North Yorkshire

First stop on our expedition to the Lake District was to Stephen's Mum and Dad's in North Yorkshire, to break up the journey a bit, but was an absolutely wonderful way to start the holiday.

Liz and John have a beautiful house and an absolutely stunning garden; intimate, serene, tranquil and functional, I've never seen such big beetroot. Just beautifully designed and realised - I loved it, my ideal kind of garden.

We also enjoyed Liz's magnificent Shepherd's Pie (Ruby's first), a good game of scrabble (Christophe and Ibolya won) and even some quality table tennis (I love table tennis).

Please forgive my picture spacing, my photos have a mind of their own at the moment.

Happy September

Just back from a glorious week in the Lake District and yet again, way behind with my blogging.
Here's a little taster until I get time to do a big catch up, one of my favourite pictures of the week, taken by Ibolya.

Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino's 'Inglorious Basterds' is a deeply perplexing and paradoxical movie. I saw it at least 2 weeks ago now and I can't stop thinking about it. It's the strangest film he's made so far and I'm really not sure if it's a work of sheer genius or incompetent folly. May be I need to see it a few times before I know if it's really any good or not. Beyond question though are:

• Christophe Waltz' amazing performance as Sander, the film ignites whenever he reappears
• How truly great the 'Cat People' sequence is
• Michael Fassbender is fast becoming one of this country's best and most versatile actors
• Brad Pitt has to be the most annoying actor of his generation, spoils every film he's in
• Always nice to see Julie Dreyfus, who's very beautiful

Invader

I cycled past (and popped into) this nice little show, earlier today, by French graffiti artist Invader at the Lazarides Gallery, Rathbone Place.
They're paintings and sculptures of, and made with, Rubik's Cubes.

Birthday Family Weekend

It was an absolutely glorious, unforgettable, weekend for my sister and I, as we celebrated our birthday with a great big family get together, at her home, in Sharnbrook. There was a convergence of Nottingham, Wirral and Harlesden Reads, Bennetts, Hargreaves and even a smattering of rarely spottered Chettles.
There were so many wonderful things about the weekend but just a few things that stand out for me were; the unbelievabley kind weather (which meant we could eat, drink and make merry outside, all weekend), the birthday Bob Books Ibolya produced for Sara and I, Uncle Jim enchanting the children with Mill House stories, launching the Wish Lantern Sarah had given us, our enormous, al-fresco, pork based meals and the spontaneous, inter-generational, game of family rounders on Sunday morning. It was all so good and such great company, I really hope we can do it all again soon.
Ibolya would like me to point out that she took the best photo of the weekend, of George finishing a glass of water.

Birthday Day Out

Just when I'd thought the birthday celebrations couldn't get any better and that I'd been as spoilt and indulged as possible, we were all off on Thursday for Ibolya to take us out on a surprise, mystery, day out.

The first surprise was that we all got a magnificent, deep, 2.5 hour sleep in the morning before she took us to see Walking In My Mind at the Hayward Gallery, a wonderful exhibition of installations and environments (shoddy pics from my iPhone)

After that, we strolled over Hungerford bridge, into Maiden Lane, for lunch at one of the great restaurants of the world, Rules.

It was just the biggest treat and pleasure, beyond anything, to spend time with my wife and daughter in this sumptuous restaurant and served succulent, young, Pennine, grouse.

Birthday Night

I celebrated my 40th birthday night at Christophe's fabulous restaurant, The Forge , in the pleasurable company of my wife and my very dear friends Stephen, Mark, Pete and Karen. It was a wonderful way to end what turned out to be, a very enjoyable birthday.

My Birthday

My twin sister and I are 40 today and I'm feeling very happy about it, particularly as I am now the very proud owner of a Nikon D5000 camera. My first grown-up digital camera and object of my desire for a long time.
I'm immensely grateful to all my lovely friends who contributed towards it and I can't wait to get stuck into the user manual and find out how to use it properly.
Here's me with the camera and the first picture I took with it.