Falling Out of Orbit

When we were in London last week up the Orbit one of the speakers was the Minister For Civil Society Brooks Newmark. He seemed a not particularly good speaker and perhaps a little distracted. A couple of days later the latest Tory sex scandal broke and all was revealed http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brooks-newmark-resignation-sunday-mirror-says-sting-was-in-the-public-interest-9761144.html There you go.
There were some huge mirrors at the top of the Orbit allowing for some strange effects which I love. This shot contains Danielle twice and me once.

Glenthorne

Danielle and I went to the Quaker guest house in the Lakes, Glenthorne, for the weekend. We have not been for a couple of years; it is always good to return. We met some very interesting people and some good chats ranging from Liverpool politics, to old stations that you can stay in, to photography, which ended up with my doing a slide show of my work to everyone.
Saturday we walked up onto the fells and Blea Rigg. For the whole walk up and along it was a thick mist which added a mystery to the experience that I liked a lot. At the top the clouds suddenly cleared in that typically Lakes way revealing the Langdale Pikes ahead clear as a bell, only to re-cloak everything in gloom. We made our way down and it cleared for good.

Picture #4

Back in the day, 1987 to be precise, a Finnish girl Toula house sat for me in Tottenham one summer whilst I was walking in Greece. She did a good job, and left me this painting as a gift upon my return. I really like it and still have hanging in our bedroom.

Into Orbit

Danielle was invited into a Bromley by Bow Centre / JP Morgan event at the top of the Mitel Orbit in the Olympic Park in London. I went along as the eye-candy again. Obviously. It was a great event and an unbelievable venue. The views [photos to follow] were spectacular and London looked amazing in the dark.

How Is She Doing Part 2

The cross country running is going well for Rowan too. The mud and cold and miserability of cross country in the UK winter is replaced with sun and heat exhaustion. I think Rowan prefers the latter. 

How Is She Doing?

The first question most people ask us at the moment is "How is Rowan getting on?"
So here is one answer - pretty good I think. I reckon that holding jelly fish slime and smiling  hits all the right buttons.

Picture #3

We saw this work at the Quaker Gallery in London, when we were living there. I contacted the artist and collected it from her at Platform 1 on Waterloo Station, which gave the whole purchase a nicely personal and conspiratorial feel.

I have no idea what the work means but I like it a lot. As before the texture is what goes missing when putting it on a computer screen.

Meantime in the US we got this report from the cross-country race meet last weekend that Rowan ran.

George School hosted the 62nd annual George School Cross Country Invitational with 31 schools represented and a record number of athletes (over 600 finishers). The varsity girls were up next, and were ready to run! With the squad’s top runner, Jerrica Bauer ’15, unable to compete, the rest of the crew knew they needed to ramp it up a bit, and they did. All eight varsity girls set new PR’s including Zoe Valdepenas-Mellor’s stunning debut time of 21:46! That time ranks her in a tie for 25th place on the all-time GS performance list, and she is only a freshman. New junior Rowan Palmour also continued to show her versatility with the top GS time of the day 21:07, and placing 35th overall. Rowan’s time puts her 9th all-time at GS. In between Zoe and Rowan was Ava Avila-Fitting in 40th place overall, with a new PR of 21:35 (18th all-time). In the fourth spot was senior Lily Falk, who ran a strong 22:48. Rounding out the top five scorers was “super-soph” Sydney Procos who impressed the crowd with a graceful kick that had her narrowly missing the sub 23:00 milestone. 

Climate Change March

Rowan was in New York City on Monday for the Climate Change March. Over 300,000 people. She really enjoyed it, and I hope it inspires her and others.
I think my first march was a Rock Against Racism one in London with The Clash and Tom Robinson and Aswad; coach down from Liverpool then marching to Victoria Park in Hackney, or was it Brockwell Park in Brixton?

Psych Out

Rowan is running for the school cross country first team [known as the varsity team for some reason in the states]. And the team have something called a psych where they all dress up [as Ke$ha for some reason in this case] and bond. Rowan was happy with her run in the cross country event. All going well so far.

