasty Richard III and cover Henry VII, Henry VIII and his wives...
The kids and I celebrated Chinese New Year last weekend by going down to the celebrations at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Unfortunatley, we got there too late to pick up any tickets for the various performances in the lecture theatre. Still, it was something to mark the occasion. Jenny's been away in Malaysia for two weeks and only got back last night.
One thing that struck me at the V&A was how stale and very traditional the displays of Chinese culture were. There must tons of exciting new art going on in China. I would much rather see new trends and...
We arrived back home yesterday. Thanks to everyone who hosted and fed us! As usually, it was great visiting everyone but wish we had more time.
The ski trip to Mount Washington went well. Enough snow fell just before we arrived on the Monday to open most of the runs. In fact, a blizzard kept us indoors on Tuesday (although Jenny did brave it for her lesson) and a 24hr power outage kept us in the dark on Wednesday. Altogether, I managed to get in three good days of skiing without too many body aches. The picture is me at the top of Mount...
Guy Fawkes Day was last Saturday; there were fireworks displays all over the neighbourhood. We took the kids to the Fireworks Extravaganza at Windsor Racecourse. They had a big funfair which was outrageously expensive. The bonfire was huge and so far away you couldn't even feel the heat. The fireworks were good but I've been spoilt after being a regular at the Vancouver Fireworks Festival.
I wouldn't go to it again. I've decided Bonfire night is more fun at a smaller local level. You should be able to get close to the fire, light sparkerlers or maybe a firework or two...
Went out with the kids and a friend today and made our first stab at geocaching. We were heading for an Autumn walk in Windsor Great Park anyway when we figured we might as well try and locate this geocache. It wasn't there but it was a fun challenge. Will have to try again sometime and maybe put our own cache together.
The kids also practised firing a slingshot with crab apples and searched for conkers. It's half-term and I'm looking for projects to keep them occupied.
Yesterday we dropped by the annual Orchard Open Day at Cross Lanes Fruit Farm in Mapledurham (just north of Reading). The kids tried the traditional apple peeler, saw the displays on apple growing and bee keeping, tasted lots of apples and had a go at the games. We also tagged along on a tour of the orchard by the owner, Gill Franklin, who is obviously very passionate about apples (trivia: the Romans introduced apples to England).
What makes Cross Lanes special is that they grow 60 different obscure British apple varieties (and some pears and plums) and take tremendous care to get...
Spent today at the Southampton Boat Show with some friends. It's an absolutely massive event with every kind of vendor there is that has something to do with boats showing off their wares. The best part is going onboard all the different kinds of yachts and checking them out.
Sunseeker had a massive stand so I climbed aboard one of their baby luxuy powerboats since it had almost no line-up. It was a Predator 55 and sold for a cool £576,000. Yep, it was nice for the bottom of the range. Very comfy. Even had a small garage for a speedboat....
While on holiday in France, Daniel and I were looking for motorcycles to hire but we never found any. We were told by one business that new insurance changes had made the business unviable. It's too bad I hadn't discovered Ride The World before we went on holiday as they list a few companies still renting bikes there. Anyway, we managed to rent some Harley's yesterday just before Daniel headed back to Canada.
Both bikes were 1200cc Sportsters rented from Thames Valley Harley-Davidson for £69. For me, this was my first ride after getting my motorcycle license seven months ago and by far the...
We fly off tomorrow to Nimes with a couple of friends and their daughter. We're staying at La Nesquiere (near Avignon) for ten days exploring Provence before driving down the coast and staying at the La Sirene Campsite at Argeles-sur-Mer (south of Perpignan) for another ten days. It's a compromise between something for the adults and something for the children.
I'm certainly looking forward to touring Provence. It's been on my list of places to go for a long time. I'm also hoping R* will get a chance to make use of her french and be motivated to learn more. I'm...
You can now read a travelogue of our sailing holiday in Turkey.
Avoid flying with Excel Airways! This is the airline we flew to get to Bodrum and back.
As I've written before this trip, we had the problem with K*'s broken leg and their unreasonable insistence that we split his cast.
Check-in at Gatwick was quick. However the agent told us that there was no onboard meal. We bought overpriced airport sandwiches to take onboard but it turned out later that there was an onboard meal after all. We were also misdirected to the ServiceAir desk where we were supposed to get assisted tranport for K* to the gate. At least we did...
I'm dead tired from lack of sleep but we're pretty much all packed and ready to leave tomorrow. I've really been looking foward to this sailing trip for many months. I'll be back in a week!
Had a brilliant time in Barcelona but three late nights in a row sure takes its toll. The weekend was arranged by Senor Stag and they did a great job. My favourite part was the jet skiing. Definitely something I'd like to do again when I get a chance. Meanwhile, the show at Bagdad was quite..err...something.
Unfortunately, I was a victim of some pickpockets in the subway Friday night. This guy in front of me at the top of an escalator dropped a pack of cigarettes and then kept stepping backwards while fumbling for the pack. While I was tangled up behind...
I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow for a few days. I'm joining sixteen other lads on a stag weekend doing some sailing, jet skiing and gokarting. We may even visit a bar or two or three or four or...more. Back Sunday.
Had an excellent time at the Marvellous Festival last Saturday.
First, we lucked out with the parking. As K* had a wheelchair, we got in early and parked in the backstage VIP area. Next, we scooped up prime real estate to unfold our garden chairs and lay down the picnic blankets: center stage near the mixing desk. Then our friends arrived and joined us picnicing while we waited for the concert to start. To top it off, the weather cleared up as the clouds made way for some clear sky. Perfect!
The first band was the Cavern Beatles and they did...
The Marvellous Festival is coming up July 23rd and we're going on the Saturday with a small crowd of friends. Come along to hear cover bands of The Beatles, Abba and The Rolling Stones. Should be fun and I'll be celebrating my birthday.
An ex-colleague invited me along to the Microsoft Summer Party yesterday. After a few years of decline, I must say Microsoft parties seem to be back in top form. It was held on the grounds of Stratfield Saye House near Reading in (allegedly) Europe's largest tent. We were greated by performers on stilts, jugglers and a roaming classical quartet while waiters passed around flutes of champagne and canapes.
