Family
December So Far…
Well November ended on a high: whilst up in Norfolk for the weekend, I took Amy – Jack baled out at the last moment – to see London Grammar play the Open in Norwich and very good they were too (as expected).
I was also impressed in particular by one of the support acts: Josh Record, who may or may not use my suggestion of “Geoff” for the title of their presently unnamed track. Or not.
Tuesday of the following week and I was back off to Canada; Toronto this time to speak at a major exhibition (people actually had to pay to see me speaking). This time, it was a morning flight so I arrived at lunchtime EDT . Straight from the Airport via our offices to check the venue out for the following day, then off to the hotel to do a quick shower and change and back out for the evening: dinner at the Toronto Maple Leafs where their top player, Phil Kessel, celebrated his career 200th goal after scoring against the San Jose Sharks. Very enjoyable evening.
Wednesday and it was up early for breakfast and meeting colleagues before heading down to the convention centre to do my thing. A quick drink afterwards – bought for me by an ex-pat British lawyer (I didn’t have time to get her name) – then off to the airport for the red-eye to Heathrow.
Friday I had the day off: I was heading down to Gloucester for the PurplePort social. Great fun with lots of drink and chat: Katra was memorable for touching my face all evening looking for (non-existent) plastic surgery scars and Ali was memorable for not falling out of her corset despite all odds!
After breakfast, I headed back to London … via Bourton-on-the-Water where I lived when I was a little boy and we’d come back to the UK from Malta. I’d been taught our address parrot-fashion as we all do with our kids, so I popped it in to Waze on my iPhone and headed there. It was still as I remembered it, bar the houses that had been built behind the bungalow. Off into the village centre which was as I remembered it for a coffee and a walk around.
More of the same the following week – another seminar to give in London – and then the following week was fabulous, starting with the Placebo gig at Brixton on Monday 16th with GT. Really, really good they were too and it was nice to see GT after a few weeks.
Later that week, in Crawley at a Client’s, I dropped the RX-8 off at the nearby dealer to see if they could sort out the headlight washers: hitting a pheasant at {cough} MPH had split and lost the thick hose that feeds the headlight washers. They have had to order-in the hose which will be a massive £380 fitted! Expensive car, this one. Then back on Thursday evening for the company Christmas Dinner Cruise along the Thames, during which I gave a younger colleague a pep-talk about his forthcoming new baby and how he shouldn’t envy my lifestyle. He didn’t go home that night, apparently. So much for mentoring…
Friday I had the afternoon off as a friend, NT, was coming to stay at mine for the weekend. I picked her up from the railway station and we stopped off at London Bridge to pick up my car from the office where I’d left it overnight. As it was a lovely day, I took her up the Shard – fnarr! – before heading home. A lovely steak at Gaucho that evening. Saturday she wanted to do some shopping for her kids so we went up to Camden; tapas and t-shirts. Saturday and it was off to Le Pont de la Tour for dinner from their tasting menu. Excellent nosh.
Then into the Christmas Week: Christmas Eve was peculiar as due to the storms that hit the UK, I was one of the first into the office and it remained that way until mid-morning when just a few made it in. Drinks and snacks at the pub and then home. Christmas Day and I’d been invited to GT’s for what was a lovely Christmas Dinner including her fabulous Cheesy Chestnut Roast. Feeling bloated, I headed home to an early night before heading up to Norfolk for Boxing Day and the first of two defeats this week for Norwich City.
New Year’s Eve beckons now – after a shoot I have planned tomorrow with Marlyn Lindsay – and my plans include a possible NYE at Slimelight. I did wonder about grabbing a last-minute flight to Moscow to see the New Year in with Manuel and Angelo (friends from Route 66) but flights are stupidly expensive for what would be a one-night stay!
Movember
Well, November has been an interesting month…
I decided to join in with Movember again this year: fundraising for men’s mental health. A good cause. But yes, I end up looking more ridiculous than usual and hating the annoying slug festering under my nose! At least tomorrow I can shave the bastard off or at least trim it right back!
Tonight, I’m supposed to be going to their Gala Parté at the Roundhouse Camden, but I came down with a heavy cold this week which is on its way out – thankfully – but is on my chest right now, so I can’t really be arsed. And I’m a little bit down at the moment, if I’m honest, but shh! That’s our secret, right?
