rugby >> owens party >> sky

on a day when the rain came down so hard they had to get all the competitors (10 tors competion) off dartmoor because of the flood danger, after the most unbelievable amount of rain falling in a short time down here in the west country.
it was time to get to the rugby club for owen's birthday, great fun and some great rugby lessons learnt from the big guys it was sunny for all, well almost all of the time.
I could have stuck some pictures of the rugby or the ground or hot faces after playing hard but as the party finished one of the little sisters of the rugby guys let go of her balloon I thought it would be good to have a picture of that, so I took some this is one.

ollie >> skating video

this is ollie smith from brighton.



I have known ollie since he was born, now he is a good friend of my sons, luca & gabriel.
a long, long time ago I used to skate the same streets both in brighton and london. I was born in brighton and lived there before eventually (via hampshire, london, even france for a bit) chose to live in cornwall. as an old has-been I still skate (rarely) but never as good as this.
when I did skate a lot (in the70's & 80's) with people like melvin (before ollie was even born!) it was on days when there was no surf and so we did nothing like this no doubt some old school skaters will disagree.

I added it simply because I think it's such a good video made by people with a passion.

family eating out >> pizza express, starbucks

today we were in our city again, first to starbucks then after a good look around the shops and the new mall! rather too long in waterstones looking at books is so unbelievably absorbing. as me, carol, gabes (13) and ben (8) were all totally engrossed in books for ages. all we bought was a dr who book (ben) and a small model of stonehenge (don't ask).
we decided to go to eat, now I have probably as much trouble finding somewhere to eat as the fussiest child. I don't eat any meat or cheese but I have started to eat fish in the last few years, so starbucks is fine for a coffee and a snack.
I have always liked italian food and much as english style pizza especially at pizza express is not really italian in the true sense well it is close, much like starbucks isn't only a little coffee shop I am prepared to buy into the world of a corporate money making image. if it tastes ok, does not harm any one, does at least something positive (fair trade coffee, for example) and is designed well.

pizza express is somewhere I can remember going to as a child, it has been around since the mid sixties I know that italian interior designer enzo apicella designed a lot if not all of their restaurants and the corporate identity / logo. I was looking at their logo today while enjoying the meal all with the rest of us and I am sure that is has changed over the years, I have no basis for this just I think it looks different than it did in the 70's. does anyone know if I am right?
any way thats all except to say the idea of having a children's menu at last is nice especially bambinoccino a bit corny but ben liked it.

sunshine >> good to see gabes >> a bit like summer

it felt like summer today as we drove across cornwall on a trip to sort out some quite important stuff, we were running late as I had all off a sudden started working on the surfing article this morning (has to be done by the 5th) and carol was waiting for the post.
then over to dhl in north cornwall to pick up a new body glove wetsuit courtesy of surfgirl magazine for carol.
then back down to the city (in devon) for me to sort out my broadband account with orange and pick up a new phone. sorry people but its a blackberry I know probably more than half the people reading this will be waiting for the i-phone (from apple) to reach the uk, but I have to think about the service I use and what I need.
in cornwall if I want to get information from the beach by email I need a phone that I can do that with. I know that blackberry work predominantly with a windows user in mind and the rim technologies are again set to work with microsoft. I got the 8100 so a small phone, and to my eyes at least a nice looking phone, be interesting to see if it is any good?


the indulgence of the day was another visit to mcdonalds for the second time this year, it was my son ben (8) who wanted to go. I was surprised that they accommodated my strange dietary needs, I am vegetarian and don't eat cheese anymore, as you can see from the picture it looks a little odd but it tasted fine, I just can't help fueling the all these american monsters.

then towards evening we went to met gabes another of my sons from his coach journey. he had been on a coach since 9 in the morning and had pretty much seen the whole of the south coast of the uk on route to cornwall. all things considered it was a successful day. that's better much better.

one of those days >> thinking too much?

I have been so unproductive today, I can't think it was just because the clocks moved forward or we had to get to falmouth for ben's rugby match (his team won again). we were a bit late as well as had to relying on the sat-nav to get us there which in its self quite interesting.

all the time I was involved and watching the game but thinking about the ideas I have for the hub again as well as trying to work out why the mp3 recordings I have been gathering for the podcast dgthekneelo.podbean aren't working properly. since I have been not getting round to doing stuff by finding other things to do that don't really need to be done, so as you can imagine I haven't got anywhere. in a way it has been an OK day though, I can't expect every day to be the way I want it to be.

I have had one of the least creative days for ages. I did manage to achieve something I found a nice place for coffee in truro. I also bought a nice new cup to drink it from when I got home.
oh yes I bought some good coffee as well.

looking up >>

in addition to the post below we went to see our nearest and favourite professional rugby team play on saturday and it was really good as they won and are through to the semi finals, great weather, great atmosphere. but I do sometimes think people might consider me a little odd as I try and look up at the skyline as much as possible even at a sporting event looking for shapes and colours. I have a whole load of these kind of pictures taken over the last 25 years .


when I say skylines it is perhaps more where the sky meets the buildings I was doing this on the very short walk from the car park to the rugby ground as well as in the stadium. when I noticed this to my mind beautiful building in amongst newer occupied flats. I have walked the areas before and never seen it doing this you really do see the most amazing things each time something new.


I love walking round places slowly and looking up. in the last two years I have spent time in Nimes in southern France and that really is a place to look up in. having said that I keep finding new parts of my city that inspire me and show me that you don't always have to go far to see, moreover it's about how you look. some of the architecture and ornamentation across our local city is so beautiful is just largely unseen.

no snow in this city

we didn't have any of the snow today that the rest of the country seems to have had. these 3 pictures show parts of my day. it was a day away from work because of two important hospital appointments but instead of talking/moaning about them like I would have done. I thought I would show in pictures 3 things/images that I noticed. that have nothing to do with the reason for the trip! the car is nice and clean now.