unpacking the sunshine

A delightful weekend near Cheltenham, mixing city restaurants with countryside walks and spectacular barbecues.

We were with friends and comparing stories from our last year or so. There’d been plenty happening for all of us and the leisure and luxury of a full weekend gave us a chance to unpack each others’ adventures in episodes.

wish you were

Time to meet a few friends for an evening beer at one of our arch destinations by Waterloo.

I successfully turned early into punctual by being waylaid at the seaside scenes along the South Bank.

The sandy shoreline, funfair and beach huts create a mini Southend-on-Sea or Jaywick Sands between the skate board area and the Jubilee Pier.

Doughnuts, anyone?

The Botanist to the Mason's Arms

Thursday evening we met at the bustling Botanist. Our little gang had swapped emails, texts and staccato phone calls as I walked to meet across the middle of Sloane Square.

I'd picked the bar because it is like a crash course in Chelsea people watching. Early evening and the fashionable place was already spilling out across the pavement.

After a suitable pause to catch breath, I led my out of towners for a brief spin around more of the area. We strolled along the King's Road, before stopping for a while in a small place by the Saatchi.

We were discussing new possible residency in the area, so the trip around could have been considered as a form of diligence.

Then a brief bus ride, a wander through the the park, and onward for some home made coffee before heading further south towards a friendly pub where we chatted and made plans.

The Triangle - Kindle Edition

I realised that the last 3-4 books I've read were all eBooks.

Sometime ago I installed the Kindle reader on my iPad and more recently downloaded a few books to save space packing whilst on vacation.

It worked well except when I took the iPad onto a very sunlit beach and decided that wasn't such a bright idea.

But for general reading it is very useful and compact enough to be an easy choice to take along. It also caters well to the 'reading many things at once' habit and always remembers the right page.

So, what more natural thing than to test down load a copy of 'The Triangle'? An absolute bargain at its $2.99/£2.13/€2.40 eBook price.

Naturally I will still recommend this to everyone as a 'good read' for the summer and , who knows, maybe I'll get around to publishing Part 2 sometime soon?

lady of the lake

A short morning bicycle ride. I realised that I'd started early when I cycled past a couple of people and said "'afternoon!" and they looks slightly puzzled.

I'm telling myself its because of the longer days.

They can't look too oddly at me though, not when there's the local lady of the lake being used to scare the big birds away from the ducklings.

Although the heron is somewhat undeterred.

jumping the 'S' curve.

Looking out across the city from the south bank, there's that shifted perspective, with the illusion to hold the city in the palm of one hand.

Look at the picture above with one eye, hold out a palm and you have the whole city before you.

Sometimes these other-views can be insightful. A way to think differently about what is happening and maybe to set new agendas.

I'm starting a few new ideas. It will force me to manage time in a different way.

Some things have to give way in order for new things to start.

My last 2000 flickr snaps in 4 minutes

Its fun to create one of these flashbacks every so often.

Even at high-speed I can recognise most of the events and even spot the 'oops' where things were not quite as they seem.

I expect the capability to do this will be built into mobile phones soon.

birds were singing to calm me down

It's 03:34 in the morning and already the first signs of the new dawn.

If I walk around with the house in darkness, there's a white light shed across rooms with open doors from what is starting to happen as the sun climbs towards the horizon.

And some of the birds are already singing.

Welcome to tomorrow.

tales of the riverbank

I managed to take a small spin on the bike, towards somewhere called Frog Lane.

Being a mid-week afternoon, the lanes were not so busy and I was happy to take a gentle tee-shirted roll along some back-roads.

I overtook one cyclist standing by the roadside and discarding outer layers because of the temperatures.

At another point someone sped past me at very high speed.

Usually when this happens it will be a lycra-clad speeder with a specialised high tech racing bike that makes a sort of whistle from the air-tuned spokes as it passes.

On this occasion it was a woman on a fairly basic mountain bike.

I carried on at a sedate speed as she doppler-shifted a good 300 metres ahead. After the next curve I noticed that she now seemed to be going much slower and I worked out she was using more or less one gear irrespective of the quite undulating terrain.

We were now on one of those awkward long sections where I was mainly freewheeling yet she was pedalling furiously but somehow I was gaining. To avoid creating an inadvertent race I politely slowed right down leaving a respectable gap.

Eventually a reasonably straight section appeared for me to overtake again, just ahead of a quite steep section. I called 'hello' and we swapped some banter as I overtook and it became plain that the other rider was perhaps unfamiliar with the particular bicycle.

I disappeared around the next corner and towards the hill - knowing I was ahead but also that the next section was somewhat vertical. Fortunately for me the other rider was still in one gear and probably walking that section.

I carried on for another few miles to the stream, where I paused to eat half a pineapple and ginger torq bar.

The adjacent cows spotted me and decided en masse to come along for a look, maybe thinking I was the farmer. And then, as they got into better visual range they slowed and dispersed back to grazing.

Meantime a yellow wagtail first walked and then flew dippily along the river. A few moments later it emerged on the bank, with its prize catch of a small fish.

I decided this would be a good spot to take my afternoon conference call.

Tasting Notes : Green King IPA at the Camel

As I acquired a new tweeter on the strength of the last post, based upon its reference to real ale, I thought I'd mention the beer from Monday evening. It was Greene King IPA, which I think leaves real ale afficionados divided.

You know what? For me it was a perfect choice.

A well-kept pump pulled pint close to Waterloo (the Camel and Artichoke, actually).

It brought me memories of drinking out in Essex and beyond in some of my older stomping grounds.

This pint wasn't trying to be ultra clever with wench-mashed hops and waggle bee honey droppings.

No, it was a straightforward pint of medium strength bitter. The kind to choose for an extended session chatting with a friend.

I could quibble at its India Pale Ale moniker, because actually the beer had a quite dark tint, particularly compared with the adjacent St Edmunds.

Whatever it's moderate strength, it had that sharp and slightly peppery edge at the first bite which persisted nicely through the whole glass.

And above all, what I liked was that this was a proper beer evoking English countryside, served from a barrel, and not some kind of marketeers' clever badging of a science experiment.

i go for a real ale before the tagliatelle

One of those 'hold the phone to the window' videos of the approach to Waterloo.

I was actually heading for a pub in the vicinity of the station to talk of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings with a misplaced friend.

Randomly, on the way I spotted another tie-wearing friend as I cut across the Waterloo concourse and the two of us calculated the gap of some 3 years since we'd last sipped together.

The consequence will be another excuse for a get together somewhere around the city.

And then onward to an evening featuring real ale before moving into the tagliatelle stage. A proper example of "Pronto?"

instigate

A few interesting exchanges over the last few days. As I go about my re-modelling project it is interesting to pick up the weak signals from others.

By weak I don’t mean they are invalid or suspect, more that they you have to look for them carefully.

It’s been interesting, because I’m really planning a bunch of new things to try but need to balance a little prudence into the equation.

Not so much caution that the lizard brain kicks in and says “Step away from that idea” or the coarser version for which “tea break's over, back on your heads” is the punchline.

No, I’m trying to define some self-initiated ways to operate a “lifestyle portfolio” that means I can balance my own control along with sensible economics.

This may all sound a bit weird in amongst my normal blog posts about London Town and suchlike. And I promise it is not some kind of meltdown.

More sensibly, I am keen to look at other ways to operate. It might take a while for any of it to start making sense.

To me, let alone any one else.

But it’s started, and that is a Good Thing.