Where is Phil now?

Auckland

Friday 07 February 2014 – Auckland, New Zealand.

My plan to blog most days and get a good written and visual record of El’s and my trip to NZ was doomed to fail from the very start – too many things to do and not enough down time planned. I did, however, expect to get at least a couple of posts done while I was actually ‘in country’. I am now over a week back in London and have just sat down to write something about NZ. At least I have been through the rather meagre collection of photos I took on the trip and selected the best of an average bunch, so there is something to base my report on other than slowly fading memories.

I will say the trip was really good, I was a little nervous about, especially introducing El to my family. They are all lovely so I was not expecting any issues, but I was not 100% sure on how it would go. I should never have been concerned; the kids were fab and El lovely. We were also blessed with pretty good weather – apart from Wellington where it was cool and wet, the windy city certainly lived up to its name. It was also colder than London was on the ferry across to the south island! Thankfully the rest of the trip was mostly completed under warm sunny skies – just what was needed coming from grey damp London.

El and I stayed at my mum’s place for a couple of nights, she gave up her room for us, which was much appreciated and it was nice to be able to relax in one place for a day or two. My mum walks for an hour most mornings before breakfast so I was up early on the Monday and out for an hour long power stroll around the nicer bits of Henderson – not really one of Auckland’s lovelier suburbs I will admit, though the park areas and interlinked stream side path ways make for a decent and reasonably car-free walk and it was nice to spend some time with mum.

My brother-in-law, Allan, had kindly lent us a car for the week we were in town so after breakfast we headed off up the north western motorway to Muriwai Beach so mum and I could show El one of our favourite NZ spots, and one of the few places I really do miss.

After watching the waves from the king tide banging on the rocks we took a walk up to the gannet colony at the top of the cliffs before Maori Bay. The gannets have mostly gone for the season, just a few stragglers left, but enough to see and plenty of gannet noise going on.

After lunch we met my daughter and her partner for lunch at the Hallertau Brewery. This was El and my first introduction back into eating out in NZ and it was really good. I must say that the quality of the food and service has really stepped up in the last few years, almost without exception we had fantastic dining experiences everywhere we went – even small and remote (though touristy) locations like Farewell Spit. No more bad tea and soggy ham and cheese sandwiches.

The following day was another food fest, we caught the ferry over to Waiheke Island to visit a vineyard or two and have some lunch. The ride over to Waiheke is all part of the experience and the Waitemata Harbour and inner Hauraki Gulf were as gorgeous as always, with Rangitoto lurking under cloud in the background.

We arrived on Waiheke later than planned and started (and ended) our experience at Mud Brick Cafe. I have been here before and it has always been a great spot, the food was fabulous, the wine tasty and fresh, El loved it, so there was no need to move on.

The vege sharing plate for lunch – OMG !!

Heading back into the city just seemed wrong – and the clouds certainly agreed !

On Wednesday we had breakfast in the newly completed Wynard Quarter on Auckland’s waterfront. The renovation project had started before I left NZ at the end of 2011, but was no where near complete at the time. I must say it is pretty damn cool, and breakfast was great too. I really liked the new buildings in this area, even the bank had come to the party with a really funky office.

We had a fairly major walking day planned and visited the Auckland City Art Gallery, which I love. My favourite painting Robyn White’s “Fish and Chips, Maketu” was sadly not on display, but I really liked this massive Ralph Hotere piece.

After lunch El and I walked up to K’Rd and then across Grafton Bridge to the Auckland Museum. I must pause the narrative to comment on how disappointed I was at the changes to some of my favourite shopping streets. High St particularly and K’ Rd to a degree have all changed since I was last here. I really liked the little boutiques on High St, but now it just seems full of sushi shops, sad. We were to be further disappointed when we arrived at Auckland Museum, I wanted to show El the Maori history section, but there was a $25 entrance fee for non-residents. WTF !!! This is insane… We spent $8 each and visited a reasonably good history of fashion photography exhibition instead. We got to pose in front of a couple of backdrops with some good lighting to have a play. Sadly I was not that fashionable…

Seriously disappointed at the cost of entry to the museum, that really sucked.

