London Time.

Looking at the calendar its been quite a while since I’ve posted. In the last few weeks nothing much has gone on. After sitting tight waiting for the partnership visa, we have seemed to maintain that lifestyle for the moment, resting on weekends and just taking things as they come. A few more recipies tried out, same old at work, and not much photography having been put off by the disappointing pictures that came back from my last effort. Saving my legs and have been reading about B&W photography in prep for my darkroom course coming up next month.

With daily life engulfing us over the last few weeks, the wait is over and its finally time for a break. Back to London for 4 days, to take another look around. Hopefully it won’t be a heatwave this time round. Got a bit of sights, shopping, eating, and catching up planned, and try to stay out of the way of the pigeon-eating pelicans living in St James Park.

Have scoped out a few things to put on the make-it-there-if-we-can list.

1. Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. You can see most of the photos on the site. Simply amazing, especially when you consider that most animals don’t sit and wait for their photo to be taken. A cool view at the world around us away from the cities we live in.

2. The Unilever Series – Carsten Höller (aka Giant Slides). This is technically an art exhibition, a collection of massive slides, kind of like a hydroslide without the water. Its all an experiment to question human behaviour, perception and logic, offering the possibility for self-exploration in the process.

As the summary says “What interests Höller, however, is both the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the ‘inner spectacle’ experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that you enter as you descend. How might a daily dose of sliding affect the way we perceive the world? Can slides become part of our experiential and architectural life?”

One of the earlier exhibitions was Upside-Down Goggles. Would be extremely freaky to wear those, seeing yourself walking along the roof of a room. All these exhibitions seem like an interesting tangible way to challenge what we call daily life and ideas of acceptance. I’m all for it, who wouldn’t want a giant slide in their house to start the day!

One Year Already?

A year ago, we were on a plane somewhere over the ocean just off the coast of Canada, heading towards London. We arrived at 4am, navigating through the sleepy airport, catching the first trains of the day through to wait again for the next one. After an hour or two waiting in Kings Cross, we got onto our train towards Liverpool for our first bed at my relatives place. I remember sitting on the train in our first class seat (as there were no others when we booked) in a blissful daze of pure tiredness, gazing down at a warm included breakfast on a table. So, so nice to not have to stare at a seat in front, able gaze at something out the window besides clouds, and enjoy enough room to stretch out for 3 hours.

Its been a quick year it seems, but then they always do. So far we’ve had a few cool trips around the place, and now with Amber’s new shiny visa glued in her passport we can plan a few more. Not that Edinburgh is boring, but when you live somewhere you will appreciate it more if you leave for a bit and come back to compare it to something.

Heading to London in 2 weeks today. Can’t wait. I miss the place.

Another Weekend…

Well, its the weekend again and it seems they are still passing too quickly. Definitely wish they were a good three days long to get a decent rest and do everything that I want too. The last month of so has been like a mini-hibernation, just hanging out in Edinburgh and exploring my favourite places, and a few new ones each weekend. Yesterday I managed to finish off my (camera) film which I started a while ago and its in the shop getting developed

We are currently applying for a visa for Amber to stay past the working holiday durations, so immigration currently have both our passports, and every bit of partnership proof we could send them. Should hear something back by the end of the month, but we really have no plans until then. Just waiting with fingers crossed.

The rest of my weeks are currently spent actually planning ahead for other weeks. I know i should be out there doing stuff, but its also nice to plan things to look forward too. Got a 4 day trip coming up heading down to London once again, to see people I missed on the other occassions and just hang out in the crowds. People watching mecca! Have booked into a darkroom course as well, starting in November for 3 Tuesday nights. I realise that many say film photography is declining with all the techie digital cameras out there, but that appeal of locked in a little red-tainted room, playing with chemicals and magically creating images on paper before me is tempting. Once I’ve completed this then I’ll be allowed to use the darkrooms whenever I want. Perfect for those cold winter days when I can’t play outside

Up and Away…

I’ve recently been reading about the progess of Virgin Galactic, the world’s first space tourism agency who are now taking booking and starting up in a few years. I think it would be the ultimate mindblowing experience travelling up to the borders of space looking back down on our blue planet. Simply by gazing out of a window you can see entire countries, oceans, mountain ranges, decorated by the swirling cloudy atmosphere, and beyond into the twinkling darkness of space.

… while doing backflips in zero gravity of course.

My question is, given the chance of a free trip (e.g. not paying the $US200,000), would you take the trip up to the edge of space? I definitely would.

New Foods

I’ve added some more recipies of what we have been cooking lately. Nothing too fancy, just some delicious side dishes

Recycling Questions

This is the reponse I got from my queries into workplace recycling last week. I’m still awaiting a further response. It seems like quite a limited concern. I fail to see why this can’t be quickly rolled out into each department. Recycling has been around for years and years, why is the bank just catching on now??

 ”I appreciate your comments and we have put in place some segregated kithcen bins in place in some offices. If you can let me know where you are based I can see where you are in the roll out program and pass the details of the local arrangements on.

The plastic cups should be segregated by the cleaners and sent for recycling, there are a few areas where sadly exisiting local contracts don’t allow this. However once I know where you are based I can chase up the local cleaning contractors as they should be segregating them.”

(This is referring to the fact that plastic coffee cups are separated, then just re-added into the general waste). Will keep pushing this request with them to take some sort of responsibility.

Ultra Sonic dance track

There is a condition called presbycusis (ageing ear) which all of us have, which means by the time we are 25 we cannot hear above a frequency of about 13 kilohertz. This knowledge is already used in a device called a mosquito designed to annoy teenagers outside of malls, as older shoppers can’t hear the noise. But a better use has come around – making a (cheesy) dance track which has a different sound for the younger crowd. Pretty cool though.

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