A very special day off

A couple of weeks ago, Bex asked me to take the day off as she had something special planned. So on Friday, we headed into London in the morning for the first part of our exciting day, a professional photo shoot.

Bex had received two free vouchers through a friend's recommendation for us to get our make-up done, hair styled and professional photos taken. We spent about four hours at the studios being shuffled from one person to the next, changing outfits, drinking Bucks Fizz (orange juice and champagne) and overall feeling really special.

The end results were some really fantastic photos which we would have loved to come away with, but extraordinary prices prevented us from doing so. We did manage to leave with our contact sheets and two images after loads and loads of negotiating - a memory of our special morning together and in a few years time, a memory of our much younger better looking years.

The images below have been scanned from a very small original size, hence the low quality, but gives you an idea of some of the fun shots we did

Once we finished at the studios, we ran over to meet Alex, Bex's mom, who treated us to a lovely lunch at a restaurant on Piccadilly. Alex managed to get us tickets that morning to the sold out Terracotta Army exhibition at the British Museum, so we had to eat quickly to make our 4 o'clock entrance time.

For those of you who don't know much about the Terracotta Army, watch the video on the British Museum's website here for an introduction. In brief, the First Emperor of China had an entire army of over 8,100 figures in the shape of men, horses and other animals created out of terracotta to provide him with protection once he died. Buried in 210-209 BC in the land surrounding his tomb, the figures were only discovered in 1974 by a local farmer. The exhibit at the British Museum only shows a very small number of the figures but gives you a wonderful idea of what it consists of. It was really a unique exhibition and one we really enjoyed. Thanks again Alex for a wonderful experience!

After the exhibit we all met Rob and CW for some drinks at a wine bar nearby. Alex later went to meet Ian and we headed back to St Albans for a nice little Italian meal together before retiring to our respective dwellings.

All in all it was a really special day and a memory to last a lifetime. Thanks so much Bex for inviting me as your special guest! It was so great to have the time with you getting pampered and doing something completely different from anything I would normally do!

Sunday Morning Amble

As many of you might know/remember, we live in the corner of St Albans called St Michaels. This is one of the three old parishes of St Albans and sits out on the far western edge of St Albans. It has a very villagesque feel to it and is blessed by various historical attributes, such as Tudor houses, 400 year old pubs and the old Roman ruins abutting it.

As such, there is a Society for St Michael's and Kingsbury , a smaller division within St Michaels, which aims to preserve the historic fabric of the village, protect the interests of the residents and encourage a sense of community. Today was the Society’s Twelfth Day of Christmas walk. About twenty people, three dogs and two pheasants, see below, went ambling to the Old Gorhambury House ruins.

It was a beautiful winter’s morning, bright blue clear skies and only a touch of frost on the grass. It was quite a pedestrian pace, which was fine as it gave us the chance to meet some of our neighbours. We walked up past the current Gorhambury House to the ruins of the old house which was built in the 16^th century by Sir Francis Bacon’s father (see below). Bacon himself did live there for a time but was eventually left to disrepair when the newer Georgian house was built in the 1770’s.

The remains are quiet and sit at the top of a long sweeping hillside and on this peaceful Sunday morning it was magnificent to take in the sight.

Upon our return trip, one of our neighbours, Michael, convinced the Estate’s gamekeeper to divest two recently killed pheasants into his care. Guinness was rather curious about these extra members of our party, but left them well enough alone. It did however bring about some strange looks from the families out for a Sunday promenade.

We were treated to some light refreshments after the walk at one of the couple’s historic home. They are really into classic cars and own, maintain and race several. It was quite a treat to be able to see some of these spectacular machines, even if we understood almost nothing about the rather unique and complex mechanisms of 1920’s and 30’s sports cars.

All in all a very nice way to spend a wintry weekend morning.

For an aerial view of St Michael's click here

Happy Happy

Happy New Year to everyone!

We hope you all had an enjoyable celebration yesterday in whatever capacity you deemed most appropriate. We had a nice meal at home followed by a couple of drinks at the pub and then home to watch the fireworks over the Thames on the telly.

The display was rather intense; 11 minutes of sound and light fury around Big Ben and the London Eye as they let off an average of 10 fireworks every second for the duration! I can only imagine what it would have been like a couple of hundred meters away across the river!

Today is the last hurrah before the alarm shatters our peaceful reverie tomorrow morning for the trudge to work, boo! But it will be another good year with lots of adventures on the horizon, so stay tuned for rambles, scrambles and hopefully not too many brambles.

Thinking of you all wherever you are in this big wonderful world and wishing you all the best for a fantastic, successful and love filled year!