We stayed at my brother in law’s house for the next few nights which again we appreciated, it was good being able to unload all the stuff out of the suitcase and lob it around the floor – well that was me anyway. The boys came round for tea on the Wednesday night which was great, it was so good to see so much of them while I was in town.

On Thursday morning my youngest son came around and we went for a big walk up to the Arataki Centre on Scenic Drive, the views out over the Manukau Harbour and the dam and bush are fantastic and the centre has some good information on the lovely Waitakere Ranges – my favourite part of NZ. Later on El and I drove out to one of the many ranges beach, Piha for a walk but it was really windy and not entirely pleasant on the beach so we didnt stay for long. We were planning on having lunch at the Piha Cafe, but it was closed as it was a public holiday, grrrrr. We drove on over to Karekare beach, Karekare is my favourite part of my favourite place, I love the fact that there are no shops, not many houses and that the carpark is not right by the beach. Time and energy have to be invested in getting to this lovely expanse of black sand beach, therefore not that many people go there. I have a million photographs of it (lots anyway).

After the beach we walked to the falls over the road, as it is the end of summer, there was not a huge flow of water, but they are still wonderful…

Friday was a bit of a rest and organisation day, we had a small mission in the afternoon – I went record shopping at Real Groovy Records and picked up five bits of NZ vinyl, mostly second hand. A friend of my brother in law was talking about a new venture down at the end of town. A shipping container had been converted into a wine tasting and blending shop so we went to check Blend out. The idea is you get to taste a few grape varieties and then have three goes at blending them into a blend that you really like. You then get a bottle of it to take away. It was such a cool idea and a bit of fun. I ended up with a red made up of 50% cab sauv, 30% merlot and 20% grenache. Not sure I would buy it in the shops mind, but we have brought them back to London and will drink them soon. A very cool idea indeed.

After Blend we moseyed back on out west and went to a BBQ with a group of my old Titirangi friends which was just perfect. We just did not have the time to visit people on this trip so seeing a group all at once was great. It was a good evening, thanks Martha 🙂 I had a run planned the following day so kept it all quite tame.

Saturday was our final day in Auckland, and I had arranged to go bush running with my friend Vicki. She had a pre-run run organised so we didn’t meet up until mid-day which was appreciated 🙂 I dropped El off at a friend of mine’s house as she was going on a shopping mission to the main boutiquey type areas of Ponsonby and Newmarket – work related research apparently, while I was out getting muddy.

It was a great run, up from Karekare beach.

Across the top of Mercer Bay.

Down past Kitekite falls and into Piha.

It was interesting to see all the changes to the tracks as the council is ‘upgrading’ a lot of the trails that make up the “Hillary Trail”, I can understand why they are doing it, but it does sort of ruin some of the fun, and makes it so much less exclusive ! It was a great run, nice to catch up with Vicki and try to solve the world’s problems as we ran. Much as I love London, I do miss running the Waitakeres !

El and I took mum, my boys and my bro-in-law out for tea on the Saturday night to thank them for their hospitality. We went to Mikano on the waterfront and it was fabulous – and the most I have ever spent in a restaurant, lucky none of us were drinking ! It was a lovely night, and a great way to cap our week in Auckland.

Yay – off to New Zealand !

Sunday 02 February 2014 – Hong Kong / Sydney and Auckland, New Zealand.

Last week had finally seen some wintery weather arrive, a cold wind and rain made walking the streets of London on the first week after I finished work less fun than I would have liked. Though, I did make it out for a quick look at some street art and the purchase of a new record.

The great news for the week was meeting El at Camden tube station after she finished work on Thursday and heading off to Heathrow Airport to start a two week trip to New Zealand – 22 hours of flying to Sydney, with a lay-over in Hong Kong.

