Meeting up with Atle, Trude, Markus and Guro

Atle, Trude, Markus and Guro are in town, finishing off their holiday after spending a week at Butlins in Bognor Regis.

We had a very nice Italian meal with them near St Christopher's Place, at Ristorante Sirena. As you can see, Markus was on good form.

I quickly took this rather blurred photo in Oxford Street just before we all went our separate ways, with a lovely view of an office block demolition in the background!!

Mmmmmm....Nice!

Its Jazz club all week in Leadenhall Market! Louis Balfour would love it...Grrrreat!

Summer at last!

After weeks of cold weather and rain, summer finally arrived this weekend, allowing Siv and myself to get out into the garden and enjoy the weather, as well to take a ride on Saturday afternoon up to Fairlop Waters. All of our garden photos for this year are in the link below:

GARDEN 2008 PHOTOS

Cycle trip to Fairlop at EveryTrail

Somewhere over the rainbow...

...Is Ford's Sports and Social Club, and not the yellow brick road apparently!

Happy Birthday Ole Martin!

Its a little late, but a belated Happy Birthday to Ole Martin, seen here with his pet dog Bamse and wearing his Birthday presents from us!

Panasonic FZ18 tests

Doing a few tests on my new Panasonic FZ18 camera, testing out the wide angle, the macro and zoom at night. So far, results seem pretty good.

The great summer weather continues!

The power of the 18X zoom!! Cricket down at Ford's Sports and Social Club.

Birthday Meal

We had all the family over on Saturday to celebrate my birthday on Friday. June eventually made it after going up the M11 by mistake(!), but someone kindly guided here to our house from Loughton.

We all went to the Don Pietro Italian restaurant at Gants Hill, which everyone enjoyed, all of us getting there and back using our friends at Comfort Cars.

Back home, Russell went and picked up Millie, where she spent most of the evening in the garden trying to get some of us to play football with her (as you can see below she's very keen on it).

Birthday picture

Its my Birthday! This year's email picture to send round the bank for the announcement of cakes is based on the Film Hancock. A previous years' Hulk one is also below.

Trip to Madeira - Drive around Madeira

Jose took us on a tour of some Madeiran highlights. Again the low cloud sadly ruined the dramatic views at Pico do Arieiro. However, we stopped for a great lunch in Ribeira Brava, including fried limpits, winkles and I had the the Madeiran speciality Espetada.

All our holiday photos are Here:

MADEIRA 2008 PHOTOS

This Map probably works better in terrain or google earth mode!

The mists at Pico do Arieiro

Lunchtime at Ribeira Brava

Trip to Madeira - Jose, I'm only dancing....

...to paraphrase David Bowie. Anyway, over the few nights we were there, a good time was had by all, including me getting dragged up by a rather butch dancer on the Samba night, and Markus strutting his stuff to the music on 'Crazy Dance Show' night!

Trip to Madeira - Family dinner with Jose's family

In the evening we took a drive to a restaurant, which unfortunately was covered by cloud, so we missed the outstanding view! Anyway a great time was had by all, with the long skewered Espetada's going down very well. Thanks to everyone there for a great night!!

All of our holiday photos are available here:

MADEIRA PHOTOS

The map of the drive probably works better in Google terrain or Google Earth mode!

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Dinner at the restaurant, and some time at a bar afterwards:

Trip to Madeira - Trip to funchal and gondola journey

We drove to Funchal and took the gondola to the top of the mountain! Siv wasn't too keen on going up in the gondola, but once atthe top, the views and the landscape were worth the journey. We all had a light lunch at a restaurant at the top by the old Monte train station (from the pre-gondola days).

All of our holiday photos are available here:

MADEIRA 2008 PHOTOS

This map probably works best in Google Terrain or Google Earth mode!

The gondola trip up the mountain

Trip to Madeira - Arrival, the hotel and surroundings

We flew to Madeira, leaving Stansted on an early morning flight, arriving at Funchal Airport at around noon. We had quite a welcoming committee of all of Siv's family, and were soon in the minibus on our way the short distance to Santa Cruz and the Hotel Vila Gale.

Most of the afternoon was spent relaxing in the hotel pool, as well as having a relaxing dinner in the outdoors.

All of our holiday Photos are available here:

MADEIRA 2008 PHOTOS

The hotel and surroundings

Mucking around in the pool