Must See Films

A colleague at work casually asked me if I had a list of films that were ‘must see’ or ‘required watching’ so I thought I’d have a go. In doing this task I decided to impose a few rules and definitions.

Firstly, this is a list of ‘must see’ films not just good films so there has to be something special about them. They have to be genre defining or have a particularly definitive performance or scene. The film also had to have been out for at least five years. Some films seem great at the time but don’t age well or become irrelevant. A ‘must see’ film must be classic and be able to stand the test of time.

This list is made up of MY ‘must see’ films and is formed from movies that I’ve actually seen and is biased towards my own tastes. I’m sure there are still quite a few films on other people’s lists that I’ve simply not watched. I’m also not a huge fan of genre’s such as horror which means many potential classics might not be represented. Please feel free to comment if you think I’ve made any errors or omissions?

Here we go (and in no particular order):

1. It Happened One Night
2. It’s a Wonderful Life
3. Back to the Future
4. Ghostbusters
5. The Terminator / Terminator 2
6. 12 Angry Men
7. Life of Brian
8. Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back
9. Silent Running
10. Jaws
11. Nashville
12. Short cuts
13. Glen Gary Glen Ross
14. Saturday Night Fever
15. Ferris Buellers Day Off
16. The Great Escape
17. Dr Strangelove
18. Casablanca
19. The Shining
20. Barry Lyndon
21. The Searchers
22. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
23. The Breakfast Club
24. Blues Brothers
25. Resovoir Dogs
26. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves
27. Godfather, parts 1 and 2
28. Flash Gordon
29. Goldfinger
30. Fight Club
31. Die Hard
32. Platoon
33. Taxi Driver
34. Raging Bull
35. L.A. Confidential
36. Highlander
37. Top Gun
38. Lord of the Rings (trilogy)
39. The Matrix
40. Four weddings and a Funeral
41. Planet of the Apes
42. The Usual Suspects
43. Alien + Aliens
44. Blue Velvet
45. 2001: A Space Odyssey
46. True Romance
47. Singin’ in the Rain
48. Raiders of the Lost Ark
49. Blade Runner
50. Apocalypse Now
51. Withnail and I
52. Momento
53. Dark Knight
54. Superman
55. There’s Something about Mary
56. Airplane
57. The Apartment
58. Midnight Run
59. Some like it Hot
60. Kes
61. The Hill
62. North by Northwest
63. Rear window
64. Psycho
65. Deep Cover
66. A Touch of Evil
67. Citizen Kane
68. Blazing Saddles
69. Shawshank Redemption
70. Goodfellas
71. Toy story
72. Silence of the Lambs
73. Saving Private Ryan
74. The Italian Job
75. Jurassic Park
76. The Princess Bride
77. The Third Man
78. Brief encounter
79. Lawrence of Arabia
80. Bridge over the river Kwai
81. Wizard of Oz
82. This is Spinal Tap
83. Annie Hall
84. The Ladykillers
85. Police Academy
86. Carry on up the Khyber
87. Enter the Dragon
88. Gone with the Wind
89. The Bourne Identity
90. Toy Story
91. Snow White
92. The Exorcist
93. The Big Sleep
94. Schindlers List
95. Ben-Hur
96. Easy Rider
97. Alfie (Michael Caine version)
98. Swingers
99. Dirty Dancing
100. American Werewolf in London
101. Groundhog Day
102. Point Break
103. Cool Hand Luke
104. Before Sunrise
105. Clerks
106. Chariots of Fire
107. Pump up the Volume
108. The Great Dictator
109. Evil Dead
110. Night of the Living Dead
111. 28 Days Later

Goals for 2012

I’m a little bit late with this post as I really should have written it at the turn of the year rather than a month later. My goals for 2012, however, are as follows:

Write more

First up I want to write more this year. I’ve really enjoyed writing blogs over the last three years but they got quite intermittent last year which was a shame. I’d like to use this blog to continue to document my hobbies as well as various trips and projects that I do.

I’d also like to have a go at writing a blog post every day, for January at least, and after that see how I go. Rather than an account of the whole day I think if I just keep each post to one idea or thing that has happened it should be quite manageable. I’ll also keep this blog separate so as not to confuse things.