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The 6th was the Bring Me The Horizon gig at Brixton. A good one, if I’m honest, although the band’s lead singer was a knob trying to look big in front of the predominantly young, female, screaming audience. More noise from them than from the stage.
That Friday it was the PurplePort London Social: it was good to meet up with some photographers and some models, including Sakura Star who’d previously said she was keen to work with me on a somewhat noir bondage and fetish project going forward: she has some excellent work on her portfolio already.
The next day it was off up to Norwich to see Norwich City beat West Ham United and thereby save Chris Hughton from the dole queue for a little longer…
The following week was fun at work: I was put forward for a major commission in Canada without my knowledge so I had a meeting planned with my boss – the owner of the business I work for – which never happened as we’d heard that I was needed in Chicago for a meeting which was then cancelled at short notice as they’d gone with a local company instead of ours. So that’s parked for another day…
I had a couple of days off that week to recharge and the Wednesday was a good opportunity to have one last thrash on the Sprint before winter sets in. I headed off down to Sussex, for a “Bigboy Breakfast” at Wesson’s Cafe, stopping off en route to get a warning for a dodgy numberplate as it’s too small, apparently. Oops! Must order a legal one: the bike never came with one because the vanity plate came later. The that night it was off to the O2 to see Vampire Weekend and Noah and the Whale in concert. GT and I stayed for three songs, it was that rubbish…
At the weekend, GT and I were off to an 80s party in the evening: her goth’d up (more so than usual thanks to crimping her hair) and me with a poodle perm wig, Frankie Say Relax t-shirt, white linen trousers and some horrendous white canvas shoes. A late one at that, DJ-ing from my iPhone with some 80s tracks. And then there was the Sunday…
GT had a race first thing in the morning, so while she was gone I got up, bathed and had a coffee. When she got back I made more coffee and joined her in the bathroom whilst she had a post-race bath. I told her there was something wrong: I felt she wasn’t that in to me any more – we’ve been seeing each other for nearly 3 years now on an irregular, regular basis – and that it’s become more pronounced since she was promoted, working longer hours with shifts, etc. GT agreed that she seemed to have no time to put in to a relationship these days to make one work, so we agreed to split up rather than just going through the motions. We then spent the afternoon shopping in Kingston and had dinner before I left.
The following weekend was all about gigs and bikes: on Saturday it was off to the NEC for Motorcycle Live. A chance for me to buy some new Goretex Alpinestars SMX Plus bike boots in black for next summer’s Austrian Eurothrash. It was also great to bump into Emma Kate Dawson for a chat and a catch-up.
Then on the Saturday night I saw Queens of the Stone Age at the Wembley Arena and as I had a spare ticket – I always buy two out of habit – I invited Sakura Star along as I knew she was at a loose end having just split up from her bloke. She showed me some great photos that another photographer had taken of her in a fab leather and feather dress which are now on her profiles having got clearance from the designers and we had a few drinks before the gig. QOTSA were excellent and SS was good company.
Then on the Sunday night it was off to the Hammersmith Apollo with GT to see the Pixies who were also absolutely superb.
Last week was busy: London, Birmingham and Manchester with lots of different hotels and lots of travelling. And there’s more to come soon when I pop over to Toronto to speak at a major event.
At least that should keep me busy and my mind off relationships past, present and future. In the meantime, I’ve booked next year’s holidays to Fuerteventura with my ‘kids’ to go with the Austrian Eurothrash.
Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned
It’s been a while since I updated this blog.
I’ve been so busy and every time I sat down to update, something else would come up, so …
On the Friday afternoon after the last update I rode up to Silverstone for Kevin Ash’s memorial lap which was a fitting tribute.
Saturday and I thought I should do some more cycling: I’ve injured my knee in my training for the Berlin Marathon and had to call it off for this year on the advice of my Consultant, though I’ll still be there to support GT. So off I went for another quick explore along the Thames Path, South and North: 11 and a bit miles in all. Great fun.
The following Saturday saw the start of the new football season. Jack and I have now moved seats to a more central location – which meant paying full adult season ticket rates for him as well as me – from where we watched Norwich get a draw against Everton.