The highlight of the evening was performances by Madness and Basement Jaxx. Madness was superb and really pumped up the atmosphere with upbeat ska. I thought the singers of Basement Jaxx were great but...
I'm afraid another Canada Day went past pretty quietly but we did go down to the Royal Albert Hall to see a fellow Canadian, Oscar Peterson. Traffic was heavy so we got there late. Never fun tromping over half a row of people and stumbling towards your seat.
It was a simple event. Four old guys on a bare stage playing absolutely fantastic jazz. Oscar doesn't look like he's in the best of health and he stopped to talk about how the death of some of his colleagues really has been a blow to him this year. He has quite a bit...
Took my Aunt and the kids out to visit Waddesdon Manor. It's a stunning Renaissance-style chateau built by Baron Ferndinand de Rothschild in 1874 and still filled with a fabulous collection of furniture, porcelain and other decorative arts. It's a definitive example of opulence. To get in, I went ahead and purchased a family membership to the National Trust so we'll be visiting more of these grand houses.
On the way home, my out-of-date but trusty "Good Pub Guide" recommended "The Bell" in Chearsley so we dropped by and had dinner. The recommendation is well deserved. It's an archetypal country pub...
Last Sunday we went for a picnic and walk around the Warburg Nature Reserve just north of Henley-on-Thames. It's run by the Berkshire Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust. Very nice place and well organised with a visitor's center, well marked paths and bird watching blinds. We got a chance to catch the last of the bluebells that carpet England this time of year.
Every year a small fair sets up on the local green and stays for a weekend. It's one of the sure signs that summer isn't far away. We took the kids and a new friend of R*. R* is dead keen on going on all the stomach wrenching rides now but at only 1.3m tall, she's doesn't reach most minimum height restrictions. I'd like to take her on the rollercoasters at Thorpe Park. Meanwhile, K* has summoned up the courage to say he wants to go on the rollercoasters at Legoland. I'm going to try him out this Friday.
A couple of weeks ago, I took the kids trout fishing at the Brookleas Trout Farm over near Wantage. You can hire a rod and tackle for £2.50 and then pay for whatever you catch. No casting needed. Only took about forty minutes to catch four good-sized trout. R* caught two and K* caught two. For bait we just used sweet corn - no wriggling worms! R* didn't like watching me kill the fish with three whacks to the head. I honestly felt a bit bad doing it too and was on the verge of saying prayers to the Great Trout...
Each year we drop by the British Agricultural College Open Weekend. It's always a good day out with the kids. It's the typical country affair with animals, various demonstrations, stalls, tractor and horse rides and that kind of low key country stuff. Jenny sold her baked goods at the WI stall so she was up there both Saturday and Sunday. The kids even had a chance to try brick laying. My favourite attraction is the pen where you can see ewes giving birth to lambs. Then you can be sure it really is Spring. The alpacas were very cute.
Jenny and I...
I'm away next week sailing out of Gibraltar doing my RYA Day Skipper Practical with Allabroad Sailing. I'll be on a 46' yacht with four other students. Check out the one week itinerary. I'm a little worried about the weather but the forecasts seem to be either sunny or partly cloudy. Temperatures should be 20C during the day dropping to 10C at night. I expect it could get very windy; one forecast I found predicted a force 7 in the Alboran on Monday. Gulp. Glad I don't get sea sick...
We're away in Dorset for five days exploring the Jurrasic Coast. Hoping to find some fossils with the kids.
A few weeks ago, I went to a track day put on by put on by Motorsport Events Limited. Rather than use the big race circuits, these guys primarily use airfields. This particular one was at RAF Upper Heyford near Bicester. It was called the Heyford Academy Day since it was structured as a series of exercises that concentrated on car control and balance rather than just buzzing around a circuit.
There was a good cross-section of cars. Lots of Caterhams and Elises but also Porsches, TVR's, Impreza's, BMW M3's and others. I have a neighbour down the road who also...
Yesterday we went and visit the Tower Of London. The kids are on half term break and Jenny wanted to get out of the house. It's one the major London tourist attractions that we still hadn't visited and K* had been learning about it in school.
It's still early in the year so the crowds were thin. For most of the year, the place is packed; that's one of the reasons we haven't visited before. Still, it was pretty chilly walking around.
Of all the historic building in England, the Tower reigns supreme as the place where history happened. There's lots to...
Each year the Victoria & Albert Museum has a programme to celebrate Chinese New Year so we trundled on down there last Saturday with the kids dressed up in their best Chinese costumes.
The Rapheal room was taken over with various stalls and activites such as tea making, Chinese chess and calligraphy. We watched the Taiwan Toa-Thiu-Thia puppet show (Tale of the Marriage of Two Mice). There was an activity cart in the room displaying the museum's Chinese antiquity collection. K* got to make a mask of a temple guardian. K* also fed a angpau packet to the Lion during the Lion Dance...
Made it back from skiing but I'm very sore. Overall, I think all the leg exercises helped. However, while nicely whooshing down a red run, I lost my balance and inadvertently attempted the splits and wiped out. Ouch! I think I've ruined some tendons or muscles in a rather private part of my anatomy. Flexible, I am not.
I've got some pictures to post but my computer video card seems to have died of loneliness while I was away. Once I have it replaced, I'll post a few and write more about the trip.
There won't be any posts for about week as I'm away skiing. I'm off to Luchon Superbagneres nestled in the French Pyrenee's. An ex-colleague has rented this villa and a friend and I are taking up his generous offer to join him. Tomorrow we leave on a Ryan Air flight to Pau where we've rented a car for the drive up to Luchon.
I'm praying that the last three weeks of exercise will stave off my legs turning to jelly on the slopes. At least for a little while!
I've registered for a trackday run by motorsport-events.com. I've never gone with this company before but their events look like really good value. They're run on airfields and perimeter roads rather than real race circuits so that keeps the price down. Their Heyford Academy Day 1 is held at a former US airforce base near Bicester and is mostly driving exercises and training rather than a full-on track session. That's perfect since I still don't know how to balance my car when I'm at the limits of traction. For £99, it seems like a good deal to me. Here's a write-up of...
