Watch out for evil Guinea Pigs!

Hello again

I need to tell you about a terrifying experience I suffered this weekend.

My daughters have a Guinea Pig each; Polo (nearest the camera) and Cookie (in the background).

On the whole, I have no issue with their existence alongside mine, the girls love them, my wife loves them and they in return love the girls and my wife. When the girls or Teresa walk past the cage, Cookie and Polo put their front paws on the cage and tweet hellos to one and all.

It's not the case with me though, I get angry chirping noises. That aside, the pigs and I get along ok and although I occasionally try to buy there affection with celery or broccoli, we all know the real truth

On Saturday, I was sitting on the sofa minding my own business, fiddling about on my iPad whilst the girls and my wife had the Guinea Pigs out for a cuddle on the same sofa (I don't cuddle the pigs, I'm not keen on all that scratchy, scrabbling they do). Then, without any notice Polo leapt from my daughter, straight onto my throat. It was terrifying, like a flying fox jumping from one tree to another or that film with the vampire bats attacking the man. Shocked and terrified, I screeched like a little girl "get it off, get it off" only to see my wife and daughters laughing hysterically at the situation. After a few moments Daisy (9) picked it off me, still laughing.

The girls believe it was "just trying to say hello" but in hindsight, I think the Guinea Pig was giving me a warning - a bit like Chukky in the Child's Play horror film.

My card is marked

Until next time.

Bowood House

Hello again,

I had the pleasure of visiting Bowood House in Wiltshire last week. It is a really good example of an English country house, garden and park and well worth the time for a visit. We had the added pleasure of being escorted round the house by Lord Lansdowne who's wonderful enthusiasm really brought the history to life.

Like a lot of country houses, it has had a very chequered past with layers of history built by the family and, to top it off the parkland was designed and built in the 18th Century by Capability Brown and contains one of the best cascades in the country, designed by Hamilton.

Go see it

Until next time...

Look up and enjoy life

Hello again,

With busy lives, distractions and a world focused on doing it, doing it, doing it, it's easy to become jaded and not see the obvious beauty around you, beauty in many different forms.

Enjoy

Until next time...

Stuff it!

Hello again,

Knowing my peculiar penchant for unusual stuffed animals, we paid a visit to the Haunch of Venison gallery on Saturday, to look at Polly Morgan's first solo exhibition of taxidermy art, called Psychopomps.

This is taxidermy at another level; no sign of glass covered wildlife in "realistic" settings. Instead you see a flock of tiny finches flying up and taking with them their cage - stunning.

Luckily, at the same time, the gallery have a big, mixed media showcase of the Portuguese artist, Joana Vasconcelos. It is stunning: a darkened room with a maze of fibre optic flowers to follow, massive textile creations of embroidery, knitting and crochet, giant sized porcelain creatures wrapped in lace, a mechanical, factory style merry-go-round with porcelain dogs hanging by their collars and classical lifesize figures encapsulated in beautiful, black, skin tight lace.

Honestly, this exhibition is well worth going out of your way for, the images simply don't do it justice. Great, thought provoking work work in a fabulous setting. Don't muck about, just get down there and see for yourself - now, go on...

Haunch of Venison is at 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3ET.

Until next time...

Parkour

Hello there,

It's been a while since I blogged, am now getting back into it and will be reliable from now on.

We were in London yesterday, on the South Bank, just mooching around, seeing what was going on, looking at a couple of exhibitions, having something to eat and watching the world go by.

Amongst the skateboarders, street painters and bmx riders were the free runners. Free running is another name for Parkour [taken from the French, parcour or obstacle course] and is the art of running gracefully whilst using gymnastic prowess to navigate ones way over, across or around everything in the way including bridges, walls and buildings.

I was particularly taken with the Parkour[ers], they are great to watch, get down there and see for yourself.

Aside to that, I was also quite pleased with this photo, which was taken with an Iphone no less because I didn't have my Nikon with me.

Until next time...

Communal art

Hello again

There is something afoot in Richmond Park; neatly stacked sticks and branches forming dens, camps or even dinosaur skeletons (see image).

On a trip there last week with my daughters, we happened upon a number of these man-made, low tech structures. I don't know who has built them or why (maybe someone can enlighten me) but they are great.

I like to think that they are built by everyone who ambles by. That each visitor adds a stick or two and that they evolve from nothing, with no design, no instruction, no title or label, no purpose, no point, no ownership and no explanation. Just in case that is how they evolved, I added a couple of sticks of my own - now I belong??

Until next time...

Just plane crazy

Hello again,

The world without aeroplanes is a different place. Since the unpronounceable volcano erupted and spewed its cloud of dust into the sky its as if we have been transported back to the 1940s, a world without significant air transport.

It seem strange that a cloud of dust can bring all air transport to a halt – indefinitely. If I were a conspiracy monger then I might be tempted to think that there is something else to this - a cloud, bringing an entire industry to a standstill, it just doesn’t make sense. Surely a cloud of dust must behave fairly predictably and that it can be tracked and defined by governments, agencies and the met office. If so, why on earth don’t they just fly around it?

I understand a 747 flew into a dust cloud in 1982 and lost all four engines for fifteen minutes by which time it had glided down from 36,000 feet to 12,000 feet. The pilot managed to restart three of the engines and land “blind” because the dust had abraded the windscreen and made it opaque. So we know that there is a danger but is the response [of completely shutting the UK airspace] proportionate.

There are now so many people trapped in countries around the world with long waits for flights back into the UK that we are beginning to see all sorts of problems beginning to occur; families with children who should be in school, people on medication who are running out of tablets and, if the latest dust cloud makes matters worse, what about the UK nationals who are stuck abroad and cannot vote in the forthcoming elections.

On a different tack, my office is beside the flight path for Heathrow airport and until last week a plane flew overhead every minute or so containing cargos of people, products and produce; a constant supply of exotic, out of season fruit and vegetables to which we have become accustomed. Maybe this break will just make people think about the food miles that there dining incurs; tomatoes from Saudi Arabia, asparagus from Peru and Sugar Snap Peas from Guatemala.

From an environmental point of view, the issue isn't wholly the transport of food; for example, apples are harvested in the UK in Sept and Oct. A percentage are sold immediately and the rest are put into a cold store to preserve them. They are gradually brought out of cold storage to be sold and for the most of the following year, until late spring/early summer, represent good value in terms of carbon footprint. However, by the summer the apples will have been in storage for 10 months and the amount of energy used to refridgerate them for that period is greater than the carbon cost of transporting them from New Zealand. So strictly speaking, if you are buying apples in August and September then buy New Zealand apples.

What I am saying is that, like most things, it isn't a pure science and that the real lesson is to eat seasonal produce. Learn to enjoy the seasons and the food that is associated with them. Look forward to the brief window where asparagus is available in the UK; simmered gently and served with hollandaise and a soft boiled egg. When the asparagus is finished, enjoy the broad beans; cooked in oil with Chorizo. When the beans are finished, revel in the new potatoes; served simply with butter and mint and for a flourish add lardons or anchovies.

You get the point, focus on seasonal food, look forward to it and then allow yourself to enjoy it with real gusto. Why? because there is not guilt attached to eating healthy, local product that is in season.

For now though, whilst it lasts and the planes aren't flying, enjoy the peace and quiet, listen to the birdsong and enjoy the fact that there isn't a constant whiff of Kerosene in the air.

Until next time...