London Happenings

Rain, Southbank at night, teeny tiny kite flying, pirate instructions, before the big day and a lot of Charlies.

Windows of Bristol

My favourite thing about Bristol was all the lovely windows.

The Dogs

On Saturday we went to watch the greyhound racing at Wimbledon Stadium. It was like being in a Blur photo shoot, everything looked exactly as I had imagined from the colours of the stadium to the crowd of people gathered and when the sun went down it looked even better - surely all greyhound racing should take place at night, preferably wrapped up in a scarf on a cold evening. We had a blast and the evening just flew by. Astonishingly we even won back all of our money.

Peckham

Just the sun setting over Peckham

Gin, Pool and Rainbows

A glass of gin and a game of pool and the brightest rainbow I've ever seen at the Earl Ferrers

Papercuts

I've been trying some really basic papercutting recently, this is an older one that I started out with. If I get good at it it might develop into a little project.

Penarth

A few minutes across from Cardiff Bay is the Victorian seaside town of Penarth.  There's something comforting about old seaside towns that have somehow survived the changing of time.  The tide was out when we arrived and the wet sand was full of etched hearts.  We visited on a Sunday afternoon with the idea of eating dinner by the sea but absolutely everything was closed except The Fig Tree where we sat on the roof terrace watching the tide coming in.

Cardiff Castle

Last weekend we spent a couple of day in Cardiff.  Our first stop was Cardiff Castle.

Coast

I don't remember the ocean being quite so blue as this.

134 mph

Another evening at Wimbledon cheering on Nadal against Murray and fulfilling a dream of finally seeing Ivanisevic.

Heatwave

All this sunny weather makes me want to go to the beach.

Huge fire in London today. Walking home Waterloo Bridge was closed to traffic so everyone could walk in the centre of the road. It's nice how that little bit of freedom cheers everyone up - I saw people dancing their way across the bridge. It's like a piece of sugary sweet rebellion but without the repercussions because it's been approved by the authorities.

Speaking of which, I got called stupid today by a policeman that thought Waterloo Bridge was called Embankment Bridge. Yup.

Favourite Places: The Enlightenment Room

On those days when I'm at a bit of a loss and in need of some ideas I love nothing better than walking around the Enlightenment Room at the British Museum. It's such a great place to think.

It's the first big room on the right as you walk in through the main entrance and it's beautiful; the room displays a vast array of objects documenting the way collectors grouped things, seemingly unrelated objects are placed together based on characteristics like size, shape or colour. When I walk around and look at the curiosity cabinets, the collections of things - coins, shells, rocks - and the floor to ceiling book cases, I want to be a part of it, to go out and explore and most of all to be awed by the world.

Imagine seeing the world for the first time.

Southbank

We had a really lovely day at the Southbank last Monday. This summer it is dripping in seaside nostalgia with old ice cream vans, beach hut galleries and a huge sand pit. It was an unusually windy day – skirts and hats went flying, the rows of paper aeroplanes near the Jubilee Bridge looked like they were about to blow away from their wires. We stopped off at the balcony bar in the Royal Festival Hall for spicyspicyspicy ginger beers and in the evening saw Frankenstein at the National Theatre. Excellent times.

Just a few photos from last year that made me smile on Monday when I found them.