The first leg took eleven hours and was not too bad, the plane was only half full so we were not rammed in like sardines as usual. Service was good and the food and drink not too bad, though of course I did not sleep as much as I would have liked. We arrived in Hong Kong on time and were whipped off the plane and with a group of others taken aside and asked if we would like to be put on an earlier flight to Sydney – we did ! This meant only an hour of transit time – yay.

I had been to Hong Kong once before, in 2007, and did not have the best of experiences. No fault of Hong Kong’s, but I spent eight days of my five day trip in a private hospital with a serious bacterial infection of my liver. I am quite keen to go back there and see the city, it looks amazing, but there was no time on this trip to stop. I did snap a couple of photos out the window of the airport terminal. Good to see the smog has not left the city!

The flight to Sydney was another nine hours, not as long as the first leg, but those hours really dragged and made the flight seem a lot longer. The plane was also very full which always make the flight less pleasant. It was a nice plane though.

We arrived in Sydney two and half hours earlier than originally expected at 7:00 am, it was a bit of a haul though customs but we were soon out of the airport and on to the (very expensive) train to Circular Quay. We had a hotel in “The Rocks” area of downtown Sydney and were very fortunate to be able to get in to our room so much before normal check in. After twenty four hours of travelling a shower was definitely top priority.

We had heard that the view from the roof was pretty cool so we headed up there before we left for a walk. El ha has not been to Sydney before, but as we only have twenty four hours we wanted to focus on the harbour area.

Apparently sunrise over the opera house was well worth the early rise, but there was a very large cruise liner between us and it, hopefully it leaves before then.

We went for a walk around the opera house and over to the botanical gardens when we got a call from El’s Sydney friends and we arranged to meet them in Manly where they were having lunch, which worked for us as we were heading over there later in the day to visit my friend Nicole.

I love the ferry ride to Manly, one of the best harbour crossings, it has great views of both the Opera House and the harbour bridge and on a great day it just a magic trip. It was a great day.

We had a very nice lunch with El’s old London friends, Mel and Ian and then shared a bottle of bubbles with Nicole before heading back over to the city side in the late afternoon. We were both knackered after the flight and feeling the effects of jet lag and no sleep. It was great to be able to catch up with Mel and Ian and Nicole in one of Sydney’s best locations, plus get to see the harbour all in one go. Stupidly I did not take any photos in Manly, though I did get a few when I was there last year.

We had a walk around the harbour side for half an hour and then meandered back to the hotel to try and get some sleep in, before getting up at 5:45 for the sunrise at 6:15. The cruise liner had left while we were out.

We had a reasonable amount of sleep, but I was definitely a bit thick in the head when we got up on time for the sunrise. It wasn’t particularly spectacular, but it was pretty and I am glad we got up for it.

After a monster breakfast in the hotel (well, I had a monster breakfast) we took a cab to the airport, it was only slightly more expensive than the train – and so much easier! We had a late-morning flight to Auckland that was frustratingly delayed, though not by much. With the time difference we did not arrive almost 6:00pm. The airport was busy and it took ages to get out, which was annoying. Auckland airport always seems to be a slightly different configuration each time I fly in, and this one didn’t work at all well – massive bottle neck at customs….

My sister picked us up and we drove up to my mum’s where the whole family were waiting to join us for tea. I was very happily surprised to see my daughter was there, she arrived back in New Zealand for Christmas with her BF and I was not expecting to see them until next week. It was great to see all three “children” together in one place for the first time in over five years. They are lovely !

It was wonderful to see my family again, and introducing El to them was a wee bit nerve wracking, for everyone I suspect, but it all went well and it was a nice evening. Two weeks will seem like a very short time I think.

A brief overview of the last three months…

Wednesday 29 January 2014.