I took the kids last Sunday down to the outdoor race track of the Remote World Model Car Club located in Upton Park, Slough. I just recently discovered they existed. They race 1/8th scale off-road buggies. The club is seriously well organised with a great track, elevated rostrum, PA and track marshals. Indeed, they hosted the 2003 European championships. Good fun to watch and the smell of nitro certainly brought back memories. Just might add one of these to my toy acquisition list...
I know I've been lacks in posting photo's. I've now got a brand new camera phone and hope to post...
My talented buddy Sean put together this great little music video of our roadtrip to Germany. It's just a teaser for the travelogue. You'll need Quicktime to view it.
We're off today to Egypt for two weeks. First week we're on a tour of Cairo, Aswan and Luxor with The Adventure Company and the second week we fly to Sharm El Sheik to do some diving in the Red Sea. Tell you about it when I get back!
Finally got around to writing up a travelogue of my roadtrip around Germany. It has a few pictures. I hope to add some video to it later.
I went down to the Egyptian Consulate in London on Thursday to get our visas. It was a bit of a pain in that you have to drop off your application forms and passports in the morning and then hang around to pick them up after 2:30 in the afternoon.
Where to kill time in Knightsbridge? Well, Harrods of course. I hadn't been there for almost ten years. The food hall is as wonderful as it always was. The cheese counter is second to none. I meandered around all five floors for four hours taking in some of the ridiculous opulence. Nice furniture....
Skin Two is a fetish style magazine reknown for organising the annuall Rubber Ball in London, a celebration of fetish style. Ok, so you're probably immediately wondering "What on earth is Ian into now?" I think the diversity in what humans do is fascinating and makes life interesting. Certainly, I don't think there's anything out there that surprises me anymore. So Jenny and I went to the Skin Two Cabaret since it didn't have a dress code and definitely sounded unusual.
The cabaret was a bit disappointing. I was expecting more of a fashion show but it was mostly lewd comedy...
On Sunday, a friend and I are off on a roadtrip driving around Germany. A big highlight will be driving the famous Nurburgring race circuit. I've been spending quite a bit of time preparing to drive this massive circuit of 13 miles and 73 bends. Ben Lovejoy has put together a fabulous Nurburgring website which has been a tremendous help. There's also lots of help at the Ringers Group including maps with race lines of the circuit.
Best of all, the Xbox game Project Gotham 2 has a very realistic depiction of the circuit. I've spent the last month playing it just...
Went to the Thames Valley Farmer's Market today. We're trying to buy more things directly from local producers rather than from the supermarkets. Makes sense to support the local economy and it's great being able to chat with people who actually know how their produce is grown or their animals raised. They can also tell you a lot about how to prepare it too. Overall, it means you can be much more confident about what you're eating and it's fresh - no air miles involved!
It's feels like the right thing to do in a "I recycle too" kind of way.
Two of the...
It's official. This August was the wettest August since 1961 when modern rainfall measures were started - 163mm or 180% more than normal. For June, July and August, it's the second wettest summer since 1961. I'm feeling victimised as it's the first August we actually decided to stay in the country!
Jenny and the kids were so fed up a couple of weeks ago of staying inside that they demanded to go the beach rain or shine. I complied and we went down to West Wittering (near Chichester) where they spent a short time digging in the sand in the pouring rain before...
At the request of the kids, I took them last Thursday to the Natural History Museum in London. Jenny stayed at home to catch up on things. Since it was their day, I left it to them to figure out the building map and lead us around the museum.
We stumbled upon the Darwin Centre which is housed in a new building and connected to the rest of the museum. There was a scientist explaining how fish swim quickly including a close examination of shark skin. He had specimens with him projected onto three video screens and live link to a...
Took the kids to the Knowl Hill Steam Rally and Country Fair. It's the largest local country fair featuring a huge number of steam driven machinery as well as lots of fun fair rides. We've been attending this for many years and it's always a good day out.
Besides other rides, both kids got to try out bungie assisted trampolening and shooting air rifles. Neither Jenny nor I are keen on guns. They don't get them except for ones that look like toys and shoot water. However, it does make me wonder whether at some point they should learn marksmanship.
Here's a quick write up of Sailing The Solent about my RYA Competent Crew course. I'm very relieved that I didn't get sun burnt and we had great weather over the five days of the course. The picture is of our 42ft yacht moored in Yarmouth. There's a few more pictures in the article.
Over all, I had a great time and I'm convinced sailing is fun enough that I hope to eventually earn my Day Skipper qualification.
I'm leaving today to go on a five day sailing course with Five Star Sailing so there won't be any posts for a week. Tell you about it when I get back.
We're back from our trip to Portland, Weymouth and I successfully completed the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certificate. The qualification is meant to prepare you for diving up to 30m. Unfortunately, Jenny wasn't able to do the course.
A big revelation for me was that it isn't cold diving in the UK at all but the water was very murky as expected. I would like to dive in Cornwall some time in the future as I gather the visibility is much better. I've written up a travelogue of the diving trip if you want to read all about it.
We spent the day at the Farnborough Airshow also known as the Farnborough International Exhibition and Flying Display. It's run by the Society of British Aerospace Companies primarily as a trade show for them to show off their wares. From Monday to Friday it's trade only and then it opens up to the public on the weekend. There's a few civillian aircraft but it's really about military aircraft and capability. It's a place where government reps come pushing shopping trolleys.
It felt pretty sickening looking at some of it and reading the marketing material. The really scarey stuff was the remote controlled surveillance,...
We spent Friday afternoon wandering around the WOMAD (World of Music and Dance) Festival in Reading. Kids went on some rides and we meandered around tons of stalls selling all kinds of interesting things. R* loved it as a newbie shopaholic ("Can we buy this?"). The festival is very child friendly and even has children's activity tents.
It's a more alternative festival geared to "free spirits" compared to other music fests. Lobbying groups were out in force so we chatted with some of them and I signed a few petitions. The Simultaneous Policy looked interesting as did Tourism Concern.
We then settled...
We went to the Guilford Music Festival last Saturday. Kids got to see Rolf Harris (aka Mr Animal Hospital) and hang around the Kids Area which was littered with circus things to play with. It's a pretty big festival and somewhat overwhelming for the kids. R* was keen to shop for trinklets at all the stalls.