Read more

I like reading and I like books and for a number of months I’ve actually made a point of noting down in a list the books that I want to read. I can get a bit carried away with lists and over the last few months I have accumulated over 80 books on it. Over the last few years I’ve read between 20-25 books a year so even if I don’t add any more there is already 3-4 years worth. I really enjoy reading history books and I’ve tried to get into more classics recently but I should allow myself a few more trashy page turners in between too. Ultimately though, my aim this year is to read over 25 books. Should be doable.

Television

To give myself more time to do the first two goals I am vowing to only watch ‘quality’ television this year. Far too often I’ve found myself watching rubbish on TV and to be honest, there are other things I’d enjoy a lot more, including writing and reading. No more ‘Don’t tell the bride’ for me. On this note, I’ve got a lot of TV series box sets that are excellent and I’d like to watch but are not always popular with the Missus who, to be fair, is not a fan of violent stuff. It would be great to get through some of these if I can though and there is some crossover for us.

Ideally of an evening I’d like to watch an hour of ‘quality’ TV such as an episode of The Wire or Madmen followed by reading or writing a blog post. Then Bed.

Become a Pie Master

Over the last few years I’ve really enjoyed my bread-making but to a certain extent I’ve reached my limits at it. There are still some speciality breads that I’ve not made that I’ll have a go at from time to time but I was really after a new culinary challenge. After making a small pre-christmas request I got given a Pie book and a few pie making accouterments.  It is therefore my goal to become a bit of a ‘Pie-master’ by the end of the year. We should have a great time trying in any case.

Magic

This one has been carried over from last year when I failed to achieve it. I love magic and sleight of hand and would love to be able to do a few tricks. My aim is therefore to be able to deliver three separate magic tricks on demand by the end of the year.

Grow Wheat

I’ve been keen on bread making for some time, even regularly making my own sourdough but there is one more obsessional step to take. Growing my own wheat.

I’m not sure quite why I’m so keen to do this, as good flour is relatively easy to get hold of? Maybe it is because it is a challenge and a bit pointless that I find it an attractive idea. I’m keen to show my kids where food comes from and when I’ve mentioned it they do seem pretty keen so maybe it’s just educational?

The first challenge amongst many is getting hold of some wheat which, due to strict distribution laws, is harder to obtain than you might think. Hard to get a small amount in any case. Getting half a ton delivered would be no problem apparently. If I can get over this stumbling block we are in business.

Touch Typing

This final one may be the biggest challenge of them all. I’m sure having to look at the keyboard as I type has professionally held me back a bit. As another goal is to write more it now seems the right time to learn to touch type. There seem to be many free online courses and demo’s so I also have the few excuses.

Setting aside the time for this task will be tricky but I’m determined to crack this one if I can.

Project 365 – 2011 – Finished

In 2008 I completed my first ‘One photo a day’ for a year project. I found it quite a struggle and it almost drove me a little crazy at times. When I was finished I felt very burnt out for photography and it took me quite a while to get my mojo back. I tried fairly hard to get good, arty shots each day and possibly got a bit frustrated and upset if I didn’t get what I was after. When I finished, dazed as I was, I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment.

For this years project I went into it with a whole different attitude. This time I told myself that it would be more of a photo journal rather than an art project and I gave myself full licence to take ‘cop-out’ shots where necessary. With work and kids there are enough stresses in my life so I also said that if it got a bit much that I would just give it up. The fact that I’d already notched up one before helped here.

How did it go?

With all those pre-conditions I actually found it fairly easy this time, I certainly can’t remember a time that I felt pressured or in a tizzy about it. I more or less took my Canon 5D around with me everywhere, despite it’s bulk. It was therefore fairly straightforward to get a shot somewhere in the day. Equipment-wise this year, I had a better camera in the 5D rather than my old 20D but no macro lens as I’d sold it to get my iPhone. I remember relying on the macro quite a bit in 2008 to get those shots indoors at night. In a way I’m glad it wasn’t an option this time as I took more pictures of scenes rather than objects which suited the photo journal approach better.

The big issue this year was not so much taking the pictures, it was uploading them to Flickr. It’s interesting to note that since i’ve had a smartphone where I can take a picture, edit it if necessary and upload it within seconds or minutes it now seems an imposition if it takes longer. The knock-on effect of this has been that I now resent having to take out my memory card, plug it into the card reader and input the photos into Lightroom before editing and uploading. At first I would upload my photo each day but by the end I was doing it every 5-6 days.