It has been an awful long time since I lasted posted, or even wrote a blog post. Time just seemed to pass by so quickly and the very few things that happened that were note worthy have all become memories as I didn’t have the time or the inclination to type them after they happened. The main thing that has happened, and the number one reason for not writing – or more realistically – doing anything worth recording, is that I have been working !

Now, there is no immediate need to get all excited in thinking that after six months or so of looking that I have landed myself a cushy IT job worthy of my experience and paying me the salary to match ! Nope, I have been working in a pub – earning just over minimum wage pulling pints and pouring glasses of wine. It is work I have sort of enjoyed, but work I am going to cease at the end of January when main bit of news number two happens – a trip back to New Zealand.

To back the truck up a bit – I had become a bit dispirited with applying for IT Management roles and not getting much of a response from the recruitment firms I have to deal with for most of the roles I am interested in. As I have mentioned before, there are plenty of interesting vacancies, but there an awful lot of people applying for them. I guess my two year ‘sabbatical’ is not being seen as a positive by some. I am using that as the reason for the lack of interest in hiring me anyway.

El saw a post on FaceBook from the Queens Arms, a pub near her home in Walthamstow looking for staff for their newly renovated and about to be re-opened premises. I popped in on a whim and ended up being offered a job on the bar with a start a few days later. Not having worked in a bar before I was quite excited about the whole thing.

I have leant an awful lot working there, the work is harder than it looks and I have found it to be physically exhausting. I have met some very nice people there and have had a few good laughs, but a couple of weeks ago I realised it was not for me and have now resigned and will finish up when I go to NZ. I do have renewed respect for those who work in bars and restaurants – some make it look so easy ! I guess I will just go back to being on the other side of the bar in the Queens upon my return.

What else has happened? I have reached a few anniversaries in the past few weeks.
Two years since I left my last IT Management job at PMP.
Two years since I left New Zealand on my travels.
One year since I first met El.

I cannot believe so much time has gone by and while I feel I have not done much in the last wee while I have achieved a huge amount more than I expected when I started to think about leaving work to go travelling, thirty or so months ago. I will have to confess that my original plan, which was to tour Europe in the summer of 2012, has not actually happened yet, I got distracted on the way !

One of those distractions was of course meeting El, we first met on the 25th January last year and we have had some good times since – hopefully with many more to come. Tomorrow we head off on a two week visit to meet my family in New Zealand – via a quick stop in Sydney on the way. El has not been to either place before and I am very much looking forward to showing her around, and of course introducing her to my family and friends. It will all be rather exciting I think…

Then back to the excitement of finding a job again when I get back in February.

A quick summary, I just needed to get this out of the way !!

Here is a photo of El I took at a Christmas night walk of Kew Gardens back in December. It was great fun and was worthy of a blog post. I just never got around to doing one…

Millennium Bridge

28 January 2014 – London

I have not logged into here for ages and have just noticed the date of my last post – wow, it has been such a long time. I do have a post in the wings, a general, sort of quick wrap-up of those missing months, but it has been in the wings for rather a long time. I must finish it in the next day or so as I am heading back to New Zealand for a holiday tomorrow and I do not want to have old blog baggage hanging over my head…

Rather than finish that post off I am going to procrastinate on it further by doing this post instead.

I took a brief walk along the south bank this afternoon, I went to have a look at the Landscape Photographer of the Year photos on display at the National Theatre. I was suitably impressed, and also depressed at my lack of out-put this year, plus the fact I really am going to have to get the Canon or the wide angle lens looked at as the images are really ‘soft’ and I am not sure why.

The secondary purpose of the walk was a vain hope of getting a sunset – though the forecast was for showers, it had been reasonably fine all day. I have been following a couple on Instragram who have been coming up with some great London images lately and I had been looking to them for some motivation, and sunsets always make for some great images.

There was no sunset… But I did like watching the clouds come in from the south and skip over the Thames so I took a few photos of that instead. The light was quite flat and the sky grey so I have converted and them all into monochrome.

Trees by the IBM building.

