Sweethearts Day

Everyone knows today was Valentines Day

As usual Andrew and I kept it simple and just stayed home and watched some episodes of Heroes, resting up for the excitement of going to Paris on the weekend.

Other news.. a couple days ago in the 12^th was Bruce Mackrous’ birthday and then on Valentines he and his wife Alyssa celebrated their wedding anniversary! Congrats you guys, miss ya.

The Pub and our Planet

Today we had a slow morning and went to our Local “The Victoria” to meet up with Kellie, Enzo, Alyssa and Mike ( friends of theirs who live here in England) for a roast. However by the time we all got together we missed the roasts.. but I do have to say later we saw some more roasts come out to people who got there way after us.. so we think we are not known enough at the local for roast.. we’ll work on it. But we still had lunch and a good little catch up. Sorry about the night picture but i just took this picture off their site.

That evening Amanda , Andrew and myself just took it easy and hung around the apartment. We watched “Day after Tomorrow” later in the evening.. hilarious movie.. but really folks it has a serious message ..so to see some scary pics check out http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/photogalleries/global_warming/
try to make a difference for more reading check out http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/crosscutting/climate.html

Feb 10th Part Two

In the evening we headed down to Kensington to meet up with Andrews friends from Melbourne – Kellie and Enzo - who were in town for a little visit. So we met up with some of their other friends here and went to the pub for some drinks and dinner. Hung around a little more at Rob’s apartment and then we went to Fabric, which is a hugely famous club here. Andrew and I had been to this club a couple years ago when were here last to see John Digweed.. and funny enough it had been years since he had been at Fabric and of course he was back for tonight. When we got there was about 300 people waiting outside, we had tickets to jump the queue but we still had to wait.. just in a smaller line. When we finally got in .. it was really smokey .. not just cigarettes but I think the guy in charge of the fake smoke machine past out on the on button.

Andrew and I went to room one as soon as we got in to see if we could do a little dancing, Room one is the best room cause the floor has all the woofers underneath so the whole thing vibrates… its amazing.. the real shit thing is that the club is always way to packed and there is absolutely not an inch of space to move. Digweed was not going to be going on till 3am .. and it was only going to get more crowded as the rest of the people in line start coming inside. So we tried to dance in a the other two rooms but we really were not feeling it .. so we ended up leaving a little earlier. We were not really tired just bored in the club and needed some fresh air so we walked home from Farringdon to Camden in the rain.. it was a great walk as it’s really the best way to see the city.

Feb 10th Part One

It’s Andrew sister Fiona’s birthday today!! Happy birthday Fi!

She is seen here on the right and the girl on the left is her cousin. Two wicked girls!!

Today Andrew and I and a slow morning and went for a walk up to primrose hill. Very nice posh little pocket above Regent’s Park with some lovely looking pubs. Sylvia Plath used to live there. Close by there is a little park that is attached to primrose hill with the hill. On top of that hill there is a pretty good view of London as most of it’s is pretty flat. It was not too clear a day but you can see the London eye in the middle of the picture.

When we got home it was time for Andrew to say goodbye to his most recent beard.So to document the occasion he cut into a number of different shapes.

First here you can see his beard in all its full length glory

Second is his Man that would be King beard.. which in person looked very 1800’s gentleman

Third we have his Angry Biker handle bar moustache

Fourth we have the classic porn star stash.. which funny enough I think kind of suits him or maybe it was just the cheesy smiles he was pulling

Fifth is what Andrew calls the Moustache Horrible ( to be said with a French accent)

Sixth but not least the Hitler or more what it looks like here is the Chaplin

So I think that is all I am going to fit in for today.. but there is more.. so stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow for the rest of Feb 10^th

Anna's Birthday

Feb 9^th brings my old London flatmates birthday, Happy Birthday Anna!!

She is the blurry one. .. sorry it was the only picture I could find of her.

Snow Day

Today (Feb 8) as the weather people predicted it snowed!

