14 weeks and 1 day

The 9th of November is a special day in our family for a number of reasons; it's the day my big little brother Mike was born and the day Jon's parents got married.

This year was extra special; not only did Mike celebrate another birthday and Jon's parents celebrate another wedding anniversary but we also got to see what was going on inside my ever-increasing belly (I know it's not technically in my belly!).

Was pretty much one of the most exciting things either of us have ever seen and somehow helped to make the whole thing seem real. Yip, we're having a baby!

How to entertain yourself during a cold English summer

At first glance, the english summer looks to be about as much fun as a barrel of wet kippers, and, admittedly, you have to work pretty hard to find the positive side of landing yourself in England's wettest, coldest summer on (some) record.



Here's four pretty great things you can do to make the most of a bad summer situation:


1. Head to the south coast in a camper

I think we've all seen enough of the daggy dancing; obviously it was pretty exciting to be near the ocean again. England's coast is beautiful beyond all stereotypical expectations. There's so much to see once you get beyond Brighton and we just loved walking in the hills, taking brisk dips in the ocean and parking up and watching the sunset over the rolling country. More than a little homesickness arose, aided by mr hamlyn's extremely rare and highly sought after mix-tape - which has become the unofficial soundtrack to summer 2007.



2. Get out your Sunday best and go to Bestival



Bestival is a fantastic music festival on the Isle of Wight. While the Isle of Wight is officially part of England, it seems to possess it's own microclimate and here you can lap up sunny, warm goodness whilst listening to awesome tunes.

Bestival goes for three days and features a diverse range of entertainment including dirty ol' rock'n'roll (either listening to it on the main stage or learning to do it in the dance palace), burlesque dancers with champagne and cupcakes, electronica and VJ madness, the forbidden forrest, tea for two and oh la la a relaxation zone complete with sauna, massage and other nicey nicies.

We had the loveliest of times just wandering from one event to another, marvelling at everyones costumes and generally enjoying what was a most invigorating yet relaxing weekend.






Jon get's down with the Charleston




3. Go to where the summer runs freely and in abundance.

In our case, Turkey. One day we will upload some of our own photos, until then...


Cappadocia is an area of amazing natural beauty in central turkey. Highlights included our cave house hotel complete with swimming pool, the serenity, getting lost on bikes, larding around a bit, finding hidden fairy chimneys and taking a dawn flight in a hot-air baloon. The four-hour horse trek through the rubbish dump was not a highlight.


We were a little dubious about going on a four day gulet cruise but decided to take the punt and go with it. Far from being the oldest members of a party boat, we were among the youngest members on a hard-out cruiser boat. Highlights included St Nicolas Island, diving of the yacht into the ocean, the food, Jill's 70th birthday rope swing into the water, swimming in the med, breakfast at Olympos, watching the sun rise, lying, reading, eating...


Istanbul was the last stop on our two week tour of turkey. We figured it'd be good to go somewhere madder and more full-on than London so that London would feel quiet in comparison when we got back; Istanbul exceeded all our expectations. Highlights included the Aya Sofia, the Hammam (where jon got a dry man scrub and alana got an oily lady rub complete with shampoo - and we'd asked for the same treatment - go figure), getting out of the touristy side of town, finding alana's great leather jacket, the pink cafe street and the Istanbul biennal. Lowlights included the wandering bottom-and-wallet-seeking hands on the tram and getting harassed at the grand bizzare

4. Make a baby

We won't go into too much detail on this one, suffice to say that making a baby is a great way to warm up on a cold summer's night. This activity does have far reaching consequences, ones we're pretty stoked about facing about now. We're expecting a wee baby sometime in May.

wicked on purbeck

where's hone?

thanks shippie for driving us.

thanks nige for not losing us too many times.

thanks claire for showing us the good times.

thanks oxford for not floating away just yet.

many pairs of tights tried. only one would succeed.






amazing what you can do with a camera these days





the pub where sex, drugs and alcohol were all invented in 1012. sold out just before we got there. except for the beer. was ok.

this is the thames creek in flood. just prior to 3 oxen being swept away to a watery gloom. (rescued later by the oxless 4's life saving team... ohmygod sorry).


ahhh the full moon. setting. [note la trying hard to shelter from the dazzle. no avail.]

punt

thanks mum for coming and staying and showing us good times! friday was spent doing a wee bit of walking around old london (who would've thought that there was still a roman wall?). london museum. st katharines dock. southbank and the good ol ferris wheel.
and for saturday. this time it was a punt on the cam by the bridge. mum displayed her none too shabby kayaking style. very important. we all had a punt and a punting good time was had.

highlight was queing for evensong @ kings college after getting barred entry into pretty much every other college. must have heard about mum's rep from wai col huh?

ladies at the beginning of the day. now you know where we live when you come to visit. kfc was just out of shot. sorry. bad frame.





and this is to show you the corner where we banished mum. and these are the brochures she had stashed after we confiscated 1/2 a suitcase worth (was very embarassed when we had to return them to the transport for london fella. he was nice about it tho.)