Projects within the project

I had two main mini-projects to help me along during the year. The first was to document my cycle route to work which for a while was giving me 1 or 2 pictures a week. The other was an (overly) ambitious project called ’52 Portraits’. The idea was for me to take one portrait a week for the whole year. I loved the idea of this but I think i should have planned it a whole lot better as I kind of ran out of people willing to have their picture taken after about 20 weeks. Still as long as it lasted it gave me another day each week that I could include in the overall 365 project. Despite neither of these mini-projects quite coming off I’m glad I had a go as they gave me a bit of focus early on. They are also topics that i can easily pick up later if I want to.

Am I a better photographer?

My own self assessment is that I’m a much more rounded photographer this time around than I was in 2008 and the equipment that I’m using is a lot better. On the other hand I think I’ve also become a lot more accepting of snapshots and less worried about ‘arty’ shots than i was. In a sense my photography has come full circle. I’ve gone through being irritated by people being in my pictures and the desire to get the perfect framing and exposure. I’m a lot more interested these days in just recording what I’m seeing. I certainly take a lot more pictures of the family than I used to. I therefore wouldn’t say that I’ve got much better technically but I have got a lot more comfortable in my picture taking.

2014?

I completed my first 365 (actually 366) in 2008 and this one in 2011 which makes me due another one in 2014? As I rely on taking so many of these pictures on my way to work I don’t think i could face doing it again till I work (or live) somewhere else. I have no immediate plans to move by then but you never know what will be happening?

Summary

A less stressful and angst ridden project this time but also slightly less fulfilling one somehow. That said, I’m glad I did it and would consider doing it again one day. Not in 2012 though.

Annual Report 2011

Well, it’s been an exciting year. Here is the news and facts about my cultural life that are fit to print.

Photography

The big achievement in 2011 was to complete the ‘One photo a day’ project without missing a day. I did my first one in 2008 and I’m wondering if I should keep doing this every 3rd year? Praps I’ll see how I feel in 2013?

In total I took 4216 pictures with my ‘good’ camera (Canon 5D) and uploaded 891 of them to Flickr. I’ve not really kept tabs on how many iPhone photos I’ve taken.

Books

I attempted to read 20 books in 2011, though one was War and Peace that I had started the previous June (!!!) and David Copperfield that was not finished until 2012. I didn’t finish the Mitfords book as I felt i’d gleaned enough by half way or ‘Suttree’ which I just wasn’t enjoying.

It was quite a mix of books including trashy thrillers, classics, biographies and quite a few history books. All of the books, listed in the order I read them, including my favourites:

• War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (finished)
• The Mitfords – Letters between six sisters - Edited by Charlotte mosley
• The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
• Firewall - Andy McNab
• Rifles - Mark Urban
• The Last Kingdom - Bernard Cornwell
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
• Stanley Kubrick biography – John Baxter
• Nelson – A personal history - Christopher Hibbert
• A Call for the Dead - John Le Carre
• Absolution Gap - Alistair Reynolds - GOLD
• The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
• Suttree – Cormac McCarthy (Did not finish)
• How Not to Grow Up - Richard Herring
• Conquest: English Kingdom in France - Juliet Barker
• War without Garlands - Robert Kershaw - Bronze
• David Copperfield (Started) - Charles Dickens
• The Blackest Streets - Sarah Wise
• The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins - Silver

Cinema

I saw 22 films at the cinema this year. Overall not quite such a stellar year as 2010 but there were a couple of corkers.

Black Swan – Gold
127 Hours
True Grit
Never Let Me Go
Animal Kingdom
Paul
Submarine
Pina 3D – Silver
Fight Club
Attack the Block
Senna
Tree of Life
Super 8
Captain America
The Guard
The Inbetweeners
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – Bronze
Drive
Ides of March
Adventures of Tintin – Secret of the Unicorn
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

TV Films

This year I kept a record of the films that I saw on my television either via a DVD or recorded from a station:

1. Local hero
2. Italian job
3. Jungle book
4. Mean streets
5. Evil dead
6. Hot fuzz
7. 12 Angry Men
8. Midnight run
9. Romanzo criminale
10. Day of the Dead
11. Pirates of the carribean: dead mans chest
12. Skeletons
13. Heat
14. Transporter 3
15. The money pit
16. Top gun
17. In Bruges
18. Grosse pointe blank
19. The Prestige
20. Rollerball
21. Watchmen
22. Coming to America
23. Good will hunting
24. Open range
25. Mad Max 2
26. Ghost town
27. District 9
28. Four Lions
29. About Schmidt
30. The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford
31. 3:10 to Yuma
32. Kick-Ass
33. The Town
34. The Magnificent Ambersons (part of)
35. Dog day afternoon
36. Back to the future
37. Trading places
38. Star Trek

TV Series

I have a long list of TV series’ that I want to watch but I don’t get the opportunities that I would like which has meant that I’ve only racked up a few. All three were good but the finale season of The Wire has to be the winner.

