On the left is Mim’s second portrait be posted on the web site, this time of a friend’s child, and done with pastel pencil and acrylic on pastel paper.
(Our scanner is a bit rubbish, so the paper has come out looking much more crinkly than it is.)
On Wednesday, we went to see the new Star Wars with Andrew. Despite the fact that it’s been panned by a lot of people, we actually quite enjoyed it - perhaps our expectations had been lowered too much by the previous two.
On Friday Andy, Alan, Brendan and Ros, and a few other people from church (mostly our house group) had arranged to meet up for a drink at Victoria Park, so we went along to join them. Brendan brought a football to kick around, and about ten people turned up. We had a lovely evening hanging out together and stayed until after sunset.
Dave Skipper came to visit on Saturday morning, having recently got back from visiting his girlfriend in Finland. We spent a fair bit of time looking at his photos of the Finland trip, then headed out to the guitar shop street off Charing Cross Road. Dave was after a new amp, and I wanted to look at buying a guitar. It looks possible to get a reasonable beginner’s guitar for about £80, which is cheaper than I was expecting. For the moment, though, I’ll keep practising on the acoustic I’ve borrowed. In the evening we went and saw Millions.
After church on Sunday, a group of us headed over to Victoria Park to play touch rugby (stopping off at Brendan and Ros’s for a quick lunch). The rugby was enjoyable up until I turned my ankle, but thankfully there’s always someone medical around at our church (in this case Ros, who’s a physio).
We spent Monday at home: I had to work on my thesis corrections (while propping my injured ankle up), and Mim worked on her drawing.
It’s been ages since I posted any real news, so I’m aiming to catch up today with a bit of a pictorial review of the last few months. In late February we had a reasonable amount of snow, as this photo from our bedroom window shows.
By March, things had started to warm up a bit, and in the parks the flowers had started to come out. The photo on the left was taking just before we started skating through St James’ Park. On the Tube going home from that outing, I had the unpleasant experience of being assaulted by a drunken football fan while trying to get help after the guy assaulted someone else in the carriage. After a long wait, large numbers of police turned up and the station was closed while they found and arrested him.
Later in March, we went to visit our various relatives in Norfolk. On my side of the family, we saw my Nana and the Trenches (Mim’s sitting with my cousins, Caroline and Alasdair Trench). Mim’s parents came up to Norfolk too, so we saw them, Mim’s grandmother and two lots of Uncles and Aunts.
The weekend after that, we were off to Ipswich for Helen & Andrew’s wedding. I knew them from York, and several others from York were at the wedding so we had a good chance to catch up. Andrew being Scottish, there were a large number of kilts in evidence.
Recently we visited the Turner, Whistler and Monet exhibition at the Tate Britain, which was absolutely brilliant. We were very tempted by the canvas prints they offered, and apparently Andrew bought one. Along with Steve & Rhi, we also went to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition - it’s worth visiting the site to have a look at the winning photos.
Mim’s old housemates from York came down to London a few weeks ago, so she met up with all of them.
Mim worked for three months as a PA for a hedge fund, but didn’t enjoy it and has decided to pursue her art instead. At the moment she’s starting to build up a portfolio, concentrating on children’s portraits, and hopes to start selling drawings and paintings in the near future. She’s also been getting more involved in church, helping out with the mothers and toddlers group during the week. Over the next few weeks we’ll be putting her pictures up on the web site, and the first of those is the pencil drawing of me you can see below.
For the first May bank holiday, we met up with Steve and Rhi for a picnic in Regents Park. Despite threatening clouds the whole day, it was remarkably sunny and we had a lovely time chilling out.
The other significant bit of news is that on the 16th of May I had the viva for my DPhil, and passed with minor corrections. I now have a month to complete the corrections, but probably won’t finish them in time to graduate this year.
After the viva, I took Thursday and Friday last week off work and we went to visit Mim’s parents. We had a really relaxed time, barely leaving the house apart from a trip to Bath (which turned out to be a bit disappointing as it poured with rain).
This is the first piece of Mim’s art to be posted on the site. It’s from a photo of me as a child, and is drawn using pastel pencils.
Simon was one of my housemates in my second year at York, and he and his wife Becky are about to head off to the USA, so we had them round for dinner. Simon’s going to be studying theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, so we probably won’t see them again until next year at the earliest.
We also had Neil, who had been a housemate of Simon’s, and was a housemate of mine at Siward St in my third year at York. Neil’s wife and baby weren’t able to make it, but we did see a selection of appropriately cute baby photos.