Around 7pm we settled ourselves in front of the main stage. Generally concerts don't work well for Jenny and the kids as they're too short but we found a good spot where the kids could climb on a fence. We saw Rickie Lee Jones who did an excellent...
On a whim, I went with R* today to a fishing tackle shop and asked how I could take my daughter fishing. For £12, the shop set me up with everything I needed including a small tub filled to the brim with wriggling maggots. Absolutely revoluting. We took them home and freaked out Jenny. R* had no problems putting her hands into the boiling seething mass of them. I guess revulsion is a something that's learned.
Then I took K* and R* to a nearby river where we could fish for free. In the UK, children under twelve don't need a fishing license....
Yesterday I took the kids to see some local jousting (as you do on a Sunday in England....). First time I had watched jousting. Disappointed that they don't get knocked off the horse; the lance tip just splinters and breaks up. Oh well. Good fun and the kids got to see knights fighting too.
The place we went to even offers courses for adults on how to be a knight. Mmmm.
Spent the last two days working as a one man film crew for a friend shooting a corporate training video. He's trying to make a living out of it. We were doing a comedy spoof of the TV show House Doctor and this was the first time he had hired an actress. Good fun and very interesting to learn more about the trade. I've signed up to Shooting People to learn more about it. Would be pretty cool to do this kind of work part-time.
BrainNoodle. Hey wouldn't it be great to host children's birthday parties where the kid's make a movie...
The kids have been on their half term break this week hence the lack of posts. We didn't go on a holiday but we did get out a bit.
We packed a picnic and spent a day at Wellington Country Park. Nice place with a great playground and a lake where you can hire row boats. Check out the website. Kids really enjoyed it. Another afternoon was spent at the London Science Museum. It's always a favourite. We played about with some of the hands-on demonstrations in the optics department and the flight lab. We listened to a fun interactive kids talk...
With summer fast approaching I'm looking around to see what concerts would be good to go see. There's just so much that goes on in the UK. It's fantastic.
I've just got tickets for Guilfest 2004 if you're interested in joining us. It's reputed to be one of the most children friendly events. We're going the Saturday (July 17th) when Simple Minds will be playing top of the bill. Will also be keen to see Rickie Lee Jones. With three stages, two tents and a kids zone, there's lots of choice.
The following week, we're also off to the WOMAD concert (July 23rd). It...
We're now members of a small local sailing club and today we went for an induction evening. The club sails on a small lake and has a pretty nice club house with a bar. Everyone is very friendly.
Jenny and I took turns going for a sail with someone else on their dinghy. On my turn, we participated in the weekly racing while the heavens poured buckets on us. Got completely drenched but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The racing is very casual and good natured. Basically, there's not much else to do on a lake with a dinghy other than to get...
Yesterday I went down to the Kayak Club that I'm now a member of and went for my first club evening paddle. There must have been twenty five of us all together and everyone sticks together as a group. I had expected people to break off in small groups and just paddle off. I quickly changed into some new paddling gear I've bought and got myself out onto the Thames in a club boat.
It was a beautiful evening; we've been having somewhat of a heat wave. We went downstream a short ways and then broke off into two groups. One group...
Went and saw The Hamsters at Norden Farm last night with my fellow band mates. Hard working solid three piece rock band. They do covers of Jimi Hendrix and ZZ Top as well as their own stuff and R&B standards. Excellent guitarist. Nothing special but they certainly rock!
It's given us a bit of inspiration to start jamming again. The main problem is finding the time we can all get together.
I spent the weekend on a kayaking course at a local canoe club and graduated with a 1 star British Canoe Union rating. That basically means I can paddled a bit.
In truth, a kayak is surprising difficult to paddle. With a round bottom and no keel, ridge or rudder, it turns very easily so just paddling forward takes a fair bit of concentration. It's very susceptible to wind, current and uneven paddling!
It's also fairly unstable. On the morning of the first day, I fell into the Thames while trying to get into the kayak. Yes, the only person out of 18 people taking...
I've been trying to get tickets to see Eric Clapton for many years. He always plays the Royal Albert Hall and they always sell out at a stunning speed. I finally managed to get them this year through a local lady who owns one of the boxes. It's the most I've ever paid for a pair of tickets but still substantially cheaper than what I've heard others have paid for them.
So last night I got to see Eric.
Most of the night, he just played the blues. It's obviously his true love and he personifies it. Mostly Mississsippi style with his latest homage...
Had our fourth poker night last night. I'm getting worse! Can't believe it. So after losing my stake I came home and tried out online poker at Poker Stars and lost all my play money too! Miserable. But the online poker does look like a good way to practise the game and the play moves along really quickly.
Download Windows Media Video: 2 Mb version or 10 Mb version
I got a speeding ticket last week and figured it was time for a trackday. So while searching on UK Trackdays, I discovered Cone Dodgers and quickly signed up for their event which I attended yesterday. Slalom and Drifting!
The venue was a large tarmac square out in the middle of nowhere (near Andover) used by the Ministry Of Defence for helicopters. The concept is simple. A slalom track is layed down using short traffic cones and you drive your car as fast as you're able to around them. It's not competitive...
If you want to really have an outstanding dining experience, I can highly recommend going to The Fat Duck. A friend took me there for lunch based on my suggestion (nice friend!). It's a three Michelin star restaurant and the chef, Heston Blumenthal, is considered to be one of hottest new chefs around. He's self taught and earned his Michelin stars faster than anyone else in its history. Jenny and I went quite a few years ago and weren't impressed but I'm happy to say that experience has been completely reversed. It's absolutely top notch now. Don't go expecting to taste...
Today R* and I went and walked a dog. Well children aren't allowed to take the lead so I guess I did the walking. To be truthful, I was dragged by a most determined dog for an hour and a half through a muddy forest!
As a compromise to R*'s unyielding campaign to own a dog, I found a place where we could walk someone else's dog. It turns out that The Dog Rescue And Welfare Society at Stokenchurch need volunteers to walk their dogs on Sundays and Wednesdays. Indeed we showed up at 11am and were soon handed a black...
