Ally and Una in London

Ally visited Una in London (an ex colleague and very good friend) on Friday night to see her off before she moves to Sydney to try out life there. It will be great to have a friendly face there when we arrive.

Brussels Airport

I flew to Brussels with VLM - quite an expensive airline. It was the only flight available. I laughed when I saw the advert above - it is placed at the VLM gate, just before you get into the plane. You've got to hand it to Virgin - it's clever and cheeky of them.

Volvo CE Headquarter (Brussels)

I visited the Volvo Construction Equipment HQ in Brussels this week. I've now officially been to every HQ of all the businesses across the Volvo Group - for Buses, Trucks, Penta, Aero, Financial Services and Volvo Group HQ - and visited offices in over a dozen countries. Amazing what a global company it is. It's a national past time at Volvo to compare caffetarias. Volvo HQ in Gothenberg has the badge for the best food. Cambridge is notorious for it's stodgy English fare but I still like it - I need fattening up.

Ah, that explains it!!

Sheffield

I've just got back from a two day training course in Sheffield. A pleasant student town with a positive vibe. There was a wonderful European cinema showing arty movies and I managed to catch "A Very Long Engagement" which I've wanted to see for a while. Made by the director of Amelie in a similar style but with a very different plot, it was pure poetry. I loved every minute of it. Whatever you do, go see it!

Sunday by the fire

On Sunday, we went to Amanda and Johnathon for lunch. They've just arrived back from 3 weeks in Australia so were tanned and full of hearty stories. They had a wonderful time and it was good to see their photos. We watched a movie "The Motorcycle Dairies" all about the "backpacking trip" through South America that started Che Guevera on his revolutionary journey. Great scenery that wetted out appetite. It was a freezing day on Sunday so we had a fire in the lounge to warm us up. Gina (A & J's collie dog) was as gorgeous as ever and very happy to have them back to herself (see top photo).

As a movieholic, I like this...

Things you would never know without the movies

- During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

- When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

- All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they are going to go off.

- A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

- Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.

- If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.

- A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

- It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts

- your enemies will patiently attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

- All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to the waist level on the man lying beside her.

- All grocery bags contain at least one stick of French Bread.

- The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place - noone will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.

- Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned to a partner who istheir polar opposite.

- The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.

- It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations.

- It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.

- Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds - unless it's the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.

- Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at the precise moment that it is aired.

Pretty as a picture

From Mum: "We went to supper with Jo and Antony when Mike arrived home from fishing - with one nice fish I must add. Sammy is into "shows" so we sat and watched her perform. Matthew thinks its great fun and played the wicked witch - which meant Sammy chased him round and round! The men would have preferred watching cricket but were remarkably goodabout it! "

Spinning highs

Well, I've just discovered a new fun but exhausting passion. Went to my first spinning class the other night. All the pros knew I was a newbie because i spent at least 10 minutes learning to adjust my pedals and seat to match my long frame. Also by my lack of a towel to mop up the sweat so I pespired all over the handle bars. Eeeeuw! But what fun. Pumping music. A loud, demanding coach who exhorts you to up and down the resistance level. Sometimes you have to stand on the pedals, other times hover just over the seat, then get into a racing position and move your legs as fast as you possibly can. No way in hell I'd put this much effort into my exercise without the peer pressure, thumping music and screaming coach. Plus it's fun to look accross at your fellow spinners and see you're not the only one suffering. Gives you a great sense of comraderie. And when you get off the bike after 45 minutes of go,go,go the endorphins keep you on a high for hours. Needles to say, I'm off for another dose tonight.

The fading of the winter gloom

Thankfully winter is starting to lose a bit of it's grip here in the UK. Today we managed a twilight game of tennis up to 5 pm - just a month ago it would have been dark at 3:30. It's a welcome change. The winter in Europe certainly does have a rather desolate effect on the landscape and inevitably, on one's mood too. I'm looking forward to the advent of spring. On the drive home, we heard a reading of Thomas Harding's poem about winter and it stirred a few chords. So I thought I'd include it here.

The Darkling Thrush

I LEANT upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to me
The Century's corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.

Thomas Hardy

London stop-by

We drove to London this afternoon to have dinner with David and Susan - a belated celebration of David's 30th birthday. He liked his present - a fondu set. We went to a nice Spanish Tapas retaurant in Putney. Quite weird being in London again, especially driving past our old place in Hammersmith on the way. The relative peace and quiet of Cambridge is definely more our style. We also got to see Colleen and Steve for a couple of hours and had a game of twilight tennis.

Random memories now added to this site

I've recently migrated my photos to a new online album that offers all kinds of wonderful functionality. It called flickr. If we ever travel, it will allow us to blog our photos from any internet caffee. If I had a mobile phone that took photos, I could even post them to this site directly from the road. An added touch is the ability to post a strip of random photos from the album (see the right hand menu). Cool. I've said it before but I'll say it again. I love technology.