The following week saw loads of hard work and travelling between offices, interspersed with blood tests and seeing my Consultant and Physiotherapist – with whom I’m so comfortable, I started undressing whilst she was still in the cubicle talking to me. And an after-work meal with colleagues at the Folly. We found out the next day that my colleague from Colchester fell asleep on the train home and ended up in Ipswich. No trains back so he had to wait until after 1.00am for an airport coach which dropped him off in Colchester at 2.00am but the other side from the station so he had to walk through Colchester at kicking out time, stopped off for a kebab en route and got in at 3.00am. He’d forgotten we were out for the evening so had only sent a text to his wife at the last minute…
The following weekend ended on the Bank Holiday with my upping my pushbike mileage to 20 miles as I continued past Greenwich – and the obligatory stop for an iced tea – and on to Woolwich where I caught the ferry across for the first time since the late 80s. Nothing’s changed. Saturday had been off to GT’s for the evening and some shopping the next day: some killer heels from Kurt Geiger.
A shorter work week – with more doctor’s visits – ending with Club Antichrist on the Friday night with Alix. Great fun! Home at a reasonable time, though, as I was off to Norfolk again the following day.
The following week started well with a fundraising burlesque event for Dixie Evans at Volupté which meant a whole load of cocktails mixed by Josie, including an utterly fabulous Amaretto Sour (or two) (two measures of Amaretto, one of strawberry syrup/liqueur, lemon juice, Angostura bitters and an egg white). And the week ended on a high note with a meal at an Italian restaurant in Ewell Village with GT and shopping for leather jackets for her.
And the small matter of a 20 mile pushbike ride on the Sunday morning down to Hampton Court, following GT as she’s training hard for the Berlin Marathon. Mad woman!
Oh and talking of leather, I ordered a gas mask and a bespoke ladies’ white leather straitjacket, which will both probably find use in one or both of these locations:
One evening that week, walking home from work, I came across the London Air Ambulance landed on Potters Field by Tower Bridge as a cyclist had been squished. I happened to take a quick iPhone shot of the landing site pausing only to try to set it up as best I could and then I uploaded the image to Instagram. That night, a local news site picked up on it and asked if they could use the credited photo on their site, which they did. The next morning it was picked up by ITV News and used on their site with credit (eventually). And the London Air Ambulance themselves picked up on it and asked me if they could use it for their promotional stuff. I was happy to licence it to them and indeed made a bigger version for them as the original would be too small for print:
That week, I also heard that I would be heading off to Canada for a week in October and another trip there in December, both for work.
And we’re almost up to date! Last week started off with a hospital appointment for some 18 burns to be applied to my face… It improved significantly with an impromptu gig – Kings of Leon at the Roundhouse courtesy of the iTunes Festival. A great gig!
Saturday was spent relaxing … and another 20.7 mile ride on the pushbike which I’d fitted with a new gel MTB seat. This appears to have made only a slight difference: at 17 miles when I have a load of cobbled streets to ride over, my arse still hurts! But at least today there were some random Morris Dancers out:
The Trouble With Marathon Runners…
…is that they’re utterly barking mad!
It was the first of two Bank Holiday weekends in May. Saturday morning saw me driving up to Norfolk to collect Jack and take him to Nando’s Riverside before the Norwich City match against Aston Villa … which we lost, helping Chris Hughton’s masterplan to dominate the Championship next season rather than staying up in the Premier League.
A tasty post-match Chinese and then on to my hotel in Norwich for a late night.
Sunday morning should have seen me running a medium distance – 6-8 miles around Norwich – but I’d managed to pull my calf muscle yet again earlier in the week. Damnit! Less than 150 days until the Berlin Marathon as well. So I had a little lie-in instead and a light breakfast before heading off in the glorious sunshine to fetch Jack to head back into Norwich for more shopping and eating (Wagamama) before I headed back down to London to change and grab my running gear before heading off to GT’s for the evening and a lovely veggie meal.
No doubt reeking of garlic, we headed off early on Bank Holiday Monday up to Milton Keynes for GT to run in the MK Marathon; her tenth.
Yes, after the Paris Marathon when GT had got so close – again! – to her 4:00:00 barrier, one of her running mates had suggested she should get paced around in a sub-4 hour run and he happened to know the guy who’d be doing just that at Milton Keynes. So the die was cast. I’d suggested that I would drive GT there and back as usual, but with nothing to do otherwise, I entered the Superhero Fun Run and bought a Batman costume from eBay.