It is actually the second time it has snowed since I have gotten here but I didn’t take pictures.. instead I slept in and by the time I got out of bed it was not worth taking a picture.. but this day it snowed more so here is the picture.

As well I recently bought a wormery for our kitchen from http://www.originalorganics.co.uk/wormeries.htm

in our attempts to become as green as we can I thought this would be a good step. We are still only in the early stages of our wormery, they are getting used to their new home before we put lots of things in the bin.. but I can’t wait !! If it all goes pear shaped you’ll see the entry where I set the little buggers free.

Employment and Gibo's birthday

Today (Feb 7th) was one of more busier days so far.. I had two job interviews. One with MPC (Moving Picture Company ) and the other was with a smaller company who does architectural visualization work.

Both interviews went really well lasted over an hour, the smaller company seemed really keen but didn’t think they would be able to offer me enough money to lure me away from MPC. And in the end they were correct.. so next Monday Feb 26^th I will start working for MPC as their new Prep, Roto and Match Coordinator. Here is the link to the company website for those of you who do not know what they do http://www.moving-picture.com/

Today was also Tim Gibson’s birthday here seen on a local boat full of food and locals on our way to the Gilli islands. If you would like to see more of Tim’s adventures in Indonesia here are to links to some videos he has put together that are up on u-tube.
Happy birthday gone by tim.

Part1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWOmeCyI-zk

Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9EnXUL-wrA

Finished A Book

Today( feb 5th ) I finished reading the Life of Pi by Yann Martel which won the Man Booker Prize in 2002. It was a really enjoyable book a truly good story. At times I felt it was slowing down and for me the end is what clinched it for except for one thing but I won’t mention that as it would spoil it for anyone who did not read it. This particular copy was lent to me by Andrews’s father so David thank you for the lovely read.

Weekend in Nottingham

Okay we are now up to Feb 3rd

So this weekend our friend Andrew Hunt was back in town in Nottingham. This is the same Andrew who lived in Beijing at the moment who I went to see during my last trip as seen here having his mug taken in the Forbidden City.

Andrew and I took the train up to Notts for ol’time sake on Saturday morning. We went for some lunch at the Slug and the Lettuce with Hunt and Damon and then moved on to a friends of their’s to watch the end of a rugby game and have some drinks. After spending hours there we moved on to the pub we all used to go to called the Sir Johns where we were till closing and then we moved across the street to the Rope Walk.. where I went home shortly after to get some sleep in our hotel. It was a long night but loads of fun!

The next morning.. or really afternoon we had to catch the train
back down to London it was a rough morning… and when we got to the train station they decided to cancel our train so we had to sit around for over an hour for the next one. Ah Midland Mainlines we missed you. Andrew was extremely good to me taking care of my weakened state here he is taking my hand.. and the camera .. and how good I looked on the train bench. We were both so happy to get home and to bed.

Feb 3rd - Ben Simons B-day

Well today was Ben Simons so this entry is all about him. Ben decided to take off from work early for the weekend and jump a plane to Vancouver(he live in Toronto) . From there he took the bus up to Whistler for a little skiing. He had a brilliant time and here is a pic of him on the mountain. Ben I always one for a little bit of an usually birthday, last year he was in Sydney he didn’t know I had arrived a few days before so I surprised him by showing up to the honeymoon suite he had booked in a hotel right on Bondi Beach for is party. Wicked room we all put our feet in the Jacuzzi while sipping champagne and I’m bummed I could not be apart of this years adventure. Andrew and I miss your smile Ben!

Holiday Party

We are going to move forward a day but go back an entire month to Dec 29th to a little get together Andrew and I had in Vancouver. I was cleaning up my camera when I found some blurry pics so I though we could reminisce about the holiday season gone past.

This is the sunset that night from the living room I love this house!