R* came back today from her first real school trip. The whole Year Three class of about thirty kids spent three days in Essex. On the first day, they visited a hop farm and went on a dray ride. The even got to try a tiny bit of beer! Then an archeologist took them on a tour of the site of the Battle of Hastings including being shown where King Harold fell. The class then re-enacted the battle and R* got to be a Norman and kill a friend. They finished the visit touring Battle Abbey. In the evenings they slept in a...
R* has got to the age where she claims that she wants to go on every and any theme park ride. As a treat we went to Chessington World Of Adventures last Wednesday. Bottom line: £52 for about 4 rides each and watch penguins and sea lions get fed. The big rides had huge queues and it wasn't until the end of the day that we figured out how the Fast Track system worked. Doh! But even the Fast Track queues were huge for the popular rides. It sucks to pay so much money and spend most of your time in a...
We stayed at a friend's house in London over the weekend for a little holiday and spent a day at London Zoo. It was the children's top choice and a zoo never fails to please. Personally, I'm still of two minds about zoos. I don't like seeing the animals in captivity - particularly the large animals like the gorillas and tigers. But I do think the zoos do a great service in educating the public and raising awareness about conservation. So, as long as the facilities for the inmates are top notch, I think they're ok.
The kids had a great...
Had dinner at the "Nyonya" in Nottinghill Gate (London). It's at the corner of Pembridge Road and Lambroke Road; hard to miss it. As the names suggests, it specialises in the Nyonya cuisine of Malaysia. The dishes we had were excellent. I can vouch for the Nasi Lemak, Lobak and Char Kway Teow. Each dish is about £7 which is good value in the UK but dreadful compared to what we've paid for them in Malaysia. But at least the flavours were spot on.
A couple of weekends ago, we went down to watch a bit of the Hurley Rodeo. This is a freestyle kayaking event where kayakers essentially surf the water rushing through a weir and do tricks. Looks a bit crazy but fun at the same time. The Hurley Weir is supposed to be one of the best in the UK.
Kayaking really appeals to me so I've signed up for a level 1 kayaking course at a local canoe club this May. No, I'm not looking to go freestyle but I like the idea of paddling along the local rivers...
Last Sunday we went to Sing A Song Of Opera at the Barbican Hall in London. It was an introduction to opera music featuring the National Symphony Orchestra and the tenor Julian Gavin. The pieces were easily recognisable and the children got to participate through clapping and singing. There were even some singing lessons! It was very well done especially when they had someone to watch on stage rather than just the orchestra. I can't say the kids were overly enthusiastic but they gave it the thumbs up. Actually, it's the first time I've ever heard any opera sung live!
I...
Last night we took part in a Murder Mystery dinner that friends of ours put together. Very good fun. We had taken part in one of these dinner games many years ago so we knew a bit of what to expect.
The "Champagne Murders" are set in the 60's at the manor of Lord Michael Jagged who's just been killed. There are 10 characters to be played. I was Brian Sewer - a sneering, rude and patronising wine critic. Not sure WHY I was given this character ... something about how easy I could play the part! I admit I did enjoy the...
Today R* took me on a tour of the British Library. She went with her class last week and it's a place I've always meant to go visit. So we went down there this afternoon (she's on term break) and she showed me around. I found the permanent exhibition breathtaking. Wow! The original Alice in Wonderland, Robert Scott's last diary entry, Leonardo's notebook, the Magna Carta and much, much more. There was a 4th C bible in Greek - almost the original bible! Not to mention the original music scores by Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin. In the Valentine's display...
Last night we went for a local Valentine's Day Salsa Dance at a local community center. It was organised by the parents involved in the Berkshire Youth Musicians Trust. It started with merengue lessons for everyone. I mean absolutely everyone! No one was left sitting down and it was easy to follow and got people thinking "I can do this!". Then some social dancing and food followed by salsa lessons for everyone followed by more social dancing. During the lessons, everyone was made to switch partners every few minutes. There were also a few students along with the dance teacher...
So this morning I was reaping the benefits of jet lag by building a Lego speedboat with my four year old son at five o'clock in the morning! It's gonna be a long day. Nevertheless, it's always nice to get home, empty the suitcase, sleep in one's own bed and be surrounded with all your own stuff. Ahhhhh!
We had a great trip to Victoria and Vancouver catching up with lots of family and friends we have there. It made for quite a hectic schedule and three weeks wasn't quite long enough. We managed to get a couple of days skiing at...
Went to the townhall last night to see a pantomime of Sleeping Beauty by a local theatre company. I didn't even know what a Christmas pantomime was until I moved to the UK and had children. They're one of the best things about Christmas now. It's a great community event where everyone gets to scream their head off ("He's BEHIND YOU", "Oh NO HE DIDN'T", etc). One of the great things about the UK is how strong the theatre culture is. Every small town or large village seems to have a theatre company. Anyone can join them. The production quality...
Last night we went and saw Sheryl Crow play at Shepherds Bush Empire. It's the first time I've ever been to that venue. Really good place. It's quite old and small and a bit delapitated like many London venues. However it makes for a very cosy atmosphere and the bar wasn't very crowded. The view from the comfy balcony seats was excellent and the acoustics were good. Best yet, it took less than an hour to get there and parking was straightforward. I'll watch out for more shows there.
The concert was excellent. I have all four of her main albums...
We just saw Lenny Henry live at Norden Farm. Jenny discovered the short lunchtime show an hour before it started so we just showed up and managed to get tickets (£1.50!). The theatre was pretty well full. He needed a test audience to rehearse new material for his Christmas appearance on the very popular Parkinson Show. Great material. Had us laughing most of the show and there was some great audience interaction. Don't know what he's going to cut out to get it down to just five minutes. Interestingly, his notes were written as mind maps on large pieces of cardboard.
Last night I went to one of the regular practice sessions of Beatroot Bateria. They're a samba band like the ones you see during carnival time. The website has some MP3's if you want to hear them.
I only discovered their website a few days ago and immediately thought it sounded like a great thing to try. The band is open to beginners and you can just drop in. So I did.
I arrived, bought some ear plugs (essential!) and was eventually assigned a high surdo to play. Instruction was minimal. I was buddied with another high surdo player, shown the first...
