If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be…

27 December 201227 December 2012 | Richard

So after spending a great few days on Corralejo chilling out in my hotel and spending the evenings drinking and listening to live acoustic rock music with friends in the Rock Island Bar, it was back to normality with work for a couple of days before I headed up to Cleethorpes on the Sunday.

The plan had been to head up to Cleethorpes to drop off some old Court papers and some crap the ex-girlfriend had sent me with her parents but the ex found out about my plans – she reads my Tweets and this blog to stalk keep up to date with what I’m doing – and threatened to stop them from seeing the one remaining daughter she hasn’t thrown out if they saw me. Nice, eh? Mind you, as it turned out, that was just as well because an accident on the A17 delayed my getting there until later and I had plans to meet up with some old friends for a lovely meal out in town as their treat. Great to catch up with them and to have a load of laughs about Stuff.

Monday saw an impromptu diversion to Covent Garden on my way home for more Christmas Shopping for GT and my daughter (some killer heels for GT that were a leeetle more expensive than I thought but hey, she’s worth it) and then home.

The Tuesday night found GT and I going to KOKO Camden to watch Fear Factory‘s gig. Sadly this was disappointing. They mentioned they were 7 weeks into their tour and it had clearly taken its toll on the lead singer’s vocal chords as he was unable to sing in tune or make much noise for higher notes.

Wednesday and it was another gig: this time it was the Prodigy at the O2 Brixton Academy. We hadn’t realised when we booked the tickets that this was a late show, with the Prodigy not coming on until after midnight and finishing at 1.30am! On a school night! Oops! So GT and I had a meal and a mooch around and then went in to watch the support artists around 11.30pm and then waited for the Prodigy to come on and do a blinding set. They can still definitely do their thing.

We left shortly after and I got home around 3.00am which was just as well as a taxi was booked to collect me at 6.45am to take me to St. Pancras International for a trip over to Paris to see a Client. Back that evening, arriving around 8.45pm which was just as well as I needed to be nearby at our works Christmas do at a Comedy Club. Lots of laughs – why do I always get picked on by the headliners? Same as the Burlesque Shows – and they’d saved me my dinner which was nice. Â We got thrown out around 1.30am and we grabbed some taxis to get us home.

Friday and it was time for dinner in Epsom with GT and some friends and to see Indian Elvis in action!

The food at the Cinnamon Spice is really excellent and we enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine with a great meal before heading home.

More shopping over the weekend and a lovely lunch out in Kingston at Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant. Recommended.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day saw drinks with friends at their pub and a lovely meal cooked by GT – part carnivorous for me and part vegetarian (and delicious) – with some of the contents of the Fortnum & Mason hamper I’d been given.

Boxing Day and I was off to Norfolk to see my kids and to watch Norwich City (mainly in the rain and doing OK against a strong Chelsea team).

Today was mainly spent driving: back from Norfolk via Diss to buy Amy a replacement Ka after hers got written off; then on to my Mum’s for lunch and presents; then to Egham to get Amy home and off to work.

Phew!

Hola Fuerteventura!

8 December 20128 December 2012 | Richard

So here I am in Fuerteventura yet again: it feels like coming home these days.

It all started this time two years ago when I came out here alone having split from someone I cared deeply about but who still felt the need to cheat on me for months and then swear on her daughters’ lives that nothing was going on. We were due to spend a week out here in a lovely villa so I went anyway despite her efforts to cancel the booking out of spite (despite us talking when I was at the airport and me saying she could come out to talk).

And I met a number of really good, genuine people who remain firm friends to this day.

I’ve since been back here on my own again – this time at the fab Gran Hotel Atlantis Bahia Real – and I’ve brought my kids out here another time as well as GT on one visit.

The place and the people are so chilled it’s good for the soul to kick back, breathe a deep sigh and relax.

Maybe I should buy a place out here? The received wisdom is that this place gets to you so you need to leave from time to time or go mad. I can see that. But in the meantime, I’m going to eat well, sleep well and drink well with my kind of people.