So here ya go, if you are in them .. well you can see yourself ..if you are not but were there.. be thankful I didn’t put up a terrible picture of you caught in mid word ..if you missed it.. maybe next year. Thanks to everyone who came, it made our trip home so much better…

Thanks Eva for taking most of them we should have given you the camera earlier.

Jan 28th - Sunday Lunch with our Neighbor Joe

Our downstairs neighbor Joe invited us down for lunch today so get to know each other a little better. Joe is single gentleman who is a magistrate. He made us a delicious meal of Lamb couscous with roasted vegetables and salad. We got to snoop around his apartment a little as we didn’t know if he had both floors but he indeed does.. it’s a two bedroom one bathroom flat with a little garden in the back. We had a very pleasant afternoon but I didn’t take my camera so no pictures on this entry ..sorry…

Jan 27th Museum and Tea

We are slowly catching up to present day but we are still a couple weeks back.

So today we walked around the city a little and then went to the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit. This is an annual show that Andrew and I have caught a few times and it’s always really amazing. This year there were some fabulous pics but I have to say that this year was not the best that we have seen.

Now I have posted some pics from the show for the people who do not live here .. so if you live in London .. don’t look at them and just go and see the show it’s on till the 29^th of April.

This shot is the winner of the show.. it's a really mysterious picture - very alien. it's an underwater picture of a walrus tossing up the sediment.

There was a number of pictures by the same photographer on snow owls that were just amazing.

Here is just one of them



This one was Andrews favorite. This little pic doesn't do it justice at all.. in person it looks like the water and sky is on fire.. but its just the sunrise over a misty lake with the morning mallards wading around.


And then this one is my favorite. Its an aerial picture of a logging area where a windstorm had just gone through as well clearing out any tree left standing and by doing this it has created a tree image from the sky with the logging roads really looking like the trunk and branches and then the already cut logs lying on the road make the grass below the tree. Beautiful as it is obviously with a serious message.

After that Andrew and I met up with Lu and Amanda for afternoon tea at Richoux on Piccadilly Street where we proceeded to stuff out faces with finger sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, fruit cake, and pastries. We ate most of it.. but after that we walked home to try and work off some of the loads of cream we had just shoved down our gullets almost making us sick but it was oohh so yummy!

Our Apartment Second Floor

Okay so here is the last floor of our new fantastic apartment.

You climb up the last set of stairs and to the left is a series of shelves where we have linens and things as you can see in the picture and then on the right of the stairs is Amanda’s room which looks out onto the back of the house.

Then directly in front of you is the bathroom as you can see here.. it’s bright and clean and has a Jacuzzi but the owner says it’s really loud taking away from the relaxation of the whole scenario.

Then in between the bathroom and Amanda’s room is Andrew and mines room which over
looks onto the tracks. We had a lot of shelves in out room which i think i filled in quite nicely already.

So there you have it .. our new place from bottom to top.. hope you enjoyed it and as soon as we get an inflatable mattress for the living room it will be open for visitors.

Our Apartments First Floor

Okay so we will now continue the tour of our new apartment inside to the first floor.

Straight ahead when you get to the top of the stair you have the living room which looks over the train tracks. The living room has some really lnice dark timber hard wood floors, a coal fireplace ( they even left us a bag of coal) and great high ceilings. The owners also left us a bunch of furniture including the leather sofa, chairs and the coffee table. The television is also theirs but will be leaving in a few months when the landloard comes back to london from traveling around asia.

And then the other room on this level is the kitchen which looks out onto the back of the house. Lovely big space with a gas stove, big fridge for english standards and microwave.. which means if i could find a place that actaully sold microwave popcorn i would be in heaven.

Tomorrow will come the next level..this place is just so good i have to drag it out a little.

Moving Day to our new apartment

So it is the BIG DAY Jan 20th and we get to move out the closet we were living in in Soho and into our new flat in Camden. Andrew put blood sweat and tears into find us a fabulous flat for Amanda and I and he indeed succeeded!!