And so it was that on a very warm, sunny day, GT lined up for the marathon in her running gear and I lined up for mine dressed as Batman and dosed up on Ibuprofen for the extremely painful calf muscle. They held us on the start line for a while in the sun so as you can imagine it was a tad sweaty inside a black rubberised hood, bodysuit and cape! Plus my Garmin kept switching out of training mode, so when we finally got away, it took me a while to be able to start logging the run.
There’s something wonderful about running along making bat signs and having crowds cheering you on as well as high-fiving other Batmen on the return loop! And so it was that I became first Superhero back despite the muscle going again. I was so pleased to cross the finish line that I forgot to switch the Garmin off until after I’d received my medal. Ah well.
So some photos, then…
Milton Keynes Superhero Fun Run
If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be…
So after spending a great few days on Corralejo chilling out in my hotel and spending the evenings drinking and listening to live acoustic rock music with friends in the Rock Island Bar, it was back to normality with work for a couple of days before I headed up to Cleethorpes on the Sunday.
The plan had been to head up to Cleethorpes to drop off some old Court papers and some crap the ex-girlfriend had sent me with her parents but the ex found out about my plans – she reads my Tweets and this blog to stalk keep up to date with what I’m doing – and threatened to stop them from seeing the one remaining daughter she hasn’t thrown out if they saw me. Nice, eh? Mind you, as it turned out, that was just as well because an accident on the A17 delayed my getting there until later and I had plans to meet up with some old friends for a lovely meal out in town as their treat. Great to catch up with them and to have a load of laughs about Stuff.
Monday saw an impromptu diversion to Covent Garden on my way home for more Christmas Shopping for GT and my daughter (some killer heels for GT that were a leeetle more expensive than I thought but hey, she’s worth it) and then home.
The Tuesday night found GT and I going to KOKO Camden to watch Fear Factory‘s gig. Sadly this was disappointing. They mentioned they were 7 weeks into their tour and it had clearly taken its toll on the lead singer’s vocal chords as he was unable to sing in tune or make much noise for higher notes.
Wednesday and it was another gig: this time it was the Prodigy at the O2 Brixton Academy. We hadn’t realised when we booked the tickets that this was a late show, with the Prodigy not coming on until after midnight and finishing at 1.30am! On a school night! Oops! So GT and I had a meal and a mooch around and then went in to watch the support artists around 11.30pm and then waited for the Prodigy to come on and do a blinding set. They can still definitely do their thing.
We left shortly after and I got home around 3.00am which was just as well as a taxi was booked to collect me at 6.45am to take me to St. Pancras International for a trip over to Paris to see a Client. Back that evening, arriving around 8.45pm which was just as well as I needed to be nearby at our works Christmas do at a Comedy Club. Lots of laughs – why do I always get picked on by the headliners? Same as the Burlesque Shows – and they’d saved me my dinner which was nice. Â We got thrown out around 1.30am and we grabbed some taxis to get us home.
Friday and it was time for dinner in Epsom with GT and some friends and to see Indian Elvis in action!
The food at the Cinnamon Spice is really excellent and we enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine with a great meal before heading home.
More shopping over the weekend and a lovely lunch out in Kingston at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant. Recommended.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day saw drinks with friends at their pub and a lovely meal cooked by GT – part carnivorous for me and part vegetarian (and delicious) – with some of the contents of the Fortnum & Mason hamper I’d been given.
Boxing Day and I was off to Norfolk to see my kids and to watch Norwich City (mainly in the rain and doing OK against a strong Chelsea team).
Today was mainly spent driving: back from Norfolk via Diss to buy Amy a replacement Ka after hers got written off; then on to my Mum’s for lunch and presents; then to Egham to get Amy home and off to work.
Phew!
The Trouble With Families…
… is that you miss them when they’re gone, so you have to make the most of them while you can.
When I first separated four years ago, my daughter didn’t speak to me for over a year. It was awful. I’m really glad to say that we made up and are really good again – I met up with her for lunch yesterday at the excellent Brigade on Tooley Street, for instance, and she knows she can talk to me about anything. My son and I see each other regularly and get on really well too.
I love them to bits and can’t imagine what it would be like to be without them. So nothing will come between us.
Which is why I feel so sorry for families torn apart for sometimes bizarre reasons, perhaps with their children thrown out onto the streets, especially (in some cases) when they were the subject of custody battles, or where a child is abducted by a parent living abroad, for instance.
