Archive for January, 2010
My Year in Photos – January 31st – “HOW MUCH?!”
Being a fairly quiet day (an increasingly rare occurrence in our house these days), we opted to go out for a nice pub lunch at the Crown at Playhatch – a very nice pub if you’re ever in the area. The decision was made easier by the fact that our oven has finally died (new one already ordered, thankfully) so our usual Sunday roast plans were scuppered. Anyway, on the way to Playhatch we stopped at Mothercare to get Robert’s feet measured, with the view of getting him some new shoes.
As predicted (he squawked last time we put his shoes on him), Robert’s feet have grown and he’s now a size 5F – so new shoes were needed. If you’ve never had the pleasure of buying kids shoes, you’ll not be familiar with the paradox for shoe pricing – the smaller they are, the more they seem to cost. These tiny things, for instance, cost around £30 – even though they will probably only fit the wearer for approximately 6-8 weeks. Good thing I bought a lottery ticket this week…
My Year in Photos – January 30th – “Here’s one I made earlier”
On a day whose highlights will include a visit to Tesco, two visits by plasterers, a trip out to look for a new oven and numerous loads of washing, I figured I probably wouldn’t get any good photos out of any of those activities. So whilst adding another toilet roll tube to the pile earlier, I snapped a picture of the growing pile, along with a selection of our bathroom reading material. Far from being offended at their bathroom placement, I would hope that any of the authors whose literature is featured here will take it as a complement – we like to have good literature on hand in the John!
The toilet roll tubes, in case you were wondering, are being collected to go in our “Crap bag” in the garage – a big liner full of boxes, tubes, cartons, scraps and other stuff that we might need for kid-based DIY projects. Maybe I’ve been watching “Mr Maker” too much, but I reckon you can never have enough junk like that to hand when you’re looking to make the next Tracy Island….!
My Year in Photos – January 29th – “Building up to bedtime”
At the end of what has been a pretty fecking tiring week, I was pleased to come home and find that Robert was feeling much better, so much so that when I walked in he was treating his mum as a trampoline. For those not following my updates, we took Robert to the doctors yesterday to be told that he had not one but TWO ear infections, a bad bout of conjunctivitis, a cold and the ongoing teething issues. Hence why he’s been a bit of a grump lately. Having got him a variety of medicines and remedies, he seems to be on the mend now. I took this photo at about half seven, when he’d normally be fast asleep, but had decided he wanted to play with bricks instead. Having put up with him being grumpy all week, it was just nice to see him being so perky!
My Year in Photos – January 28th – “Not a plane funeral”
Today was a bit of a sombre day, being as it was the funeral of my wife’s uncle, who died a week or so ago. The funeral was a very nice service which I won’t dwell on, but the wake was very different to the few others I’ve ever been to – it was at an airport! Apparently Ron (the deceased) and his wife were regulars at the cafe in their local airfield, which backs on to Gatwick, where you can watch some lovely old planes come and go. So they held the wake in what is essentially an airport cafe – which was really lovely, and very different!
My Year in Photos – January 27th – “Battersea or bust”
Busy day for us today, starting with an early appointment at Starbucks in Clapham, where Milly and I were covering the DAVOS social media session for the Tamar blog/twitter feed. After that we headed over to Battersea for a workshop we were running with the guys at QVC. I’ve never spent much time in Battersea before, but have always quite admired the imposing power station, so took great pleasure in examining it (and taking this photo) while we ate our lunch between sessions. The QVC building itself is very impressive too, but it’s so bloody big that I couldn’t actually get a good photo of it without going half way across Battersea park!!
My Year in Photos – January 26th – “Red sky at night”
This shot was taken as I walked through Chiswick this evening, at the start of what turned out to be a really nice sunset. Apart from having to explain the “Red sky at night” concept to my American colleague Milly a few weeks ago, sunsets always remind me of these wise words from my friend Ali:
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight
Red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning
Minced lamb and mashed potato, shepherd’s pie”
I think we can all take something from that, can’t we? :D
My Year in Photos – January 25th – “What shall I paint?”
Today’s photo is of something I saw very early in the day, at around half seven on my way to the M4. I don’t *actually* know what it is, all I know is it’s been erected on the massive building site next to Junction 11, where the junction is being extended at the moment. It piqued my interest – I wonder if they’re building a giant teepee, or perhaps a REALLY big easel for a massive painting?
My Year in Photos – January 24th – “A classic evening”
This evening was a momentous evening in chez Elliss – it marked the first time that Sara and I have been out (without Robert) for well over a year. Thanks to Katy, who very kindly babysat for us, we went to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring Emma Johnson on Clarinet – a favourite of Sara’s, who is a Clarinettist herself.
For the cultured amongst you (and I don’t count myself in that number!) they performed:
– “Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, by Felix Mendelssohn
– Clarinet Concerto in A majo K/622, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
– Symfony No.8 in G major Op.88, by Antonin Dvorak
My Year in Photos – January 23rd – “Feeling broody…?”
Today we headed over to Hertfordshire to visit our Uni friends Dave and Claire, who recently became parents for the first time. We had a lovely day out, followed up by a lovely pub lunch in Maidenhead and a trip to the Sheeplands farm shop at Harehatch, on the way home. Win!
My Year in Photos – January 22nd – “How not to save money”
I headed down to the trendy shopping street in Chiswick today (I’m assuming there’s not many of these streets, or I’d have found them by now!) to buy a baby gift for some friends of ours who have recently had a baby. As you’d expect on a street of trendy boutiques, there were lots of very pricey-looking shops to choose from, but this seemed like the best bet for baby thins (judging by the name!).
I ended up getting some very nice gifts in their sale (I won’t reveal what, in case they are reading this!) but was pretty impressively shocked to see some “Baby Dior” booties on sale in this shop – for NINETY POUNDS! Considering toddlers apparently change shoe size every six weeks, that’s quite an impressive habit to have to keep… I think I’ll stick with Mothercare!