Cheers!

Two Weekends in One

2 December 2012 | Richard

Phew!

So Friday night saw me shaving my beard off to comply with the Movember rules before I trimmed my ‘tache down to a Hitler version, posting the photos on Facebook and then shaving it all back to skin. Chilly face time and I’m hoping it all grows back ASAP.

Then off to GT’s for a drink at the Marquis of Granby, then a meal at Pizza Express with a bottle of decent red wine and then on to watch “End of Watch” which I enjoyed, thanks.

Saturday saw a nice lay-in before heading off to watch GT take part in the Nonsuch 6.2km Cross Country event before a late lunch and some shopping and then off back into Epsom to meet friends for a couple of bottles of red – Crozes Hermitage – before heading home (and grabbing some noodles at Waterloo on the way).

Sunday saw me heading up to Norwich for the Sunderland match. Another great result following our now famous pre-match Nando’s 🙂

Now back in London washing shirts for a long week: London, Paris, London then Fuerteventura and theÂ best hotel on the island!

Motorcycle Live 2012

28 November 2012 | Richard

We came, we saw, we snapped away:

Bikes, Bands and Babes

28 November 2012 | Richard

Well, I couldn’t think of a better ‘b’ word for women without getting more insulting; ‘birds’? ‘Bints’? ‘Bitches’? Etc. Â Anyway, last weekend I had the weekend free to myself so at the last minute I arranged with a friend, Yox, to head up to the NEC at Birmingham for the Motorcycle Live show. Yox said he’d arrange the show tickets and I arranged a couple of First Class rail tickets up there. He then stayed over at Chez Bleu on the Friday night after some pubbage and two massive XXL pizzas (which may have caused some ‘issues’ with air quality:

We couldn’t face breakfast early on Saturday morning so headed straight to Euston and then on to the NEC where we spent most of the day checking out the bikes, buying boots and bags and snapping away at one or two models – see my earlier update on my Blue Rex blog.

Then back to London, parting company at London Bridge.

I went back to Chez Bleu and packed my full camera kit and headed back to London Bridge to pick up some bits and bobs from the office, including another new ring flash adaptor, this one being for my Speedlites. I then picked up a friend, Alex, and off we went to do a bit of an impromptu shoot – again the results are on an earlier update.

A great laugh with us pratting about, but I got a few decent shots before we headed over toÂ BrigadeÂ for dinner and fizzy pop for the second time in a week for me!

Sunday then saw me having a nice lay-in before heading over to Covent Garden to meet Amy for a late lunch at Wagamama and shopping. Still no sign of my iPad mini from the online store yet and none in stock at the Apple Store there, sadly. A long day’s shopping before heading home.

Monday evening was a rush: dashed back from the office to change and head back out to the O2 for the Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie “Twins of Evil Tour” gig and a meal with GT. Great entertainment all round!

This week has brought some hectic juggling of my diary: Westminster and Birmingham this week and Westminster and Paris next week before I head off to Fuerteventura again for some well-earned R&R.

The Trouble With Families…

20 November 2012 | Richard

… is that you miss them when they’re gone, so you have to make the most of them while you can.

When I first separated four years ago, my daughter didn’t speak to me for over a year. It was awful. I’m really glad to say that we made up and are really good again – I met up with her for lunch yesterday at the excellent Brigade on Tooley Street, for instance, and she knows she can talk to me about anything. My son and I see each other regularly and get on really well too.

I love them to bits and can’t imagine what it would be like to be without them. So nothing will come between us.

Which is why I feel so sorry for families torn apart for sometimes bizarre reasons, perhaps with their children thrown out onto the streets, especially (in some cases) when they were the subject of custody battles, or where a child is abducted by a parent living abroad, for instance.

One moment your life can be happy and content with your family around you and everything you could ever want and the next it’s all collapsed around your ears with bitterness and emptiness because of a serious lack of judgment or changed circumstances or maybe blinded by false promises or the grass being greener. What a nightmare!