Rain starting to fall as the clouds cross over Waterloo Bridge.

I was going to walk over to St Pauls as the light was looking quite good and there was the possibility of some dramatic shots, however as I walked up the Millennium Bridge the rain started to fall – and the Big Issue seller scurried away soon after.

I took a few shots of St Pauls over the arch of the bridge, before calling it quits and walking home.

This is my favourite shot from the walk, the clouds were sweeping in, slowly filling the clear patches of sky.

It was good to get some practice in before my New Zealand trip, and I have now decided I will take the Canon rather than the smaller and lighter Panasonic. A decision I had been pondering on for a few days. Whew!

Sunrises and Sunsets

I have had the luck to see a few really good sunrises and sunsets in the past week or two as the seasons really change from summer into autumn. Usually when I see a good sunset I do not have my camera on me, but I had a lucky 36 hour period when I saw two good sunsets and a decent sunrise as well.

Sunset over Walthamstow.

Sunrise over Canary Wharf (Yes I know, I actually caught a sunrise !)

Sunset over the Thames and Cannon Street rail bridge.

Africa in Focus reunion.

Sunday 06 October 2013 – Cambridge.

I cannot believe it has been four weeks since I was in Edinburgh, and almost five months since I arrived back in London. Time has just flown by and I have just realised this is the longest I have been in one place for almost two years. I may as well mention that I am still looking for a job, and starting to get a wee bit disheartened by the whole process now.

On a more positive note one year ago I was just starting off on my travels on the good truck Malakai in Africa. My trip was comprised of three separate tours back to back to form one long ten or so week journey that was one of the real highlights of the past two years. The first leg of the trip was from Cape Town in South Africa to Livingston in Zambia, via Namibia and Botswana and for many reasons it was the best part of the trip. One of those reasons was the people on the truck, the crew were awesome and the other guests fantastic, we just all seemed to gel. A real surprise that after three weeks of heat and dust and living in tents and the back of a truck we were all still friends.

This weekend we had a small reunion in Cambridge. Canadians Dave and Nancy were travelling again and were passing through the UK and with Sanjeev and Vaishali recently moving to Cambridge from Boston it seemed like a good opportunity to get together. El and I went up for the weekend.

We met Dave and Nancy at Kings Cross Station and we all caught the fast train up to Cambridge, where we parted ways with El and I taking a room in the Lensfield Hotel and Dave and Nancy heading of to Sanjeev and Vaishali’s. It was such a ‘typical’ English hotel – kind of old fashioned, slightly creaky floors, narrow hall ways and a bathroom that sort of worked OK, if you don’t mind the shower spraying all over the floor. It was perfectly fine though!

It was the weekend when a lot of the students were returning to university, so as well as there being a lot of people around a lot of the colleges were closed to the public which was a real shame. We were passing Pembroke College just as a small visitors window was open so we nipped in for a look around. Pembroke is one of the smaller, lesser known colleges – and while it is not as lavish as some, it was still very nice in the grounds.

We crossed the River Cam and walked along the backs of the colleges before crossing back over and watching the punts for a bit, not as crazy as Oxford !

We wandered around Cambridge for a while before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

We took a taxi to Sanjeev and Vaishali’s house and had a very enjoyable evening with them and Nancy and David. We were also lucky to have a quick Skype call with another fellow traveler, William who lives in Brisbane, where it was very early in the morning.

After a food English breakfast on Sunday we checked out of the hotel and went walking again, the intention was to visit Kings Chapel but it was closed for the day so I had to contend with another photo from the outside 🙂

We walked around again looking some coffee that wasn’t in a chain restaurant but didn’t seem to find many options (A business opportunity ?) so ended up getting a take away from a chain and sitting in All Saints Garden for a while. A nice spot to relax and watch the world go by.

We had lunch arranged at a pub just over the river from Midsummer Common so we took a slow walk along the tow path under some pretty glorious sunshine.