• Battlestar Galactica – Series 2
• The Wire
• Arrested Development – Series 1

Museum Exhibitions

I saw a few Museum exhibitions, my favourite being the Don McCullen, War Photographer which I thought was very powerful.

High Arctic – National Maritime Museum
Warhorse – National Army Museum
Degas – Royal Academy
Afghanistan – British Museum
Ministry of Food – Imperial War Museum
Don McCullen: War Photographer – Imperial War Museum

I visited the galleries of many other places and I think i’ll try to record all of my cultural visits next year.

Walking across Greater London – Part 2

The Project

Very simply, this was attempt to walk across the whole of Greater London, east to west, at it’s widest points. I reckoned that this would take 3 days with each leg being approximately 13-15 miles. In Part 1 I walked from the farmlands of the eastern edge of the London Borough of Havering to Barking. In this leg I was hoping to get from Barking to somewhere west of Hyde Park.

View Larger Map

 

Newham

Despite having lived in Barking for about 2 years I’d almost never been anywhere apart from the train station, the supermarket and my house. It was therefore a bit of a revelation to finally go down Barking High Street and find a few pleasant looking buildings and a church. I didn’t linger though and made my way to the London Road and was soon over Barking Creek and the A406 (North Circular) and into East Ham.

Barking

For this bit of my walk I decided to keep off of the main road and walk through the suburban streets. This meant that I got to see street after street of slightly down at heel terrace housing, broken by the odd newsagent, internet/mobile shop and (in)convenience store. In this way I passed East Ham, Upton park and Plaistow, the latter having quite a nice station building.

Plaistow

I then headed south-west getting nearly as far as canning town, where I wasn’t paying attention and actually walked well out of my way. I headed past Star Park and on into an industrial estate with some scary looking ‘Private Property’, ‘No entry’ signs. I’m normally someone who takes notice of these kind of signs but I also knew that the alternative way round would be miles so I decided to just go for it. As this was a Sunday, no-one was there and I didn’t get stopped. I’d picked this route as I wanted to see what the view was like over the River Lea/Limehouse Cut. As it turned out a bit dingy. I then found myself at the A12 which I hoped to find a pedestrian crossing at Bromley-by-Bow. I did find a crossing but it meant going up to the flyover and down again to use a tunnel and then up the flyover on the other side and down again. Phew. I was now in Tower Hamlets.

Bromly-by-bow

East End

My route through the old East End was quite meandering and on the whole I was quite surprised by the mix of housing. There are clearly quite poor areas but these are next to a number of new builds and trendy looking houses. This was most marked when I was in Stepney Green and On one side of the road was a series of grand georgian town houses and on the other is a dog eared looking council block. Very odd.

Stepney Green

The Mile End Road again had a mix of amazing old buildings and skuzzy looking mobile phone shops. I decided to get off the main road at Whitechapel and go by the back-streets until I got to Brick Lane. Here, of course, I came into the trendy, vintage clothe wearing set. I was very hungry by now as I’d been holding out to have a salt beef bagel at one of the brick lane bagel shops. It was delicious.

Whitechapel

From the top of Brick lane I made my way over to the Boundary Road Estate which was built at the end of the 19th century and is one of the first pieces of social housing. It was built on the site of the notorious slum ‘The Old Nichol’. I have to say that it still looks very nice!

Old Nichol Street

City of London

I walked past St Leonard’s church and across Shoreditch High Street and I was in the city. Again I decided to explore the back streets rather than the main thoroughfares, this time along Rivington Street. Crossing Great Eastern street I made my second navigation error of the day and went south on Paul Street and it was quite a while before I realised that I was not travelling east. I discovered my mistake and turned the right way into Finsbury Square. From there I skirted the Barbican and then up Whitecross Street (no market today) and on to Old Street. From here is was going to be a straight line for a while.