Sick day

Today I got up, got dressed and ate my breakfast as usual, before deciding that I was too sick to go to work. So, instead of spreading my germ with the millions on the tube, I stayed home and treated myself to a sick day.

I love sick days; they're the greatest. It's so nice having time on your own just pottering about. Today, I found myself starting to think about random things again (like what is the meaning of life in london) and being enthralled by the sun shining in the skylight through the rain as the worlds shortest, and most intense, thunderstorm hit. I watched 'Notes on a scandal' (fantastic) in bed on the laptop and planned our trip to Turkey in September (always takes longer than you think, trawling through the empty promises laid before you so enticingly on ever so many to choose from websites - remember the good old days when you went into a travel agents and they sorted your holiday out for you while you sat there and looked at the enormous map of the world on the wall behind the counter, dreaming about far off places...ahhh. yes)

Today I felt the world go round at just the right speed. I even had time to put a slow cooking beef stew with sage dumplings on to cook. mm mmm goodness. Jon is heading home now, tubewilling he will be here by 9 for kai before bed and the end of my lovely sick day.

the fridge

nothing like out of towners to help you feel more attached to your adopted town of choice. so choice it was and choose we did. thanks london. i guess. finally. i mean, being in the northern hemisphere and not being in the arctic we were hoping for some not rain and cold some times (expectations have always been low but...) anyway it arrived with leanne and kane (always rely on the east coast to shine on thru) who stepped off the plane on thursday, and had wisely booked us in ahead of time, so we were well primed (kinda) for 24 hours of londra.

um. briefly. like jockley. portobello rd with all the italians looking for the pretty door (dov'e?). dodgy cherry guy. velvet jacket for bryce. handbag for shippie. shirts for leanne. cd for me (rjd2 thank you - first cd purchase since 2003! because i was too lazy to downsteal it. what is the world cominng to?). alana - what did you get? kane got a smile and some sunshine.

a little bit of wandering off the beaten track took us thru notthinghill and on the way in hyde for the tour de france... which decided to start in london this year... so there were chaps (are there any ladies?) riding along a support vehicle complete with 3 changes of bicycle - just in case you didn't have anything to wear i guess. flouro lycra only goes so far (yeah like back 20 years. it really was that long ago. and that was the LATE 80s)

more lying around in the sund and back to relax on the deck (feijoa 42 below never tasted so good!), a little dinner and some sprucing before landing ourselves on to the district line and into the suber club FABRIC (forever more THE FRIDGE thanks to leanne).

how do i describe it? memories. clean. star trek hand dryers. really. doorman at the toilet cubicles (who needs engaged anymore?) techno room. detroit house room. dubby bass moving into housey house room. chill out beds. munters from munterville (fat ladies arms was mentioned more than once). guantanamo bay for smokers (herded into corrals for general mockery and derision). PA was solid all round. djs mediocre. company: genius.

taxi ride thru the deserted streets of london under the scruffy dawn sky was a treat. the sunrise over shephards bush with eggs and toast quite a treat. saying farewell to chums less so. but then they were going on to the holiday of a lifetime so i didn't feel so sad...

love

bryce: infinitely good or infinitely evil? you tell us.


kane and leanne. a little bit of gissy for us all.


one of 20 cctvs in the kitchen


not so secret







afterwards

the sun always shines on tv

sometimes the sun does shine
so in recognition of the longest day we're gonna have for a while, some sunny photos. afternoon gorging ourselves in kew garden followed by Xtreme frisbee in the forest with morris and ellie and nige and shippie. ace.


nige remembers where he left the smarties...


not sharing.


and that's all


sweet and short right?

i'll be

yeah so there was an amnesiac memory card but no longer! so its...

AMSTERDAMnER II.

thank goodness. really. i know how to get the most out of my tourist miles. no, really because your kids are paying for it. tell it to the polar bear.

some fellas hanging round outside biggie and rene's

again??>!>!?!>!?


geoff and alana find the first beach of the day. cafe inside a glass house. sounded like a good idea at the time...


real life dog. none of that CG stuff. nono. funny too. bow wow. ee.


second beach of the day.