The six of us from last night were joined at lunch by Carol and Jackie who had driven in for the meal. El and I had a train to catch back to London so we were unable to stay for long at lunch, but it was lovely to see them again and much reminiscing was had. We drank a toasts to those who could not make it and a special one to Bill who had a stroke a couple of months after returning to New York – we all wish you the best Bill.

It was a great weekend, so nice to be able to see and keep in contact with such a great bunch of people. I look forward to another one.

Black Market Clash

Saturday 21 September 2013

I have almost caught up with photo reviewing and blog writing, though it seems as if I am doing things faster than I get the time to document them. Given that I seem to have all day most days to do this you would think I should be bang up to date!

There has been yet another Clash greatest hits album released recently and in conjunction with that there was a small Clash exhibition in a shop in Soho. There were a couple of floors of memorabilia from the members themselves and it was really cool.

Some of the original hand decorated clothing from the early photo shoots including the White Riot overalls of Mick Jones.

There were also a few guitars

And most importantly THE bass – from one of the best live show photos ever taken. I was so surprised to see it was never repaired.

It was a really cool exhibition – and chock full of middle aged men and women oohing and aahing over the exhibits. I am so glad we went and oohed and aahed ourselves.

Thames Night Shoot

Friday 20 September 2013 – London.

I am finally catching up with editing a few photos that I have taken over the past few weeks. Seeing as I am still not working I cannot believe I just do not seem to have time to do these things. Though I must say I am glad I do keep myself busy – and before anyone asks, no! I not become addicted to day time soaps. In fact I barely watch any TV at all, accept the weekend now that it is football season.

A few weeks ago I signed up to a bunch of photography based MeetUp groups in an effort to get back out taking photos again and maybe getting a bit further afield than I am. Like a lot of things recently circumstances seem to conspire against me and the only shoots I am interested in are on weekends I am already doing something else, for instance this weekend is the international Kelby photo walk and I am meeting friends in Cambridge – something I am very much looking forward to!

I did, however, meet a bunch of other photographers one evening outside the Houses of Parliament and we did a photo walk up the Thames. It was a lot of fun – I had forgotten a lot of tricks with night photography so it was a relearning experience as well.

I took this one on the way.

We started on Westminster Bridge and took photos both East and West.

And then moved a bit further down the bridge. I wasa going for quite long exposures to capture some of the movement in and on the river.

We walked along the Southbank, stopping here and there to grap a few shots, as it was early evening there were a lot of people about. I tried to get some good ghost motion shots of people but none of them really turned out how I wanted.

Then it was up to Waterloo Bridge to shoot the brightly lit National Theatre – a horrendously ugly concrete block edifice turned colourful and bright by night. I was looking for buses…

We then caught one of the buses to the Tate Modern end of Bankside and walked down on to the side of the Thames, the tide was out so we could get down quite low which was very cool.

And yes, I know the horizon is not straight…. I am always happy to break rules for effect.

It was a great four hours out and about, I had a lot of fun shooting and chatting but the main thing I learned is that is perfectly safe to be doing solo night shoots on the Thames, something that had prevented me from going and doing it myself.

Edinburgh

Monday 09 September 2013 – Edinburgh.

One of my key regrets from when I lived in London in the mid 1980s was not seeing much of the greater UK, and this is something I really want to address now I am living here again. Scotland has always been on my must visit list and this weekend El and I took an introductory trip over the border and visited Edinburgh. I have to caveat this by mentioning that El has been here many times before, it is only me that has been slack.

We took the train from Kings Cross station on Saturday morning, the journey takes four and a bit hours and passes through a number of places I want to visit in England – York, Durham and Newcastle, before crossing the border at Berwick. It was a pretty cool journey, and so cool to be heading into the unknown and a new adventure.

We had a room in the Travel Lodge near the station and were very fortunate to be on the top floor, which was pretty much the only floor with a view…. And the view was over towards the castle and the Royal Mile – fabulous.