Whitecross Street

Old Street turned into Clerkenwell Road, then Theobald’s Street in a long stream of shops, pubs, café’s and houses. I was getting a bit tired by now but had a goal in my head to get a certain distance in the bag.

Arcade

I turned into Oxford Street, a place that I’ve been down many times. This time, for the first time I looked up at the buildings (like a tourist) rather than the shops and was surprised about how many cool old buildings there were.

Oxford Street

I turned off Oxford Street about half way along and walked on Wigmore Street that runs parallel. This eventually led to the eastern end of Hyde Park where I had a nice walk in the afternoon sunshine.

Hyde Park

I finished my day at Queensway tube station at the north western corner of Hyde Park having walked 14 miles. A pretty tiring day!

View all the photos from the day.

Walking across Greater London – Part 1

The Project

The idea is fairly simple, to walk from East to West across Greater London at it’s widest points. Apart from the challenge of crossing the Capital on foot, for me it is also a chance to go to a few places where I’ve formerly lived.

The Plan

After having a play with the ‘directions’ bit of Google maps, it looked like a walk across London could be done fairly comfortably in three days, with legs of around 13/14 miles. I grew up in the Borough of Hillingdon so it seemed fitting that I should end my walk there. This therefore meant starting at the easternmost boundary of the London Borough of Havering. Actually finding the boundary of Havering was harder than I thought, but I eventually nailed it down to being outside of the M25 and seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

I was keen to start my walk from outside of London which meant that I’d get the Train to West Horndon and walk west.

View Larger Map

The Walk

I walked out of West Horndon station to immediately find that, as I’d suspected, there was no pavement on the road towards London. This was a pain, and a tiny bit dangerous, but there was no other alternative so I steeled myself and got going. I found myself on a country road called St Mary’s Lane and I would be on it for quite a while, at least until Upminster. Whilst the Road had no pavement, there was usually some kind of verge and I was able to avoid any of the traffic.

Welcome to the London Borough of Havering

The views for the first few miles were all farms, fields and the occasional glimpse of the train line. After walking for around 35 minutes and very much in the middle of nowhere, the sign I’d been looking for hove into view – Welcome to The Borough of Havering. This was it, the start of the journey proper and the moment was only slightly ruined by the sound of many dogs barking and yelping at the house next to the sign. A mile or two further on the next big milestone appeared, the M25. Crossing underneath the motorway, I found that I was still surrounded by countryside and when I eventually rolled into Cranham it was a bit of a belief. Civilisation and pavements were very welcome!

Upminster Windmill

A little further up the road I came into Upminster and reckoned it was time for a short break and popped into a coffee shop for an espresso and a glass of water. I did feel a bit self conscious as it was a muggy day and I was a bit sweaty. I got over it and was soon on the way again. Upminster looked nice and suburban but the highlight was a cool looking Windmill.

Rush Green

Before I started I wondered how tempted I’d be about meandering about but as it turned out I mostly just kept to the main road through Upminster Bridge and then Hornchurch. I was then lured slightly off the beaten track by a short walk through Hornchurch Park. My memory of this part of my journey is of a sea of fairly bland suburban housing.

It was then on through the unremarkable Rush Green and then I was over the border into the Borough Of Dagenham and Redbridge. The town hall at least looked pretty cool.

Becontree Estate

One of the specific places I’d wanted to visit was the Becontree Estate. When it was built after the First World War it was the largest municipal housing estate in Europe. It has some 27,000 houses and over 100,000 residents but yet no ‘town centre’ as such. I found walking through it a strange experience as there were many properties well looked after and clearly loved right next to a place with a fridge in the garden and completely unkempt. There is an ominous uniformity to the style that goes on and on, in my case for nearly an hour.

The street in Barking that I used to live in

At the end of the Becontree I entered Mayesbrook park and came out into the much more middle class looking Upney. From here it was was short walk to Barking where I chalked up my next special point, the street where I lived for two years. It was slightly weird to come back here but also nice to leave. This is Barking after all. At Barking station, I called it a day on Leg 1 and headed home.

Next time……it’ll be my journey from Barking to hopefully Kensington.

See all the photos from the trip.

Barking Station

Camping with a toddler

Rose in the tent

Earlier in the year I went away for a couple of days camping with one of my friends in Snowdonia and had a great time. My three year old daughter Rose, however, couldn’t believe that I’d not taken her and I think she felt pretty left out.

