Ascot 2005

After all the hype it had arrived - ASCOT! In York. Never was the North / South divide so pronounced as the national papers (and their London writers) coverage: if they could have taken pictures of us all with whippets and flat caps I am sure they would... but with the sun coming out to shine on Friday, a good day's racing - with a modicum of success - we had a good time. I got very badly sunburned and Tim looked dashing in his wedding outfit. Nice. With champagne @ £60 a bottle I was relying on my 100-1 to romp home and net me £670 but sadly it was not to be. After the 1 mile walk back to mine (in bare feet at the end - rather ignominous but there you go) we followed up with a BBQ at ours which was good fun. We even left some out afterwards for the hedgehog. Now that's Ascot.

Dress-down post-ascot BBQ.... 

TOm, Maz and Tim all looking happy @ Ascot. Sure there was a horse there somewhere... 

Tim, Lucy and Malcolm at Castle Howard. Wearing shades regardless! 

We must BBQ regardless ...

Had friends to stay - Lucy and Malcolm and had a good Saturday BBQ - slightly boozy afternoon. Dan, friend haven't seen since scholl came round - weird to see someone after all this time but nice. Then off to Castle Howard on Sunday. Pissed down all day but lovely nontheless. Scones, peacocks, ducks, rhondedendrons and roses, and tea of course.

Our man at bow! 

Looking good and balanced... 

Rowing: met regatta 05

as promised some pictures of the man himself rowing, he's the one at the back.... this is a 2000m race at the Worls class rowing lake at Windsor 9world championships were here last week) and is side by side racing in 7 lanes, so pretty exciting stuff!

Just quite a nice picture 

Cool picture huh.... 

Rowing

Tim's been rowing this weekend at Metrolpolitan regatta:
http://www.metregatta.org/main.html
They seemed to do pretty well (look for Bradford ARC in the results) and hopefully there'll be some pictures to post soon.
Can't wait till Henley though as then we can relax a little more...

Photos of flowers

Continuing the gardening theme tim also took some pretty stunning pics of flowers at Newby including the one of laburnum which I may have to get blown up.

Angela, Leon and Tim @ Newby Hall, May 05 

Angel and Leon, May 05 @ Newby Hall 

The first meal al fresco... 

The first visit...

Angela and Leon came to stay and were the first to
1. Sleep in the newly decorated spare room
2. Eat al fresco
3. Have a BBQ
So it was all very exciting (if you are a suburban couple with a new garden)... and doubly so as they provided much in the way of gardening wisdom. Ah, but we are not wise as yet in the ways of the green side.
We also went to Newby Hall and - guess what- looked at some gardens! It was a lovely weekend though and great to see everyone.

Just need the plants to grow! 

So we decided...

To get someone into do some work and hey presto a new garden! Well, sort of, it take a few weeks and some hard graft but still quicker than if we had done it.

Pretty much up and down and nowhere to drink G&T... 

Recent events...

It's been quite a few months - we moved house in February and have been gradually working up to doing some work on the garden. being new to the whole gardening thing it took us a while. Tim decided to propagate wildly (horitculturally mainly) and therefore avoid doing anything too useful (but did provide some nice wee plants).
But we have a pretty dull looking back garden...

Tadpole Towers in all it's glory! May 05 

Minutiae...

Hi guys, given you are all scattered to the winds thought it would be a good idea to use this to show pictures and generally let you see what's going on over here from over there... or wherever you maybe. I very much doubt we'll gather a cult internet following but that's no bad thing - will use mainly for pictures.