Fortunately the room was available though we were a couple of hours early for check in and we were able to drop our bags off before heading out for a first explore of the city – after a monstrous lunch in a small touristy noodle bar. My first impressions of a rainy downtown Edinburgh were WOW! The ‘old’ part of the city has been so well preserved, it is quite busy, with a lot of tourists and and I imagine a fair number of Edinburgh locals shopping in the posh shops in the area as well. I am a sucker for a town with steep cobbled streets, steps, small alley ways and hidden views that pop out at you if you keep your eyes open as you walk past. Sadly the weather didn’t really play ball and we had a few showers as we walked down past Cow Gate and along the Royal Mile to the centre of Scottish Government at Holyrood.

When the showers took a wee respite we decided to take a quick trip up the old volcanic mound of Arthur’s Seat, which was our planned objective for the afternoon. The views over Edinburgh were spectacular and when the sun was out it was quite warm up there.

Calton Hill

The Edinburgh Tattoo had just finished at the castle so sadly the view was partially blocked by all the temporary seating.

It was looking like rain so we took a hurried trip back down and slipped the rough path and twisted a knee which ended up in a very sore back on the final day, thankfully not serious but it did mean for a slow day on the Monday.

It started raining quite heavily as we walked back up the Royal Mile so we ended up taking a break from the rain in a little pub and talking whisky with a couple of Danish men, one who comes to Scotland every year to sample and buy whisky. Surprisingly we only had one whisky each the entire weekend – actually that should probably read ‘shockingly we had only one whisky all weekend!’

Once the rain had stopped we walked back to the hotel and I shot a few photos out of the window before we went out that most traditional of Scottish meals – a curry…

Arthur’s Seat.

More of the back of the Royal Mile.

Sunday was bright and sunny and we were out the door fairly promptly and on the hunt of coffee and food. We passed the Scot Monument before the climb to the top was open.

We walked back up towards the Royal Mile again anticipating that the heavily touristed areas would be the best location to find breakfast and we soon found a nice cafe (which we returned to on Monday) for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked up the Royal Mile towards Edinburgh Castle and I found the first of many “Rebus” locations. Fleshmarket Close. I am huge fan of Ian Rankin’s John Rebus novels, most of which are set in Edinburgh and it was interesting to see so many places from the novels.

There were lots of other alleys to explore off the side of the Royal Mile as well.

The Edinburgh Festival is centred in this lovely old church, whose name I did not write down !

Out first stop for the day was the Camera Obscura up near the castle (in the top of the white tower) the camera was installed in the building in the 1850’s . The view from the top was fantastic and the camera obscura was really cool.

We were going to visit the castle, thinking that mid-morning would still be too early for the bulk of the other tourists, but the queue for tickets was massive – and there was not one single person waiting for the pre-booked tickets so we decided to flag the castle today and book tickets for tomorrow. I think a wise decision.

We wandered down the side of the castle down towards the Grassmarket where I found the best record shop in the world. They had coffee and records and posters and places to sit and enjoy music. Fantastic, a pity the staff had no interest in us as customers – and we were the only ones. Coffee was good though !

Grassmarket is a very cool area of shops and cafes, sort of hip on the fringes, but open and tidy and nice old buildings. I liked it.

We wandered up a side street looking for Greyfriars Bobby. The story has it that Bobby spent 14 years guarding his late owner, the night watchman, John Gray’s grave in Greyfriars Church yard after he died in 1858. True or not it is a cool story and has made the church very popular with tourists…

Even though it was a last resting place for plague victims.

The highlight of a very packed and pleasure filled Saturday was lunch at The Witchery, one of Edinburgh’s top eateries and being very smart El had booked us a table when we first decided to visit the town. The lunch was hugely enjoyable, food was good, wine was great and the company perfect.

