Posts in Category: Family
Meetings – 10 November 2015
If you want a meeting room with a view try the 6th floor of the Lighthouse, on Mitchell Lane in Glasgow.
Earlier in the day I listened to the continuing story of transformation in Dundee. 
Lunch with the family: there’s an agenda for that too.
My mum keeping us all on the right track.
My new house – 27 October 2015
In amongst the boxes, waiting for the removal men to turn up and take us out of Fettes Rise. “Will we take the windows?” asked Innes.
We have more stuff than I had imagined and, five days later, it’s largely unpacked and I have a new view from the sofa.
Here’s the place we left behind.
In a world of laptops and wifi most of the stuff is redundant, but we took it anyway. Unpacking the boxes helps make the new place feel like home. 
Sketching interesting people on the train.
The People I Know – 5 October 2015
Keith napping after lunch. He’s about to retire: all the leaving do’s have left him sleepy.
An interesting chat with the guys from DC Thomson, although not the guys who do the drawings. I do want to meet them.
A quick look at a tall, elegant office in London…
…and the clock tower of St Pancras, recently framed by the stepped new public space at Kings Cross.
The kids on the sofa. Watching someone else having a tablet shot seems to be almost as good as having a tablet shot.
The main thing that happens in pubs is you spend time talking to drunk people. Some of them are entertaining. This is Marc, on a fun night at The Pig & Butcher with Kev.
Harry Arora, first class Mortgage fixer at Barclays.
I’ll not be retiring anytime soon.
Going Places – 16 September 2015
A beautiful day in Dundee, listening to suited men discussing where the city is going, whilst watching people walking along the route to the new V&A. Kengo Kuma’s spectacular building, and the exhibits the V&A will bring, will transform this part of town. Other waterfront developments to follow.
It’s the sunniest city in Scotland, they tell me.
Chatting to Tara the train driver about what it’s like to drive the East Coast Main line trains up and down to London. From my middle aged perspective she seems barely old enough to drive the trolley, but was happy enough with 140mph trains. The old diesel 125s are like classic cars, the electric 225 more like a modern. You can’t go at 140mph because the signals are too close together.
It’s time for us to move on from Fettes Rise, designed by Morris & Steedman in the late 1960’s. By far the best place I’ve ever lived.
Going places in the generational sense. With my mum at her eightieth birthday in Glenfarg, a place she knows well from her childhood. I’m trying to work out the generational steps that got the family got from living in the station master’s house here, in 1890, to coming back for a visit in 2015.
Didn’t quite work it out.
Bonsoir Monsieur Nightfall – 13 August 2015
I like intimate festival venues, late at night.
This little band came together to support singer Helene’s songs about her time on the streets of London and Paris. Emotional in the broadest sense, beautifully delivered.
600 Years – 9 August 2015
Sitting In Advocate’s Close admiring Morgan McDonnell’s sensitive modern buildings on medieval steps. A design from a couple of years ago sitting comfortably on a route from 600 years ago.
Time passes. 
Ruari’s left school, Fraser’s about to start.
Sometimes, more than others, you feel that time is moving on.
Shelter Quiz in Hemma – 1 July 2015
We are raising money for Shelter, so had a pub quiz to raise some cash. Hemma gave us the venue for free, and we had generous donations for prizes. We raised £1300, about 10% of our target. The fundraising page is here, if you’d like to help. Many thanks to those who already have. 
Later, a holiday touring lochs in the Trossachs.
Windy Katrine on the Sir Walter Scott.
Rainy Lomond.
We did most of it by bike, which is very tiring if you are three.
The rest by bulky Ford.
Golden Lane – 24 May 2015
Chamberlin Powell & Bon designed the Golden Lane Estate in London before they designed it’s larger and more famous neighbour, the Barbican. They’re both outstanding, but I prefer Golden Lane.
We went for a visit with HTA’s London Sketch Club and the London Society. The ‘kids’ weren’t that impressed, which certainly ups the ante next time I’m reviewing their work.
It’s a bit windy and not that warm but this could well be summer, so the real kids and I played outside whilst Julie did some shopping.
Baked potatoes for tea.
Building Paradise – 6 June 2015
This is Cala D’Or, Mallorca.
The place is the creation of Don Jose Costa Ferrer, Don Pep, who bought the beautiful but unproductive land in 1933 for the equivalent of 80 euros. He made a masterplan, sold the plots, and designed the houses using a simple palette and sold them to his creative friends. 
A stone’s throw from the tourists enjoying the natural beauty of the beaches you can find the place Don Pep created. As the houses have been upgraded or replaced people have stuck to the rules he set, to their credit.
Combine the architecture with the trees, both the familiar pine and the exotic palm, and you can see the Don Pep vision.
Whilst there I enjoyed cycling up to San Salvador at a bit less than half the pace of a pro, on a bashed up Pinarello.
Mostly we were swimming off the beach and…
… at Casa Binimelis.
We are sad to go home but Palma de Majorca is our new favourite airport. 
Grumpy reading Private Eye on the plane.
Some Summer – 17 May 2015
It’s the start of a new year for the business and time to look back on the last one. 
A weekend in sunny London spent in Clissold Park and Mike’s back garden. Me and the gang catching up with old friends and colleagues. 
Back in Edinburgh looking at the hard, but still attractive, Bakehouse Close. A comfortable scale of space with some nice details by Oberlanders.
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