Had my assessment at the Guitar Institute last Thursday. It turned out to be more of a chat than an assessment. Very cool place. Very chaotic. They teach guitar, bass and drums. Lots of students jamming narrow corridors. Rehearsal rooms with bands playing. Good vibe all around. The school is tucked in a industrial/warehouse part of Acton but parking is still a nightmare.
Anyway Charlie, my assessor, recommended that I do the Arpeggiator course. I also think the Foundation Blues course sounds fun. Have to see how I can fit this stuff in.
Yesterday, Jenny and I went down to the Science Museum to see the Lord Of The Rings exhibition. Really enjoyed it. To make the film realistic, they tried to create strong cultures for each of the races and creating culture involves creating detail. The exhibition essentially shows you the incredible lengths that they went to create this cultural detail in the costumes, weapons, architecture, language, mythology, etc. There were also interesting demonstrations of how they created the illusion of character height differences and assembled the massive battles scenes. All in all, a very cool exhibition. Took us two and half...
We went and listened to a talk by Michael Moore at the London Palladium last night. It was excellent. The talk was much less structured than I expected. He essentially came on stage and rambled in a very entertaining way: sometimes very serious; sometimes very funny. He was certainly very disparaging of Tony Blair for supporting George Bush and in some ways, blames him more as the more intelligent of the two. Without Blair, Bush may never had been able to rally enough support for the war. His next movie is about Bush and his connections with the Saudi royal family. No...
I've finally published our travelogue of our trip to Jordan. Sorry for the wait. I know a few of you have been looking forward to it. I should warn you that it contains over 500K of photo's. No doubt it's full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes too. Please forgive me for them.
I've started to put more photo's in this blog and particularly in the travelogues as I think it makes it quite a bit more interesting. However, this makes the page load much slower for those of you on dial-up. I'm assuming that most of you have either a...
I discovered the Reading International Solidarity Center the other day and went down to check it out. It's very close to the Oracle Shopping Center if you know Reading. The place has a shop with a great book selection as well as a cafe. Can't vouch for the cafe yet but the book selection was excellent for global concerns. The place also hosts a lot of activist-type talks that look interesting. I think they should change the name of the place though. Solidarity? Wasn't that an 80's thing?
It's half-term and we took the children for a walk through the forest nearby at Burnham Beeches. It's a nature reserve and the Autumn colours are in full swing. Gorgeous.
I'm still working on the trip to Jordan travelogue. The draft is six pages and it still needs lots of editting and then I need to add photos. Hang on.
Tonight we saw Steve Hackett at the Town Hall in High Wycombe. He was the guitarist for Genesis back in the 70's. A friend suggested seeing him and I went along for the heck of it even though I have never been a fan of Genesis or progressive rock. I'm still not. He played a lot of old Genesis material and got a great response from the audience. Some of it was ok but I would have been happy to leave at the intermission. His acoustic set was fine. As a guitarist, I didn't find him particularly inspiring technically or...
Michael Moore is coming to town on Nov 9th speaking at the Palladium in London: "launching his new patriotic move for regime change `Dude, Where's My Country?`" The 6pm show is sold out but there's another show at 8:30. I've got tickets! Should be great. Follow the link to Orange One Word to buy them online. Just noticed you can also read his (short) Oscar Speech here.
I'm back and not going anywhere again for a couple of months. The trip to Jordan was absolutely brilliant! We thoroughly enjoyed it. Highlights included:
Floating in the Dead Sea
Touring Petra (remember Indiana Jones)
Five awesome days of diving including a night dive
Riding a camel around Wadi Rum enjoying the sunset and moonrise
There's lots to tell you about. I'll work on putting that travelogue together to post sometime next week.
I'm afraid this blog will be going quiet again. Jenny and I are leaving today for a sightseeing and diving holiday in Jordan with Aquatours. I'm quite excited about it even if we will be between Israel and Iraq. We're going without the children and will be staying in Amman, Petra and Aqaba doing various excursions. I'm really looking forward to diving the Red Sea. We'll be back on Oct 13th and as usual a travelogue will appear soon afterwards.
We're back from Wales and I've written a short travelogue of the trip here. When we finally get around to replacing our people mover, I'm sure we'll take a closer look at buying a 4x4.
Jenny and I will be away for the next couple of days. I'm taking her on an Explorer Off Road Experience with All Terrain Services in Wales. Basically, it's one day learning how to drive a 4x4 followed by one day where you take a 4x4 out to a remote part of Wales. Honestly, she has expressed an interest in this!
While researching this on the Internet, I was quite enraptured to discover the world of 4x4 holidays. For example, check out the self-drive expeditions of Safari Drive.
Sorry for the delay. I've finally published a travelogue of our trip to Cornwall. Hope it doesn't ramble too much. I did try to keep it succinct.
Spent a pleasant afternoon with a friend at a HiFi Show held at two hotels by Heathrow airport. Lots of systems being demonstrated. Lots of hi-end kit to drool over. For me the highlights were a fantastic demo of a 14,000 watt surround sound system using Bryston amps and the PMC MB2 XBD and a demo of the Wilson WATT/Puppy 7 speakers (only £22,000) paired with Theta amps. I'm resigned to the fact that there's no point upgrading any of my HiFi components until I find an optimal position for the speakers and treat the room acoustically. The acoustics right now are...
While waiting at the bottom of a lake idle thoughts tend to pass through your mind. Never in my life did I ever expect to spend about an hour kneeling on a platform 7 metres below the surface of a murky English lake early on a Sunday morning. But I did. The last two dives went fine; I finished all the exercises and I now have a temporary PADI Open Water Diver certificate in my wallet. Yippeee! Jenny and I are ready to go on our diving holiday next month.
Today I did the first two dives out of the four needed for my PADI Open Water certification at Wraysbury Lake. It went well enough. It turned out to be a hot day which was great except when you have all your kit on and begin sweating like a pig (do pigs really sweat that much?). Then of course jumping into a 19 degree lake sure suddenly cools you down! It was bracing at first but a 7mm wet suit soon made it feel pretty comfortable except for the occasional rush of cold water down the back.