It was big and black.

Yesterday, we saw a great big black spider; it crawled out of our bed, shortly after we did! Usually this would have given me the geebies, but I was so taken by how beautiful it was that I completely forgot to be frightened. Jon carefully picked it up and let it go outside. It was nice to see an insect, as not so many creepy crawlies seem to dwell in the city. Guess they're a bit smarter than humans.

While we're on the topic of big, black creatures, a crow has taken to hanging out on our balcony. I have so many dark and forboding associations with crows, so it kind of made me feel a little nervous at first and everything seemed to take on a B-grade thriller feel. I was ready for the vampires. Then I remembered I was in Chiswick where there are too many zimmer frames and babies carriages for such flights of fancy (tho would make v cool zombies). I think our friend master crow is really more interested in scavenging wee morsals of breakfasts and bbqs. Which, thanks to the growing summer warmth, are happening outside on the deck with ever-increasing frequency.

Today, we went to the garden centre to get some herbs to plant in pots on the deck. Our flatmate Megan had already started the green thing going with tomato's, sunflowers and basil, so we brought mint, sage and rocket to add to the mix. The garden cenre was a little oasis, absolutely teaming with plants of all variety and even a little pond housing the ubiquitous goldfish. Felt like right urban hippies, cycling home with our bags of dirt on our carriers and mint plants in our baskets.

damns

when my world was smaller and my mind bigger i used to have a great time imaging a cool event just about to happen or just passed... like this time a week ago i was visiting my cousins in australia...or this time tomorrow it will be christmas...jeeez that was a mind trip...

...anyway... found myself doing that yesterday (being sunday night)... thinking back to this time last week when me and lala where playing @ being bard pitts and andy joline @ cannes. why you say?

cos first of all congratulations to mark albiston (ablie the racist dragon) and lou sutherland for directing and writing some kind of short film thing that some people liked more than 3000 other entries to be 1 of 11 finalists @ cannes. yeah, so alright i guess.

so after going ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for about that long i decided to go and after going yeahaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh for that long la decided to go. (sadly our chorus was a little off beat so we had to fly different airlines. not superb, especially with a 2 hr stop over in paris, but mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

FRIDAY
yeah and met up with some others from the sutherland/albiston entourage (mark's sister angie and buddy nathan) and helped to inject a little energy into the dazed and confused wellington lads (7 nights of caning it in cannes had taken its toll) - so they dutiful got us tickets to 'all' the 'great parties' and treated us like superstars. which is always nice. really. it is. i don't feel bad. at all.

and swimming. cos it was warm as.

SATURDAY
was the screening of the 11 finalists. was a beautiful cinematic experience. up there with seeing star wars in matamata back in '78, and the empire / jedi double feature in the paramount in '83 (anyone feel free to correct me where i am wrong). great films and cool to be sitting in the theatre with all the film makers. good times all round. had a wee celebratory sea food feast with some of the fellows from mexico cos they were nice.

mark, lou and robin (who made everything happen!)




albie didn't think the sea snails were very nice, but then he was sick as a god from impressing all the fellas the night before. very impressive.

i'm sure there was a swim in there somewhere.

SUNDAY
another great hookup was getting accreditted (means you can wave your id card and go into any movies you want (after queing for an hour, but it was free right?), so we went to see new coen bros film (some title someone else remembers). alana had the best getting in for free trick cos she had stolen someone else's id (photo looked nothing like her), so heading to security she carefully positions the id around her neck whilst strategically lowering her cleavage... text book diversion tactics... she could teach you a thing or 2.. yep.

swimming (probably)

oh yeah and then we realised that we weren't just going to mark's award ceremony but to the whole she-bang cannes closing prize award hooplah. so we were excited. and i was glad that i did bring a black tie. was all a little overwhleming, with me trying to get as much shaky footage of mark and lou doing there schmoo on the red carpet and kinda forgetting that i was there too. another time perhaps.

if only our mums could see us now.


exciting stuff huh?

the first awards read out were for the short film competition, with mark's film getting a jury prize (essentially runner up), so luckily i managed to get some more shaky cam footage of them reading out his name, and from there its a bit of a blur...

hookups followed all evening, sneaking into pre-dinner drinks, being ushered back out the red carpet into waiting transports and whisked down the beach to the dinner dinner and toe tapping to the acest tunes you haven't heard since a night out @ the fraggle rock in palmerstone (i thought the french were supposed to be good @ the house thing. oh well. the vodka was cold)