Painting #2

Ros Walker is the mother of an ex-classmate of Rowans. We always liked her art, which she showed at a number of exhibitions. Eventually we bought this one of a bonfire. Hard to get an idea of the texture of it on the computer screen.

Painting #1

Here is what my friend Achille made of the house in Tottenham

He only visited a couple of times, then presented me with this painting totally out of the blue. It was a real surprise and I was very touched. It must be ten years of more since he died. I miss him.

Silk Worm

I have been listening to The Silk Worm, the second JK Rowling detective novel. It is far far better than the first one, and a real good listen. Rowan and Danielle have both read it already so I am catching up.
I have various work possibilities on the go at the moment - hopefully one will come off, but not all of them.

The photo is of my old house in Tottenham, a much loved first house. I was there from 1986 to 1995 when Danielle and I bought our house in Wood Green.

Percy

I try and watch Jools Holland when I can, and sometimes the show is brilliant [sometimes not so great]. Last night there was a great new band called Jungle on, and the O'Jays brought a tear to my eye with a rendition of People Get Ready; an uplifting show.

This is the cottage [no water, no electric, no gas] where friend Percy lived in Worcestershire near Bromyard. Originally from Longridge [near Preston] he lived on his own, self sufficiently and always gave a good welcome to the many people who walked across the fields [no road] to see Percy and his Old English Sheepdog. One day he was being given a lift into Bromyard [about a four mile journey] by a local and was killed in a car-crash. Sad and ironic, he tried to turn his back on modern life, but still got killed by it.

There is such a thing ...

I stopped at Starbucks for my tea at about 7pm, en route to Rachel where I am staying in Wrexham, and was worried it would be shut, or out of stock. So I was anxious when I saw all the chairs on the tables and that it shut in 30 minutes. But it was OK and I ordered "a tuna panini, orange juice, and a decaf black americano please"

Barista "What size coffee?"

Me "Small"

Barista "You might as well have large, the till is broken and I can't charge you anyway."

Me "Right. Thanks. Can I have a bit of cake too then?"

Barista "Sure, what do you want?"

So there is such a thing as a free lunch sometimes.

Danielle is an enthusiastic supporter of the new wave of women's cycling clothing manufacturers. This is her latest ebay ensemble. Trendy, reflective - what more could you want?

Etape Cymru

The Etape Cymru http://humanrace.co.uk/events/cycling/etape-cymru was a great ride. 140km through beautiful but gruelling country including the Horseshoe Pass. The weather was perfect, dry not too hot, the organisation on closed roads was spot-on, and we even got cheered on by local folk. My time was under 6 hours which was way better than I expected. I had stayed at friend Rachel's in Wrexham then met up with Dave at the start early Sunday morning.

Meantime Rowan was running in Philladelphia for the school at a big event with a fearsome hill, she came 17th and got this enormous trophy so is very happy.

It's A Fiasco

When we were in Tuscany Rowan and Danielle went on a Tuscan cooking course. One of the things they learnt was how to cook black beans in a Fiasco [bottle this shaped, used to be thrown at bad performances of the Opera - hence the word it was a fiasco to describe a bad performance]. Anyway it worked and went well with the salmon and broccoli. Here is the Fiasco bubbling away.

 

Training

I went on my last training ride ahead of the Etape Cymru sportive that Dave and I are doing on Sunday in North Wales. I decided to ride into the wind to my favorite Wolds cafe - Seaways. High on the Wolds at Fridaythorpe, it is frequented mainly by bikers, and is perfect as far as I am concerned. Simple food, cheap and friendly. Today I ordered beans on brown toast, extra large mug of tea, and the piece de resistance, the homemade blackcurrant pie.

Me "The thought of this pie gets me up the hill"

Quite old lady cafe assistant "You know what gets me up the hill?"

Me [very worried that some lewd innuendo

is on the way] "What?"

