Trip Photos

Here are the two albums from our visit back to the homeland last week. First we were down South, in England, for Malc and Sandy's silver wedding anniversary at Calcot Manor.



Then we went up North, for Innes and Susan's wedding at The Caves, in Edinburgh.



If you want a copy of any of the photos in the albums let me know and I'll send you the original full size version. For the web albums I've edited the photos a bit. The room at Calcot was very bright, so I've added warmth to a lot of the pictures from there and The Caves was quite a dark venue, so I've lightened a lot of those.

A National Disgrace

Heathrow airport has not had a great month, so let me tell you one thing that is brilliant about it: The Heathrow Express. Fast. Clean. Punctual. Jump on the train and you're in the heart of London in 15 minutes. It's great. I hope that, despite the relatively high cost, it is the first impression of Britain for many of the arrivals at Heathrow because here's what's not great: The Heathrow Hotel Hoppa.

Some folks arriving at Heathrow may decide that, after their long journey, they'd like to spend a night, or their layover, in a hotel near the airport. Others may decide that, when leaving, rather than getting to Paddington with their bags and catching the Express to the airport in the morning, they'll spend their last night in the UK in a hotel near the airport. Their first, or last, impression of the UK will then be of this ridiculously inefficient, pettily priced, shambolic embarrassment of a service.

You arrive in the UK, you perhaps haven't got any UK currency yet and you want a bit of sleep, so you head out for the bus to your hotel. Having navigated outside and found out which of the 8 different buses you're going to have to wait at least 15 minutes in the cold for*. Some oik then has the cheek to demand 4 quid to drive you the 5 minutes to your hotel, but certainly isn't going to help you loading your bags. Oik only takes UK cash. Not Euros, not dollars, certainly no minor currency. Don't worry, there's a ticket machine nearby that takes credit cards. For one ticket at a time. Languages other than English might not be available on it. Oik might wait. The bus might not fill up.

Britain can and should do better. If they're not going to let the hotels provide the free shuttles they provide in most other civilised countries ("because of traffic concerns") then at least provide the service for free. If you're going to have the flipping cheek to charge people then at least have detailed timetables, enough shuttles to meet the demand, multi-lingual signage, waiting rooms next to the bus stop and routes that aren't going to visit other terminals before you finally get out of the airport.
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* unless you've had the misfortune to turn up after 9.30 at night or before 6 in the morning, when you're probably really tired, then the wait will be much longer.

We're Home

Those of you following on Twitter probably noticed that our journeys, other than the train trip, were awful. Once we arrived at our destinations though, the trip was fantastic. Had a great time. Pictures of the good times will be downloaded and posted shortly, but first, there may be a rant or two.

Taking a week off

We leave tomorrow for our trip to the UK. We're flying through Chicago, which is a worry as our layover is not long and the weather there has been crap. For those of you interested in our progress, I'll be updating Twitter as we go. If you don't want to click through, you can follow us on this very site, under the section that says "Where's Ian?"

In Other News...

It's yard work time around the house. Going to try to get some tomatoes in tomorrow so they'll be ready before the hot summer. We've also got to fill in the rest of the flower beds before we head for the UK next week, so this weekend, like last weekend, is going to be all about sorting out the garden. I also took the time to get the pool back in shape, but the 6lbs of chlorine I put in it over 3 days didn't deter the little fella in this photo. He seemed to like the cool of the skimmer basket and really didn't want to leave.

I did my best snake wrangler impression and got him out of there with minimal shuddering, jumping about and high pitched screaming.

It's a.....

It's a......baby!
Sorry I don't want to know if it is a boy or a girl, Ian does but he didn't win this argument. So you'll just have to wait until July 30th to find out.

Boots!

Hers

His

Vogue

Milan...?
Paris...?
New York...?

Lewis!

Thanks Mum. Please stop digging in the archives now.

How Dare You?

I got a strange book recommendation from Amazon.com today:

"As someone who has purchased or rated books by John Sandford, you might like to know that Como Tranformar El Hombre Interior will be released on March 4, 2008."

Strange title for a book from one of my favourite thriller writers. A little digging suggests the book is actually by John L. Sandford, editor of the gripping mysteries "Statistical Methods for Physical Science, Vol. 28" and "Biology of the Mycobacteria, Vol. 1". (Once you put it down, you'll never pick it up. No. Wait...)

Simple database mistake on Amazon's part, I'm sure. Funny thing is, it's long been an ambition of mine to be proficient enough in another language to read a book in it. When I was in Bahrain I worked with a guy from Pakistan who lent me his English language copy of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. He'd written definitions of words he didn't understand all over the margins. I asked him about it and he told me it was the first English language book he'd ever read and had improved his understanding of the language no end. Amazing.

Since, over the course of life I've attempted and failed to learn Gaelic, French and Spanish, it's probably not going to happen for me, but I like to think that one day I'll find the time to get back to it. Amazon sending me this link made me think, 'Sandford would be an easier place to start than Gabriel Garcia Marquez'. Hilariously, these customers are massively insulted. I mean, how dare Amazon even think they'd consider reading a book in a language other than English? 'Just what are Amazon trying to imply? That we studied languages in School?'

Yeehaw!

It's rodeo time in Houston. The festivities always start with the World Championship BBQ Cook-off. Nikki and I went along last night. It was crazy busy, even in the hospitality tent we had tickets for, but at least in there the food was good and free and the beer, even if it was Miller Lite, didn't cost anything either. The thumping bass did drive us outside, where the beer cost money, but Shiner Bock was available. A very fair trade. Also, we had funnel cake. Mmmmmm. Some pics...