Archive for September, 2011
London Tattoo Convention and Alpacas
At the weekend Juliet and I decided to go and have a poke around at the London Tattoo Convention in Wapping. My friend Mark had let me know that he was going to be there and I was looking forward to meeting up with him. Unfortunately, thanks to the dreadful user interface in the car’s sat-nav, we were led way off course and had to spend hours struggling through heavy traffic. This meant that we didn’t get to see Mark.
On arrival, we discovered that the only cash machines were in the venue and we couldn’t use our debit cards to pay the rather steep £30 entrance fee, so we popped to a nearby garage to get some cash and have a quick and much-needed burger for lunch. Once we were in, we had a good wander around but, to be honest, weren’t all that impressed. Much more entertaining was sitting down with a drink and doing some serious people-watching.
The journey home was very slow, again thanks to very heavy traffic. At least we were able to break it up with a quick stop at the services to pick up some food and some milk.
On Sunday we had a nice long lie in before cycling into Rickmansworth for a spot of lunch. We decided to take the dog out for a walk in the woods, and were very glad we did. Not only was it delightful out, but we came across three alpacas, which were recovering from dog attacks. We spent quite a bit of time leaning on the fence watching them, while the dog just stood and looked faintly bored.
The evening was spent relaxing in front of the TV, which is a pretty good way to end a weekend, if you ask me.
Photography and Stuff
At the weekend Juliet and I had a wander down to Walthamstow Marsh. I took the camera with me so that I could practice some photography and, although the results were a bit hit-and-miss, I did manage to get some shots that I liked.
On Saturday night we went out to a club in Romford. It was a pretty easy journey there as we were able to take the train, but the trip back in the wee small hours of the morning was not so much fun, involving as it did two night buses, a couple of longish waits in the cold and then a walk home from Walthamstow Central station in heavy rain.
As a result of being out so late on Saturday, we had a good long lie-in on Sunday, getting up at about 1pm. As is normal for me, though, I was awake at about 7:30am and was unable to go back to sleep, so by the late afternoon I was really struggling. This was a bit of a shame as we were out again and had to come back earlier than was ideal. On the plus side, I did get a nice rest and a good night’s sleep and so I’m pretty much back to normal.