Since then she has mentioned that ‘when she is older’ she can come with me. At first I thought, yes, ‘when your older’ but the more I thought about it the more I reckoned it would be fun to go now. A date was set and plans were made.

I thought for a first camping trip that we should keep things simple and not try to be too adventurous. I therefore decided to go to the New Forest and only for one night. We packed up the car after breakfast and had an unadventurous 3 hour drive down to the camp-site, getting there about lunchtime.

The camp-site, near Lymington was quite crowded and we struggled to find a pitch that wasn’t surrounded by noisy types. I plumped for a spot next to a quiet looking couple and hoped that they wouldn’t turn into drunken monsters later. As it turned out I’m not sure they spoke to each other all evening. Rose was actually quite helpful with putting up the tent. She could click the poles in place and handed me the pegs as I put them in. When it was up and the sleeping bags were in she excitingly got in and said we should go to sleep (despite it only being 1 o’clock).

I persuaded her that it might be nicer to have a spot of lunch and then maybe visit a castle before bed. Rose seemed to like this idea. Following a nice pub lunch we made our way down to Keyhaven where we could get the ferry over to Hurst Castle. For Rose, the ferry trip was a bit of a treat in itself and she almost seemed a bit disappointed when we arrived at the Castle.

View from Hurst Castle

The castle itself was originally built by King Henry VIII but was substantially added to during the 1860s-80s and became one of ‘Palmerston’s follies’. We had a good time looking at, and in Rose’s case climbing on, the massive guns and climbing the walls. There is a good view of the Solent and the Isle of Wight! Rose also devoured a massive ice cream!

Canon or climbing frame?

Before getting the ferry back we both enjoyed a little paddle in the sea and a walk along the shingle. Back at camp, it was time for a spot of dinner so it was out with the camping stove and on with some pasta. I also had a tin of mild curry too but only just realised that i’d failed to bring along a tin opener. doh! I therefore went off to beg for the use of someone else’s.

Dinner eaten, Rose declared that she wanted to go to bed (it was around her normal bedtime) so I thought why not and said we should get in the tent. She then asked questioningly ‘are we sleeping here’?? I think she slightly couldn’t believe that we’d actually sleep in tent. She didn’t put up much protest and got into her sleeping bag. Two hours later, three long trips to the loo and a walk to go and pick blackberries (and see the sunset) later she was finally asleep. At times she was like a whirling dervish in the tent. Mostly, it was quite funny and i’d always thought it unlikely that she’d go to sleep that early.

My plan was to stay in the tent with Rose and once she was asleep read my book or play a game on the iPhone and this seemed to more or less work out. Fairly promptly at 6am, though, Rose awoke and made it pretty clear she wasn’t going to be going back to sleep. I took her to the toilet and, as the campsite was still very much asleep, suggested we walk down to the sea. This turned out to be a great move as we got there to see the very beautiful dawn.

Dawn Solent

We walked up and down for a bit seeing a fish leap out of the water a couple of times before heading back to the campsite for breakfast. I made us some nuttella on bread (and a coffee for me) and it was really nice, just sitting in our camp chairs watching people emerge from their tents and start their own morning rituals. After brekkie, we ‘broke camp’, which Rose was a lot less keen to hep out with and hit the road. Rose said that she was keen to go to the beach so I thought we’d head to Christchurch as it has proper sand. We didn’t get very far, however, before she was out for the count and whilst I could have made her wake up I thought I’d treat her to a nap. I at least got a very pleasant and mildly picturesque drive along the coast and then back towards Lyndhurst.

Midnight Tryst?

I didn’t want to go home without going in at least some of the actual ‘New Forest’ so we stopped and had a wander about. As ever, the best bit for Rose was looking under logs for ‘bugs’ and climbing on fallen trees. And why not? In a little clearing we also found this (empty) wine bottle and two glasses that must have been for some midnight tryst?!

The weather was a bit iffy with spells of rain so I thought we should go for home while the going was good.

Summary

Well, I have to say that it all went pretty swimingly. Rose had a great time and since we’ve been back has requested to go again many times.

I was really keen to make it fun and really worried that I’d put her off on her first trip. I’m therefore quite glad that I was relatively unambitious this time.