QOLCA "Me car"

​The wind blew me home, powered by that pie.​

I took the photo at York Station where there is a lot of new track work going on. Have a look at it. Three lines all nicely connected to each other. Going nowhere - buffers at both ends, isolated from any other track. And why is that great girder just lying on the track? Mysteries make life interesting.

Maslow 2.0

I am not a great one, not one at all really, for "humorous" on line stuff. But. This redrawing of Maslow's hierarchy of need [which has been an ever present in my work for 20 odd years] made me smile. And it is probably true.

In the Paper

Rowan sent us this link to the local paper which reported on her run in the cross country race last weekend. http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/sports/high-school/pa/cross-country-notebook-george-school-s-bauer-beats-the-heat/article_80cf30f9-4e10-54b9-9f2c-aeb325f52f0e.html I love the way that the heat-collapse of some of the runners is reported so matter of factly. Over here it would be the lead on the story.

Pond Life

I am not getting into wildlife photography or anything - worry not. But the light on the water caught my eye as I walked round the old brick pond nearest to us. Known as the Railway Pond [it is near where old sidings used to be.] it has been renovated recently with a bid to oxygenate by cutting back the undergrowth and aerating the water. These Mallard seemed happy enough on it.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Danielle was rowing in an event on the Ouse. Here she is in her coxed four. They won their first race! Closely loosing in the semi final.
I had been on a bike ride before watching her; a beautiful day, rode up White Horse Bank onto the North York Moors then back by Castle Howard.
We both went [with the dog unfortunately] to a BBQ at the rowing club, then in the evening we had a video call with Rowan; it was lovely to see her, and she seems to be happy and enjoying it as this tweet indicates

NRM Music Festival

The National Railway Museum has seen many many visits over the years from us all, but particularly Rowan and I; when she was a toddler the staff all knew her.
This weekend the museum hosted a music festival put on for local bands. Danielle and I walked over and enjoyed a few bands in the most pleasant of environments. You could get refreshments from the restaurant, look around at the magnificent exhibits and see and hear the band [that's them at the back of the photo]
Good stuff.

Blog Anniversary

This Blog is 10 years old next month. October 4th 2004 is The Palmours birthday.
So as a virtual celebration why not email me your blog-thoughts. This can be words, music or whatever. I'll then post something on the day.
Meantime here is a picture from the Charity Awards earlier this year. Considering I was only there as Danielle's +1 [eye candy obviously] I seem to have assumed a very central position.

Espresso

It was our 18th Wedding Anniversary on Monday. Danielle was in the States still so we had a celebration on the Tuesday when she returned. We needed a bigger coffee maker to supplement the Nespresso, and Rowan and I had seen this red espresso machine and knew Danielle would like it. She did and the mysterious technology of the alloy wonder did the rest.

Book Group

Another shot from the ride through beautiful Kent.
Rowan has told us that she ran for the school in a cross-country match and it went pretty well. The local kids were keen to hear her funny accent.
At book group last night we discussed The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud which was got a thumbs about level from most people although a couple liked it more.

The Weald

Sunday morning after the party I cycled from Forest Row to Tonbridge Wells on the old railway line through the Weald of Kent. It was a beautiful ride through the woods that inspired the Winnie The Pooh books. But it all feels a bit unreal - it is such a regulated, wealthy area, not a living countryside at all. At Tonbridge Wells I got the train to Charing Cross then cycled up to Kings Cross and Home.

Double Whammy

After the emotional events of last week [Rowan going away] this week my sister has taken my Mother to a respite home whilst she and husband Peter go walking along Hadrian's Wall for 10 days. Mother seems to be settling in as well as Rowan, so that is a relief all round.

At the hotel we stayed in at Forest Row there was this strange sign in the toilets. We googled it and all was revealed; not really self-explanatory though.

Update

Danielle has been sending me back photos from the states. This is of Rowan and her new room-mate at George School. All seems to be going OK so far.