After lunch we wobbled – with full bellies, not drunken legs ! Back down the valley for a wee afternoon rest in the hotel. We passed by this trio outside the art gallery and for a change I actually did not hate the sound of the pipes, maybe my ears were a little drunk… anyway, these guys actually sounded pretty good.

I took a few more photos out of the window, though the massive blue skies we had in the morning had given way again to clouds.

In the evening we took a walk up Calton Hill and it’s famous Grecian style national monument.

We had a walk around all the weird and wonderful collection of monuments and were about to settle in to look at the view when the rain came down and we huddled under a tree while we waited for the shower to pass. El had of course wisely brought a rain coat while I had looked at the clouds, though they looked like rain and did nothing about it. Luckily she shared. Yes, there is a weird colour cast in these shots – and no I cannot be bothered editing them out – sorry!

After the rain we wandered down from the hill, past the old parliament building.

We were going to visit the Robert Burns memorial but it was closed so we turned round and headed back into town.

We found this cake, left by the rubbish bins behind a hotel – I guess it may have a sad story behind it (it says ‘well done Grant and Steff’).

We popped into a supermarket and bought some cheese and fruit to munch on for a light tea and went back to our room to watch bad telly. It was a good day !

On Monday morning El woke with a really sore back and by the time we packed and checked out was in a bit of pain. We decided to visit the castle anyway as we had purchased tickets, though we did go via the same cafe as yesterday and I lingered over a good sized breakfast 🙂

We walked up to the castle again and again there was a massive queue for tickets but no-one at the pre-purchased ticket machine, so we were inside pretty quickly. I did not really enjoy the castle, El was in pain and there were a lot of people about, it was very pretty and the views were great, but I just wasn’t feeling it. We saw most places but did not linger too long and after a hellish queue to see the Scottish crown jewels we wandered off again.

El had really seized up by now so we decided to see if we could find an early train back to London. We were booked on the overnight sleeper with El going straight to the office the next day, but that was not going to be a good option and thankfully we were able to get seats on an earlier train.
One of the main reasons we were going to Edinburgh was to meet my friend Alex and his partner who were here from NZ as part of a larger trip. We had arranged to meet them for dinner that night, but really sadly I had to cancel it and head home.

I (we) really enjoyed Edinburgh, it is a cool little city and one I am already looking forward to re-visiting!

A day trip to Brighton

Thursday 29 August 2013 – Brighton.

Wow, another month has almost gone and I am still unemployed in London. I have had one interview since last writing though in the end this did turn into a job – oh well, such is life and all that. Just to let you know, I am actually doing OK with this. I have my moments of doubt that I will ever get a job, but I did know it was going to be tough and take some time. I am pretty happy though, so no need to worry.

Not working does mean I get to get out and about when I am asked and today was my first trip out of London for a couple of weeks. Photographer buddy Steve had a few days off work so we decided to head down to Brighton and have a wander around, sample a couple of ales and take some photos.

I liked Brighton, this time I saw a bit more of it than when I was down there last September. The main downtown area is very orientated to tourism, with some cool markets with some interesting shops.

There is quite a few big murals around the market area and I have put most of these on a separate street art post on my Photos by Phil blog. But I had to include one or two, and these cassettes are just everywhere.

Just behind the shops I found this small scooter chained to the side of a house – weird…

The light was savage so I did not end up taking too many photos, plus I had visited the pier last time I was down so though it was of the key sights in Brighton we decided not to visit it.

We did take a walk along the beach.

And walked around the outside of the totally bizarre Pavilion. It was built in the early 1800’s and has to be one of the more unusual buildings in the UK.

Back into town again we walked down some of the narrow alley ways that run through the old part of town, before stopping for a cooling ale or two before catching the train back up to London.

Though we did not visit this pub with its cool mural up near the station.

It was another good day out, but sadly I was not feeling particularly photographically inspired so ended up taking less than I should have. It is only an hour by train.

This weekend El and I are off to Edinburgh, I hoping I get some photo mojo back then as I have been really looking forward to this trip !