The only slight error I made was pitching the tent so far away from either the toilet or the field edge. It wasn’t so big a problem but next time I’d bring more pillows and blankets to pad out the tent a bit. I’m so used to very minimal camping that I didn’t think about it. A portable DVD player might have helped with a calm bed time too.

Altogether, both of us can’t wait till next time!

Surrey Docks Farm

My little girl (nearly 3) has made me sing the ‘Old MacDonald’ nursery Rhyme to her every night for about the last 3 months. I therefore thought it was time we actually went to see some of these damned animals.

Slightly surprisingly, there are quite a few city farm options in London but in the end it came down to which was easiest to get to. Since the East London line was extended it has allowed easy access to parts of London I never thought to go to. One of these is the Surrey Quays area which boasts a little city farm right on the bank of the Thames.

The farm itself consists of a very nice cafe (the breakfasts particularly looked quite good), a duck/geese pond, an open courtyard containing goats, sheep and chickens and then several pens and paddocks for the cows, donkeys and pigs. After a fortifying coffee (average but only £1.50) my girl wanted to dive right into the courtyard.

Just before we went in, we saw a family enter and get out a small bag of feed (purchased from the farm) who were instantly and frighteningly mobbed by the goats and sheep. The poor little girl burst into tears and they all quickly withdraw. It was then I decided not to get any feed on this trip at least.

Late April seems a good time to go as we had lovely weather and there seemed to be lots of lambs and kids (as in baby goats) which were very cute and docile. Rose largely had a super time running round after the animals and gradually got up the courage to stroke a few of the animals. She was pretty nervous of the larger sheep and goats a hid behind me a few times. The longer we were there though, the better she got and was stroking everything by the end.

After the courtyard, my little girl was quite disappointed that we couldn’t also go in with the bigger animals such as the cows and pigs. We did have a go at feeding the cows and for my trouble, got my hand licked. From then on Rose offerred every animal we saw a bit of straw but either didn’t hold it close enough or they were simply not interested.

Had a decent lunch of scrambled eggs on toast (eggs made on the premises obviously).

Summary

Considering there is no entry fee I thought this was an excellent place to take the nipper. I still can’t quite believe we spent all morning there. The next day I got asked when we were going back to the farm which must be the best endorsement!

One Photo a Day project for 2011 – 1st QTR

Well here I am again doing a ‘photo a day‘ project where I’ll be trying to not miss a day until the end of the year. I was really burnt out after my first time doing this project in 2008 so I was a bit nervous about doing it again.

This time though, I was determined to be a bit more casual about it and not beat myself up about the quality of my daily shot. I was also keen to add more of a diary element to my uploads and try and make it a reflection of what I’ve been up to. Now that I’m three months in I can say that I’m feeling good about it so far. I’ve not felt particularly pressured yet and I seem to have got my shots without too much heartache.

Projects within a project
I’ve got two particular projects on the go with ‘Project 365′ that certainly help.

The first is one called ‘52 portraits‘ which from the title you can guess involves taking 1 portrait per week. Portrait photography is something that I’d like to be better at but this mini-project has really given me the impetus to practice regularly. I’m certainly enjoying it so far and I think I’m going to have a lovely portfolio at the end of it.

The other mini-project is documenting my cycle to work (Sydenham to the City). There are several interesting features on my route that I’d like to gradually record if I can.

With my mini-projects taking up 2-3 photos a week it takes the pressure off the other days that I have to find something to photograph. The other nice thing is that now the clocks have gone forward there is a lot more evening light to take a picture either on my way home from work or in the early evening. This really helps. If it wasn’t for the neatness of doing a calendar year I think starting a 365 project in the summer would be a far better time to kick things off.

Anyway, going well so far but as i know from last time, the hard yards and dark days are still ahead of me.

Bread diary no. 12 – Spelt rolls

One of my colleagues at work is intolerant to gluten and made a request for bread she can eat.

As luck would have it I was given some spelt flour for Christmas that I was keen to try.

I don’t like to be too hard on myself however so I went for 60% spelt and 40% strong white flour. I was a tiny bit worried about how well it would rise so added a bit more yeast and slightly less salt.

It was a tricky dough to work with with hardly any gluten in but I coaxed it into a decent shape eventually.

Coming out the oven they smelt really nice. Eating didn’t disappoint either. The texture was a bit grainy but the taste was nice and went well with blue cheese and the soup we had for our tea.