How did that happen? Alice is (sweet) 16

Philip & Alice Slade

Like father like son

Jake looking every bit his fathers son.

Belgium Grand Prix

Spent four and a bit days bumbling around the Ardennes Forest watching some pretty amazing motor sport.YES Lewis did win fair and square!

Shared a hotel (come shop, see pics) with the Ferrari VIP hospitailty team (manily Scottish) eat too many waffles, drank just about enough beer, without being greedy and avoided most of the Germans. -included those who brought along a hot tub on the back of a lorry! picture story HERE.

Friday night in Berlin

How can you not have fun in Berlin? part research, part meander, mostly bar hopping. pics HERE

The Big Chill

Teenagers go wild in the country, while the responsible adult has a quite pint in a field. Pics HERE

Ben & Jerrys

Clapham Common and almost a real summer is with us. pics HERE of weekend

Philip | Post a Comment | Share Article

tagged alice slade, clapham common, crown

Wow, how long has it been?

Almost forgot this section was here. Will reorder and sort soon.

Stansted Airports (unoffical) pets zone

I always said airports need to think a bit more laterally about entertaining passengers - who needs BA's Molton Brown SPA and Virgin Club House's when you can play with the bunnies at Stansted! The walk to the Raddisson Hotel now features a whole bunch of very tame rabbits.

A lunchtime affair

How weird is this? The Fish has just started her new college course at Central St Martins. Twice a week i now get to have lunch with the misses as we are but a few doors apart on Southampton Row. She commented yesterday that the whole thing felt really odd seeing each other during the day '..almost as if we are having an affair!..'  Or rather a sad comment on today's working week that we only normally see each other during the hours of darkness.

New school term

Just as the summer kicks in with a barmy 24 today, Alice and Jake head for the new school (Autumn term!)

 

No head for heights

Spent last Saturday up a tree after after foolishly agreeing to take part in a Go Ape course. The idea is simple, after a short training talk you clip yourself into a harness and safety line and go bombing around the tree tops. Extremely narrow platforms and aerial walkways are interspersed by epic zip wires strung across a steep sided valley. Fun? well only when it finished. I can quite truthfully say it scared the bejesues out of me while i did it. The fact Alice and Jake were happily skipping ahead of me ment I didn't have the option to bottle it. Looking back it was an amazing experience. -just terrifying while i was doing it. The Go Ape brand was set up by Tristram and Rebecca Mayhew in 2001. Its a great business idea working in partnership with the Forestry Commission to get us city dwellers into the great outdoors. Currently running at 7 locations in the UK and turning over 6m this year, it's a classic 'why didn't I think of that idea'

The passenger

Had an interesting passenger on my way to work today. Large green grasshopper thing that managed to cling on all the way from Clapham Common to Russell Square. Not sure if he needs a lift back tonight.

2min Storm

 Its hardly Doncaster standard but London got its own version of a flash flood today. It being July and all its not really what we'd ordered.

Kids growing up

  wow, blink of an eye and suddenly Jake and Alice appear sooo grown up. What happened? These two pictures really brought it home to me quite how old they were looking. Less small child and more moody teenager. mmmm, Alice is pictured with one of the band Hadouken! on Brighton beach - après a very hot sweaty set in Concorde2. (I was there as escort) Jake is seen after having discovered Topman.

Stiges, Barcelona and Girona.

Farm house near Girona, Spain. Rioja, wild pigs and inflatable catapillars

New Wembley (and Muse)

Fish spent most of last weekend in the Gallery selling glass, including a commission which should go some way to paying for the lake of Rioja we consumed the week before in Spain. I took Alice and Jake to see Muse at the new Wembley. The gig was great*, but the new stadium is fantastic, all memories of the dank smelly hole it was before have been wiped away by a huge light and airy space, more bars than you can shake an inflated plastic stick at, in fact despite it being a sell out, there appeared more staff than punters at times. £3.50 a pint is not sooo bad albeit in a West End style. The food was also good compared to stadiams of old, but still only at a 'good' motorway service station level.

* = Actually, Muse (pictures HERE) were real value for money. Completely over the top in a bombastic queen like sing-a-long way. Mike Skinner of The Streets was a total surprise, real show man with a great sense of occasion, really caught the mood of the crowd. Dirty Pretty Things, were manic, did there stuff, nice matching shirts as well. Rodrigo y Gabriela, totally barking Mexico couple, doing insane things with guitars, great.

Fish online (at last)

After much prodding the fish has finally put her rather amazing glass work on line. It is a brief outline of the slumped or kiln fired glass pieces she has been making with her new business  partner Tracy. Annie has just started producing a sequence of panels made with flowers and leafs sandwiched between layers of thin cut glass. Which once fired in a kiln all goes really weird, beautiful weird of course.

A busy month (or two)

Dublin La Stampa

Staying in a very pleasant hotel called la Stampa. Sort of 'far eastern' hideaway meets Malmasion in a Dublin town house. Very grand bar on the ground floor.