So I’m happy to count my blessings and know I can talk to my family whenever I want from wherever I happen to be. And that’s A Good Thing.

The Thing About Weekends…

18 November 201218 November 2012 | Richard

… is that they’re always over too quickly.

Having come back from Venice, we were out a couple of nights later for the Fields of the Nephilim gig at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Great gig it was too plus we had Vietnamese food beforehand at the nearby Westfield shopping centre. And then the weekend.

As it was GT’s birthday a few days afterwards, I popped out to the Apple Store whilst I was up in Norwich seeing Norwich City beat Stoke and bought her a MacBook Pro to replace her ageing laptop, which I set up for her the following weekend … when we weren’t spending Sunday messing around the countryside paintballing!

Epic weekend. Especially singling out the Competitive Dads – what is with Surrey? – for slaughter!

Meanwhile at BlueCo, I was up to Glasgow training a Client which I decided to do with my replacement iPad. That still leaves me with my old iPad at home which Jack suggested I give him. And GT didn’t help by asking why I needed two and pointing out that I could always buy myself another one later.

Another gig the day after – Seether at the Electric Ballroom up at Camden – which was quite different from the Neph one due to the demographic of the audience, shall we say…

Jack led me astray after a great weekend this weekend – Manchester United getting beaten by City! – and gradually wore me down into saying yes he probably could have my old iPad and yes I probably should order myself an iPad mini. So I did. Two weeks’ delivery but somehow that translates in Cupertino to delivery on 10 December. After I go to Fuerteventura, when I was hoping to use it on the flights. Ho hum.

Bit of a weird time at the moment. A colleague and friend at work died the week before last with a heart attack. I’d guess he was early to mid-50s? Scary stuff, especially as he was into mountain-biking and wasn’t unhealthy. And last week an old and dear friend died from MND.

Makes you re-evaluate your life and think about those who mean the most to you.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

2 November 20123 November 2012 | Richard

Well it took long enough – nine months, in fact – for the lawyers to sort out our agreed settlement and the paperwork, but I’m now finally divorced, as of 17 October 2012 (a little over 22 years after being married). Young, free and single again! Well, maybe not that young…

And the best thing is that my ex-wife and I remain good friends.

So to celebrate, GT and I went off to Venice for the weekend.

OK, it wasnt the only reason we headed off: GT was taking part in the Venice Marathon, which is why I’d booked the Hotel Bucintoro as it was the nearest luxury hotel to the finish line!

And we weren’t disappointed with our suite there, including our own private rooftop balcony overlooking the lagoon:

Venice Panorama — Panoramic View from our Rooftop Balcony

We celebrated with a bottle of champagne chilled and ready for our arrival:

We had a quick explore and found a superb restaurant near the hotel: La Nuova Perla. So good, we went back there on the Sunday night too!

On Saturday, we headed off to sign on at the Expo on the mainland at San Giuliano Park. It had started raining the night before and we realised that morning that the water levels were rising and beginning to flood Venice, so after signing on, we bought wellies to keep us dry as we went off to do the touristy bit, including enjoying hideously expensive club sandwiches and drinks in a lovely cafÃ© in the Piazza San Marco and then dinner in a quaint restaurant down the alleys that weave through Venice.

Sunday morning dawned very cold, wet and very windy: not good conditions for anything, let alone 26.2 miles running (including a 3 mile bridge to really test the mind and body). Our water taxi arrived at 6.15am to take us to one of the collection points where the runners boarded buses to take them to the start point on the mainland. I then walked back to the Piazza Le Roma to get on one of the boats that was running – the high tides were closing many stops – and head back to the hotel for breakfast and to watch the marathon.

Despite the conditions, GT was only 45 seconds slower than her London Marathon time! I grabbed her at the finish line and walked her back to our suite and a hot, deep bath. We then ordered up some lunch before heading out later that evening for more pasta and wine.

Monday was a beautiful day, crisp and bright, so we made the most of it with a gondola ride before lunch and another water taxi back to the airport and home.