Lunch at Wilga and Norman

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Family and Dog portrait

Treacle, what a sweetie!

100 out of 100

At last I managed to get hold of Double Indemnity, 1944. Great movie!! That means I have now seen all 100 of the IMDB Top 100 movies. I have only 11 more movies to see and will have seen all 250 of the Top 250 list. It's taken 4 years and been a wonderful challenge to get hold of them all - I'm more in love with cinema than ever.

Sally comes to visit

Sally and Ally in Claire Garden, Cambridge. Ally took the day off to spend some quality time with Sally. Lovely to have her to stay for a night.

Mike's birthday outing up the mountain

Happy birthday Mike!! From mum's email, I gather it was rather chilly at the top with a strong wind that tried to blow Antony's ruck sack off the mountain. We were on the other side of the scale here in the UK - so swelteringly hot we had to take shelter for the day. Just got back from a lovely evening swim in the outside pool at the gym.

Ostriches, elephants and pygmy marmosets

Bronwyn is the new brand manager for the London Zoo and Whipsnade Animal Park. She's loving her new job. We visited it today and enjoyed it very much in the gorgeous sunshine. Lots of African animals including lions, rhinos and Springboks making us feel a little home sick. Also had a picnic as you can see.

Pimp Mobiles and Smart Cars

Daves new Alfo Romeo with it's red "love seats" Affectionately nicknamed by his sisters as the "The Pimp Mobile", it's a rather lovely specimen of a car and sports all kinds of high tech gadgets including a mobile GPS computer. Bronwyn and Mark have a new "Smart Car" that is very efficient on the gas and easy to park in those tight London steets.

It's Mr Wynne

James came through Cambridge on his trip to the UK. We all met up at Johnathon and Amandas for a South African braai. A good time was had by all with plenty of hearty chuckles and reminiscences from the "good old days".

50 years on the job

Peter has just retired from Volvo after 50 years of employment. Amazing and pretty special.

Sandringham Estate, Norfolk

We did an enjoyable day trip to Sandringham, the country residence of the Queen. Set in stunning gardens, we also did a tour of the house itself. A much more intimate interior than Buckingham Palace, we saw the board games they play and the dining room table on which they have dinner. Sadly the Queen couldn't fit us into her social dairy - she was in St Pauls today commemorating the women of the 2nd world war.

Oh for those Cape Town beaches!!

We dropped off at the beach on the way home and got this huge mud flat instead. Grey, rocky dirt for sand. No lapping waves, just ankle deep, tepid, mossy brine. No lithe, bikini clad nubile babes, just fat, frumpy middle aged men displaying builder's cracks. Hopefully Australia will provide better fare than this!

Lavendar Fields

English Lavendar fields, ablaze with purple. A lovely fragrance.

An old man walking his dog

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Just did it!

Taken in Amsterdam.

The dangers of punting

We went punting along the Camb last weekend and saw a suspicious bunch of guys on the bridge ahead. Didn't think too much of it though - until we passed under the bridge and they unexpectedly "bombed" us from the bridge. We got soaked. And loved it - the girls thought the "bombers" were kinda cute and the weather was hot so a bit of a cooler off was just what we needed. Can't say that all the other punters on the river who experienced the same treatment felt as amiable as us though.

Summer evening in Gothenberg

Spent a lovely evening in Gothenberg with some colleagues, including Caroline. Also Marriane, Eric and his lovely wife who I met for the first time. Dinner on a boat, enjoying the evening sun with lots of good laughs. Great company all round. It was great to see Caroline as always. I'm so, so going to miss her when we leave Europe.

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Ivor and Janice's little one

Cute little Jessica!!!! Ivor and Janice (I&J) now call themselves I&J squared. Can't wait to see them in December.

Martin's farewell punt

Another punt down the Camb, this time as a farewell outing for Martin. It was a gloriously sunny day with temperature over 30 degrees. Seemed liked everyone in Cambridge was out soaking up the rays. Ally was in the Lake District with Rosemarie so missed the outing. Afterwards, we went back to Mats and Maria for a steak barbecue. It was a late and rather drunken night.

The forfeits you pay when losing poker at 2 am in the morning

Martin's farewell presentation

Martin, a good friend at work, is leaving Volvo next week to do an MBA in the States. We did a funny farwell presentation for him yesterday where we pasted his face onto magazine covers and other funny things and painted a fantasy picture of where he might head in life. It caused a lot of mirth in the office and was a big success.

Pretty in pink

Every day now at work I go for a walk through Duxford with some colleagues (great exercise) and the scene of this pink car outside the pink house always makes me smile. I've seen the owner of the house and car a few times - and she herself is always adorned in pink. Well, what did you expect?

Non fiction books read (Cambridge years: 2004 - 2005)

Personal Development

• Getting Things Done (David Allen)
• Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (Richard Carlson)
• The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell)

History

• A Brief History of the Human Race (Michael A. Cook)

Fiction books read (Cambridge Years: 2004 - 2005)

• The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)
• Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman) 
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)