Public Service Broadcasting at the Barrowlands.
Listening to comments from a design review on some of our work.
At the Davidson’s Mains war memorial.
My drawing of an afternoon in Stratford
is in a charity auction here
The charity is Article 25, an architectural charity delivering projects in developing countries around the world. There are another 99 art works for sale if you click here. One of the sketches for the drawing:
It features some of the local life of Stratford and an attractive tower called Stratosphere, design by architects StockWool for developer Telford Homes.
The rest of the month was talking about PRS and modular design, this time in Edinburgh. Katie’s talk on custom build seemed a bit more relevant.
Spending Saturday mornings on the touchline.
Helping the local Scouts to sketch.
and not plucking up the courage to chat to a familiar looking Geoffrey Palmer.
and meeting my new niece.
Edinburgh Festival month.
Fireworks
Sketch Club in London
and my mum taking Jessie Bowden’s funeral. Jessie was 101.
A week in Carrbridge
Covered outside space: essential for the Scottish summer.
A Scottish highland summer is exceptional food…
…a taste of horse riding for the kids…
…long country walks and bike rides…
…and admiring the exotic vehicles that tour through sleepy Scottish villages.
Collecting the Business Breakthrough of the Year award at the AJ 100 dinner.
Listening to provoking debate organised by the Architectural Workers in Cressingham Gardens, designed by Edward Hollamby.
On holiday. Meeting the uniquely engaging Monsieur Girod.
Standing where Cezanne stood, in Aix.
Sitting where the Romans (or at least their subjects) sat, in Orange.
Brewing our own beer, HTAle, at Stewart Brewing.
Recovering after the Hairy Haggis relay, with HTA.
Looking at art: Michael Sailstorfer at Jupiter Art Land.
Learning about the third Forth bridge, with the Beavers.
Taking the time to sketch Derby’s old Co-op.
Tom and Laura’s wedding (a bit I’d missed from before).
And using sketching as an excuse to avoid doing all the jobs in the garden.
People I’ve spent time listening to in the last month or so:
Joelle Mae David and others in Barking & Dagenham.
With HTA sketch club looking at one of Edinburgh’s successful incidental spaces.
After that, island hopping in the Hebrides in the spring sun.
The whole thing is great. The islands are beautiful, the weather is dramatic and the ferries that sail between them come in all shapes and sizes.
The smallest is on the five minute crossing to remote Jura.
The biggest on the sail to Arran.
Most of our time was spent on Islay, which is a much softer variety of the Hebridean harshness I’m familiar with from time on North Uist, and mixed with an astounding world class whisky industry.
It’s a short cycle between Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig. Time to look out for the wildlife. Buzzards, stags, golden eagles. And geese.
Islay came up with this and a few islands further north they invented Harris Tweed. A tiny number of people producing products that are renowned the world over. In beautiful surroundings.
It was a great place for Fraser to recover from his minor, but fairly dramatic, head injury.
25 miles out from Cannes, the first chance in the last five days to get my sketchbook out.
We’d started in London 875 miles away. Here’s the pub the night before the off.
It’s for charity, and there are speeches on the last night to remind us of this.
Here’s a link to the charity page, if you are able to donate: https://race-nation.com/sponsor/e/64891
On the flight home, I have to face up to getting back to real life.
In Derby for work, but holiday habits are hard to kick so I popped in to have a look at Ayrton Senna’s ’93 McLaren at Donnington Park, scene of it’s finest hour.
Before that Christmas holidays and birthday parties.
For three year old Ellan…
… and my 89 year old dad. He’s forgotten a lot but we all sang songs together.
Christmas Day: mum showing her grandchildren photos of the old days.
Grumpy in traditional post lunch pose…
…and talking planes with Fraser.
Back to work and ideas about the future of London.
Time to get on with winter training for my 1500km cycle down to Cannes in March. New year, new regime.
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