One moment your life can be happy and content with your family around you and everything you could ever want and the next it’s all collapsed around your ears with bitterness and emptiness because of a serious lack of judgment or changed circumstances or maybe blinded by false promises or the grass being greener. What a nightmare!
So I’m happy to count my blessings and know I can talk to my family whenever I want from wherever I happen to be. And that’s A Good Thing.
The Thing About Weekends…
… is that they’re always over too quickly.
Having come back from Venice, we were out a couple of nights later for the Fields of the Nephilim gig at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Great gig it was too plus we had Vietnamese food beforehand at the nearby Westfield shopping centre. And then the weekend.
As it was GT’s birthday a few days afterwards, I popped out to the Apple Store whilst I was up in Norwich seeing Norwich City beat Stoke and bought her a MacBook Pro to replace her ageing laptop, which I set up for her the following weekend … when we weren’t spending Sunday messing around the countryside paintballing!
Epic weekend. Especially singling out the Competitive Dads – what is with Surrey? – for slaughter!
Meanwhile at BlueCo, I was up to Glasgow training a Client which I decided to do with my replacement iPad. That still leaves me with my old iPad at home which Jack suggested I give him. And GT didn’t help by asking why I needed two and pointing out that I could always buy myself another one later.
Another gig the day after – Seether at the Electric Ballroom up at Camden – which was quite different from the Neph one due to the demographic of the audience, shall we say…
Jack led me astray after a great weekend this weekend – Manchester United getting beaten by City! – and gradually wore me down into saying yes he probably could have my old iPad and yes I probably should order myself an iPad mini. So I did. Two weeks’ delivery but somehow that translates in Cupertino to delivery on 10 December. After I go to Fuerteventura, when I was hoping to use it on the flights. Ho hum.
Bit of a weird time at the moment. A colleague and friend at work died the week before last with a heart attack. I’d guess he was early to mid-50s? Scary stuff, especially as he was into mountain-biking and wasn’t unhealthy. And last week an old and dear friend died from MND.
Makes you re-evaluate your life and think about those who mean the most to you.
Live Out Loud!
Well since I last updated this blog, a lot has happened. Obviously the main event was my trip along Route 66 on an Electra Glide (posts syndicated below and on my Big Trip Blog). Breathtaking!
A week back in the UK – missing the States a lot – and I was off to Paris for a couple of days again with one of our Clients.
Back in London and the weather was wonderful at last, making walking home from work lovely if challenging – trying to avoid pubs!
Paralympics were on, bringing with it the Mayor’s fun: a big screen on Potters Field between County Hall and Tower Bridge with stalls selling all sorts of food and a bar. Made walking home and indeed lunchtimes different and bringing out the crowds.
GT got us tickets for the weekend’s Paralympics so off we went for a look around and to be awestruck.
I think GT’s favourite part of the Olympic Park was probably the champagne and seafood restaurant where we spent a pleasant hour or two!
Then the following week, it was my daughter’s 21st birthday, so she came down to stay at mine for the weekend, with a trip to the West End shops for a dress and a champagne afternoon tea at Harrods’ Georgian Restaurant (after we’d had the Best Milkshakes Ever!).
My 21st birthday present to her was a vanity plate for her car: 1991 AM (her birth year and initials). This was the end of the weekend that I’d spent with GT shopping in Kingston for an LBD for a do coming up with a lovely vegetarian meal on the Thames.
The following week saw more meals out plus a trip and stay in the Midlands to train a client’s staff. Great fun as always, but hard work.
Last week was fun: GT came with me to a champagne drinks reception at the Spencer House in St James Place, hence the new Karen Millen dress and Jimmy Choo killer heels! Driving in the back of a cab over Waterloo Bridge, we saw a huge ride at the Southbank that we decided we had to go on, so plans were hatched for coming back last weekend to ride on Priceless London Wonderground’s high-spinning swing ride, the Star Flyer, the tallest travelling ride in the country at 60m tall, with amazing views of London (especially when we went back later, after dark.
That was a weekend of film too, seeing “Killing Them Softly” (slow-paced but well done) on the Friday night and “The Sweeney” (which was an enjoyable romp if paying only lip service to the original series) on the wet Sunday afternoon.
Quite pleased too, recently, with the release of iOS6 and the iPhone 5 which is a lovely shiny thing!
And finally, Esther, I’ll leave you with my favourite track during this period which sums up a lot of things (more of which later):
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