Our new address
5 Mornington Terrace
Camden London
England
NW1 7RR

Now I have only posted three views, they are all a little wonky too.. but all inspired but the hockney collages but at the same time our lense is not big enough to take the whole place in at once. But for this entry you are only seeing the outside as seen above. Once you walk in the front door there is a little corridor with two doors, one door to the main level apartment which includes the basement and garden area. And then our door that takes you upstairs to the top to floors which is our new home!!! Again this picture is a little off as i couldn't cross the road as there was a really ugly van parked out front loading in some furniture and i didn't want them and the van in the picture.

This next picture is the view from the front of the house over looking the beautiful train lines leading to Euston. You think it would be loud but to be honest you barely hear them. As well in the night the flashes of white and blue light really illuminate the room in a cool way. As well by having the tracks there nothing is in the way from the evening sun streaming into the living room..perfect for afternoon naps.

This final picture is the view from the back of the house which is a little more green and better for people watching. Here you can get a better idea of the other buildings around us.

Stay tuned tomorrow for pics of the inside.

Thank you for my lovely new home Andrew!

Another Day Another Museum

After having lunch with Andrew and a bunch of framestore folks I went to the the National Portrait Gallery to see the David Hockney Exhibit

It was pretty good … a little smaller than I thought it would be but the highlights for me were the portraits of his parents particularly his mother. And there was a photograph that covered an entire wall and it was him with is two dogs, then behind him were dozens of portrait paintings he had done of his dogs in every possible position; the individual pictures on their own were not so great but when they were all put together it was much more impressive and you could see the real study of his pups.

There was also another huge section of photos that he had done when he was taking a break from painting. For me that was the best part of the exhibit, there were collages of friends and family both in over lapping photos and other of a grid like photo using polaroids.

Here is one of the collages of his mother .. the best one was of a family portrait of them in a living room but the way he puts it together and people have three heads but you don’t notice as you feel like you are watching minutes of the scene.

First Gallery visit this year

On the 16th I went for a little wander around Trafalgar Square and decided to pop into the National Gallery to see the Manet to Picasso - A redisplay of Modern Masters From the National Gallery Collection. I was hoping to see a Monet that i know they have as i saw it there over ten years ago when i was at the museum with my parents but you rarely see as it's not one of the famous one.. but they didn't display it.. poo..but here are some other classics that i got to take a look at

Mr Tony Thorne's Birthday

We celebrated our friend tony's birthday on the 13th of January after Andrew and I turned up accidentally fashionably late. We'll get the hang of digital soon. It was great to see a bunch of people we had not seen in a long time and hear what they had all been getting up to in the last couple years. Then at about 2am I started to feel really sick.. but flu sick and tired so we started the trip home. That night was terrible hot and cold sweats and every bone and muscle in my body ached. I spent the whole next day in bed and pretty much slept for 18 hours.

On another note check out this science website a friends girlfriend works on it's awesome http://www.inklingmagazine.com/


Tony has also since started up a blog of some of his trasit sketches .. check it out http://thornetony.blogspot.com/

January Arrival in London

Well after a short stint in Toronto and Sydney Andrew and I have come back to England. We arrived Jan 7th in the morning after almost didn't get into the country. I came into the country on my Canadian visa as my British one had expired but they said i would need a visa if i was going to stay longer than 6 months...yikes.. i showed them my British passport and he left us there while he went to talk to his supervisors.. but i got in.. with a warning to get my passport renewed super quickly.


From there we had to trek all all my excessive luggage across the city but we finally made it to Soho. We moved into Andrews room that he was letting for the last few months and it was small to say the least.. check it out...what you are seeing there is the whole room. The bed was suspended from the roof so there was somewhere to keep your clothes... pretty cool but i was happy to no longer need to go down a ladder in the middle of the night to go pee.

so i got my new passport a few days later.. it was much easier getting it renewed inside the country than it ever has been outside so that was a bonus and now i have a new passport with a top secret chip..