Felt a bit panicky...
Just a quick entry to let you know we're back from Cornwall. It was a good trip and we now know why so many British folk go down to Cornwall every year for their holiday. I wouldn't mind going again. I'll try and get a travelogue written up over the next week. Meanwhile, the next month looks like it's going to be pretty busy. R* starts a new school. My inlaws are visiting. I've got to finish my PADI certification. Jenny has a birthday. We've got two more trips planned.
Well folks, we're off on another holiday today. This time we're driving down to Cornwall where we've rented a cottage near St. Austell. It's a stone's throw from the Eden Project which Jenny is very keen to visit. Again I'm afraid that this blog will be quiet for two weeks but I'll have another travelogue for you when I get back in mid-September.
It's been a week since we got back from our camping trip and, as promised, I've written up a travelogue which you can now read here.
I'm back! While a bit cliche, I gotta admit it feels great to be home among my own stuff; my own space and my beloved ADSL connection. Maryland was sweltering and we were walking meals for all the bugs that bite out there. It sure is nice how there's almost a complete absence of anything that wants to taste you where we live. However, we did enjoy our visit and stint communing with nature. I'll try to jot down some of the highlights in a travelogue soon.
Well dear readers, this weblog is going to be a bit quiet for the next couple of weeks. I'm unplugging from the global collective (!) and going camping with my sister and her family in Maryland. Yes, it's back to nature. We've never done this as a family before so it will be quite an experience (gulp). Emailing blog entries seems to work so I might try that if I get a chance but otherwise you can look forward to a travelogue mid August.
Speaking of readers, I'm pleased to say that unique visitors tripled this month from 400 to over 1270....
We spent Friday afternoon at the World of Music And Dance (WOMAD) Festival in Reading. Good festival. Felt like a mini Glastonbury. Very much the alternative free-spirit vegan tree-hugging activist kind of crowd. I like that kind of atmosphere and don't see it much here in the UK; at least, not as much as Vancouver. It exists but you have to either really look for it or move down to the South West. We spent most our time wandering around the festival looking into the tents, stalls and yurts since it's difficult for the kids to see the stages. Lots...
Jenny and I took R* to see Jesus Christ Superstar at a local theatre put on by a local theatre company. It was their debut night and overall I thought the Slough Musical Theatre Company did a fine job. This is a theatre company that any amateur can join if they bring enthusiasm. The pit orchestra and choir was excellent. My main criticism is they need to sort out the audio for some of the performers a bit better. They're performing at the Farrer Theatre at Eton College up to this Sunday.
R* seemed to enjoy it. We've been playing the...
We spent the afternoon at Art In Action at Waterperry Gardens near Oxford. It's a large four day Arts Festival with over 300 artists and demonstrators showing their art. You can participate too trying out all kinds of things. I was very impressed with how well organised it was right down to small details. Excellent parking. Golf carts running between the parking and the entrance. Clear maps and lots of sign posts. Nothing too crowded. Excellent catering. Even water bowls for dogs. The organisers have it sussed. Jenny loves these kinds of events and was in her own. She finds it very...
We went to the Marvellous In The Park festival at Wellington Park featuring the Bootleg Beatles on Saturday. It was very good. It was a bring-a-picnic affair so we arrived early and were pleased to find they had reserved the area in front of the stage for picnicer's without tables and chairs. We staked out a great spot near the front of the stage. The weather was great and a bar was nearby. There were also food stalls and a tiny fun fair. Kids had a good time playing around while we waited and an ex-colleague and his family joined us....
Finished the dinghy sailing course yesterday and got my RYA Level 2 Sailing Certificate. The wind was a nice breeze; not as strong as the day before. We practiced sailing a triangular circuit without mishap. Then we were introduced to racing theory and tried our hand at racing. Thoroughly enjoyed that. Finally, another student and I got to try sailing a larger two man dinghy called a Wanderer. No capsizes but boy is my body sore.
Day two of the dinghy sailing course was frustrating. We got the bad weather but absolutely no wind. Did some theory and few practical things but minimal sailing. Today, day three, was completely different. We had a strong breeze and after the instructor demonstrated zooming around the river while hanging over the side of the dinghy, we were all rather nervous. We reefed the sails to make them smaller and set off. I was pretty smug at first as everyone else took turns capsizing but then it happened to me too. Arrgghh. Everything happens so fast and you have to concentrate on...
Today was day one of the four day course on dinghy sailing I'm taking (Jenny's birthday gift). It's at the Bisham Abbey Sailing School. First day went well enough. There's only three others in the class so it's cosy and friendly. It's blindingly hot to be on the river - 32C - and unfortunately, the wind is too light. We did some theory and our first sails on the river. Not as easy as I thought it would be. There's quite a lot to think about as you sail. We're sailing Toppers and you spend most of your time kneeling...
I've now confirmed my place on an intensive diving course over the August 23/24th weekend - takes place at a local private school. Got a book to read and chapter quizzes to complete. Bit concerned about the swimming test (eight pool lengths plus ten minutes treading water) as I'm no great swimmer but should be ok. Ought to practice but I've never liked public swimming pools.
Yesterday we drove down to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The event was good but the family outing was a bit of a disaster. It took three hours to drive there because there was a traffic jam through Petworth. Luckily we were listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire so the kids suffered patiently. It was very hot and sunny and the kids had to do a lot of walking as the event is spread over a huge area. All the cars were fantastic. Lots to see but the kids are much too young to enjoy them....
We're looking at doing a ski trip up to Blackcombe Jan 5th to 9th. Anyone know a good and reasonable place to stay up there? One bedroom or two bedroom would be good.
There are no celebrations where we live (that I know of anyway) and I didn't make the trek down to the Maple Leaf Pub in Convent Garden where there will be a huge crowd of Canadians. I went down there one year and it was good fun with everyone asking everyone what part of Canada they're from. One year, I really should organise a party to celebrate it. We only know one other Canadian couple here so maybe it will be a "Anyone Who Has Visited Canada Party" or a "Bring Something Canadian Party".