The Hustler

I saw "The Hustler" last night and loved it. Paul Newman as a young hot shot pool hustler who takes on the big fish in some of the most awe inspiring pool playing I've ever seen. Made we want to grab a cue and take a few cracks myself. Problem is I usually embarrass myself horribly at pool - particularly when it's my turn to strike and I miss the huge triangle of balls altogether. I do have the occasional flourish of brilliance bit it's generally pure fluke and the ball sinks in a pocket I was never even meaning to aim for. The movie also contained a rather tragic love story which I wasn't expecting - and leaves you with a lot to think about. Definitely a movie I would heartily recommend.

Serving up a storm

I had fun tonight. Went to the "tennis extravagana evening" at the gym. All the tennis enthusiasts (must have been over 50 of us!) at the gym met up with all the tennis coaches and we did fun exercises accross 9 courts.

I was a bit nervous about going because my tennis is still rather shaky and i'm struggling with the new technieques i've been taught. it's like being a beginner again. Still, i needn't have worried - we were at all levels and there was a friendly, jovial atmosphere about.

One thing i can do is serve. While i struggle to get my forearm balls to go anywhere but in the net or catapaulting to the roof, my serve seems to just go in. So i was delighted to discover that one of the exercises was "fastest serve competition" They had one of those speed monitor things that tells you how many miles an hour an hour your ball flew over the net. The winner was 95 miles an hour. I managed 87 miles an hour - which i was very chuffed with. I also managed to hit the hardest shot of my group (over 100 miles) but it didn't go in unfortunately!! As my tennis coach said "If i can manage to get those in all the time, i needn't worry to much about my faulty forearm.

Still, it's all coming on (i only stated a few weeks ago) and I'm having fun. Also meeting lots of great people. Ally's tennis is also coming on in leaps and bounds.

Continuing traditions (Ally)

Carol has given me a very precious gift: Nana's printer's tray. Whenever I visited Nana, I would admire the objects in her printer's tray she had collected from her travels. Whenever Graeme and I travel, I plan to get a little momento in the same way. It will give us something to remember the travels by and stops me from buying big nik naks (Graeme's arguement!) Looking at all the empty spaces, we have lots of travel still to do!

Insights (Cambridge life: 2004 - 2005)

Don't sweat the small stuff 

• Everything passes.
• Let others be right. Choose being kind over being right.
• Instead of judging, be an anthropologist.
• Accept the moment as it is.
• You are what you practice most.
• 100 years from now, we'll all be gone from the planet.
• Don't be fooled by your low moods.
• Everyone is a teacher, here to teach you about yourself.
• Let go of need for approval.  You can't please all.  Even landslide victory is 55%

Getting Things Done (David Allen)

• Collect it all. Now (2 mins), actions, someday.
• What's the next action?
• What's the purpose.
• Mind like water.
• To do in Mindmanager

Favourite Music

I'm really enjoying my i-pad and the ability to download music through i-tunes store. With 10 days (and rising!) of continuous music on my i-pod, it is hard to get bored.

Smiles from Cape Town

Great photos - taken with mum's new camera i think. I particularly love the photo of Sammy in the bottom right. I could eat her up.

fxfx

My favourite software just got better!!

Picasa is a free photo organising package that is powered by Google. They've just brought out a new upgrade that catapaults the functionality into a new league - especially when it comes to correcting and improving photos. It also allows you to do automatic "collages" and all kinds of other special effects at the touch of a button. The collage above literally took 10 seconds to create. I can't recommend Picasa more. 

Special memory: Rusty

Wow, look at Russel! This is one of my favourite photos of him from his young days. Captures him at his zaniest. Hope he isn't to pissed off that I blogged it!

Dinner party

We had my colleagues from work over for a dinner party on Friday night. A great fun and very boozy evening. It's good working with such a great group of people.

Weren't they cute...

Found these pics of Tina and Meg recently. Along with Cindy and Scamp, I associate them with my "young days." I've realised I really miss not having animals around. The only animals in our lives right now are Geena (Amanda and Johnathon border collie) and Treakle, Carol and Gus's pavement special - and we hardly ever get to see them. Ah well, maybe it's time to settle down inside that white picket fence.

Mike's close shave

Mum's first attempt at cutting Mike's hair with the electric hair clippers. As she says " I know he doesn't have much hair at the best of times but after my first attempt he definitely has even less! I am sure I will do better next time - in the meantime it had better hurry up and grow!" Never mind mum. Short hair is in - and Mike's now very in indeed!

A new motto for life

Nicola (Gardner Atkinson) emailed this to me today and it gave me a real laugh. It's brilliant!!

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, margarita in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ WOO HOO what a ride!"

Favourite movies & TV watched (2005)

• Sin City (2005)
• Batman Begins (2005) 
• Crash (2004)
• Million Dollar Baby (2004)
• Borat (2006)
• War of the Worlds (2005)
• Saw (2004)
• Old Boy (2003)
• Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring  (2003)
• Amores perros (2000)
• The Thing (1982)
• All the President's Men (1976)
• The Hustler (1961)
• Double Indemnity (1944)
• Miller's Crossing (1990)
• Dogville (2003)
• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
• Brazil (1985)
• Scarface (1983)
• The Conversation (1974)
• In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
• Bringing Up Baby (1938)
• Band of Brothers  (2001)
• 24 (TV series) (2001)