Finally found a new Chinese cash 'n' carry which is the closest to our place yet - still about 40 minutes. Loon Fung is a huge store just off the A40 at Hangar Lane (take first exit if coming from the west and then turn left at Sainsbury/B&Q). It bills itself as the largest Chinese grocery supplier in the UK. It also has a restaurant so we went there for dim sum (average) and then did a massive shop. Treated ourselves to some durian, mangosteen, coconut juice, roast duck, etc. Even got some Chinese sausages imported from Vancouver (Wing Wing Co Ltd...
Just in case you didn't know, it's currently mango season in the UK. Drop by an Indian grocery shop and you'll find boxes and boxes of mango's for a very good price. They're from Pakistan and usually very good. It only lasts about four weeks so don't wait.
Went down to London to visit the Delamar Academy Open House today. Kind of a long story but basically, I've always been kind of interested in the way they can make-up someone into aliens and monsters in shows. So a few weeks ago I was cruising around the net reading about the latex foam they use to do this and found this great site called Monster Makers. Essentially, it's a shop that will provide you with everything you need to do it yourself; the same stuff they use in Hollywood. But it seems trickier than reading a book and following instructions...
My friend Willy and his family are visiting from Vancouver and staying at our place this weekend. After much discussion over the numerous things that we could do we decided to spend the day in Oxford. We started at St Marys Church and the children climbed up the tower stairs to get a view of the town. Next we grabbed a picnic at the covered market which is a great place to explore if you have time but we didn't. Instead we went into the Botanical Gardens and had a relaxed picnic there under a tree and the kids ran...
Today we drove over to Colchester to see the History Fayre at Castle Park. It's a living history kind of fayre set primarily in the 15th to 16th century. It seems quite a lot of people are into historical re-enactment. There were maybe thirty or so medieval tents with either craft people, traders or just folks demonstrating what medieval life would have been like. Of course everyone dresses the part and many of the visitors too. We watched a puppet show, knights demonstrating sword fighting and a falconry display. I learned about the cittern. R* tried her hand at archery....
Jenny and I signed up for horse riding lessons today! After trying out polo, I thought it might be fun to learn a bit about riding. First lesson is next Tuesday at the Spanish Bit Horse Riding School. They say you need about twelve lessons to get proficient. Looking forward to it!
I had polo lessons yesterday at the Ascot Park Polo Club. Very cool. I was lucky to join a Microsoft jolly with my old team (thanks guys!). There were two groups of eight. Our group started on a field armed with polo sticks, a ball and divided into two teams of four. We were then given an idea of the rules of the game and ran about whacking the ball (err sorry about your jaw, Ken). Hey, not too different from hockey! Next we had to stand on crates learning how to whack the ball properly using four different strokes. And...
We were away last weekend on a short trip around the Peak District so that's why it's been a bit quiet. I've written up a short travelogue describing what we got up to.
I took R* to the science museum today (it's the half-term break) and we wandered through the Titanic Exhibition. Upon entry you're given a mock boarding pass but with the names of two real people who were on the Titanic. We had Miss Jessie Wills Leitch and Mr. Samuel Abelson. At the end of the exhibit you find out their fate. The exhibition is subtitled "real objects real people". On display are a few hundred objects retrieved from the Titanic - part of the hull, window frame, tools, bench, crockery, top hat, currency, jewellery and even a bottle of champagne and...
Just got back from a short holiday at the Center Parc Resort at Longleat Forest. We had a nice enough time but overall we're not impressed with the resort. We had a two bedroom villa in the forest. Villa is pushing it since it's really just a box attached to two other neighbouring boxes. Towels and soap are all extra as is pretty much everything else on the site. You pay for everthing.
I think the concept of "forest" is quite novel for British folks since Britain doesn't have much left. Coming from British Columbia, a valley of trees just doesn't...
Just got back from the Peter Gabriel concert at Wembley Arena. This is the "Growing Up" Tour promoting his new album "Up". I downloaded it from the Internet last week and while there's a few good songs, it's not overly impressive. It's been ten years since his last album which is when we last saw him in Vancouver. He sure has aged a lot.
The concert was excellent. Lots of older songs among the new. Sledgehammer, Solsbury Hill, Red Rain, Mercy Street, Digging In The Dirt. Good acoustics. Wish he had played Big. Very cool round rotating stage with all the musicians wireless so...
We all rode our bikes in the Blue Peter Bikeathon yesterday at Bracknell Forest. K* was behind me on a trailer bike. R* was very keen on the event and has been collecting sponsorship for the last few weeks. It's all in the aid of leukaemia research. It was a hot sunny day and lots of people showed up. We met up with some friends there - Katie and Neil along with their children Laura and Alison. R* managed really well as she hasn't ridden her bike on a trail before and only recently was brave enough to go downhill. She managed...
Went to the Paul McCartney concert last night at Earls Court. Here's a detailed tour write-up. It was excellent from the opening "Hello Goodbye" to the end "Sgt Pepper/The End". Ok maybe there were a few songs I didn't care for - pretty much anything after he did "Band On The Run" with the exception of "Live and Let Die" which had an indoor fireworks climax. Superb concert. This is the first tour he's ever performed the Sgt Pepper songs live. It's just amazing the catalogue of songs he has to draw upon and he sang for 2 3/4 hours straight...
Had a fantastic day at my first Track Day. I wrote it up as an article since it got too long as just a weblog post. Great fun and worth doing again!
Jenny went to the Urban Gardens Show in London last weekend and seemed to have a great time poking about and attending seminars - even had a celebrity cooking theatre. I took the kids to the Look Out Discovery Center at Bracknell Forest - it's one of their favourite places.
On Sunday we took a family walk at Cliveden to see whether the bluebells had come out. There's a great walk you can do in the woodlands on a ridge above the Thames river. Very pretty and we only just discovered it!
My wife went to The Vitality Show in London on Friday and brought back a whole bunch of brochures. The subheading is "Come and be part of The Spiritual Journey experience: celebrate exciting new visionary ideas and wisdoms of ancient healing practices".
I try to keep an open mind about this stuff. It's much more common back in Vancouver compared to England and I do think some of it can be beneficial. But I have a very rational scientific background and a lot of it just lights up my "flake-o-meter". At any rate, it does have entertainment value.
We now have a...