46 Cakes

All is well with the world at the minute. I finally figured out where I was going wrong with my Cornwall data and so my maps are actually looking like they should, or at least will be once I've converted around 800 co-ordinates into the correct format. I've had a great weekend this weekend darting about for Sam's birthday (happy birthday Sam!). She had some friends down from Scotland, and from London, and some more local friends, all of whom congregated at the Yardbird last night for many drinks and eventually wine and cake back at hers. Good times.

Today we went along to see the Steve McCurry exhibit currently on display at the Waterhall Gallery in Birmingham. I was unaware of his work, apart from one very famous picture, but Sam and my brother had been harping on about it for a while so it was nice to finally see what all the fuss was about. I was very impressed I must say, some of the photographs captured the emotion of the subject flawlessly. I wasn't as keen on some of the blatantly set up scenarios, but his use of colour and subject matter is always exquisite. Here are a few of my favourites of those on display.
That first one may be my favourite photograph ever, although it's very hard to look at. There was another picture that looked like an oil painting but was in fact a monastery built into a cliff face, but I can't find it anywhere! If I do though, I'll be sure to post it...

A Dream Within A Dream

I'm back in the caravan once again after a fantastic weekend back in Birmingham. I hopped on an earlier train in the end on Thursday which meant I was back Birmingham town at about 6:00pm, three hours earlier than planned which meant I was able to enjoy a much more relaxed evening with Sam and "the house".

Friday night saw us head over to the Electric Cinema to watch Inception on opening night. Thankfully I didn't pull my usual opening night trick and go to a midnight showing, although the red wine certainly made me sleepy. This was unrelated to the film though, which was excellent, possibly the best I've seen this year. It had the full package really, an engaging and slightly confusing story, phenomenal special effects, just the right amount of violence, and superb performances from Leonardo DiCaprio (fast becoming my favourite actor) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the sort of film you think about for weeks after, and in fact I've just been engaged in a text exchange with Mike about possible plot holes, which left us both baffled. I won't say too much though as I went in knowing nothing about the film and enjoyed it all the more for it.

Saturday night was Mike's birthday party, which almost didn't happen due to indecisive weather and a general air of confusion surrounding the proceedings. However, all went according to plan in the end, and the night was a triumph of arm wrestling and slam
dancing. I would put pictures up but they're all of people, and you know my feelings about that. By that, I don't mean people, that makes me sound like a sociopath.

Sunday was a joyfully lazy day, with Steve cooking us up a huge hangover fry-up followed by a brief jaunt to the outside world to see some old friends (namely Nicholas and Hanzibar). The general laziness was sky high for Sam and I, but much needed simply to forget about our projects for a day.

And now once again I'm back in the caravan for my final stint. Today it is the wettest I've known it so far down here, and my lift cancelled so it's another day indoors drinking tea and trying to crack on with work.

In bovinophobia news, I returned yesterday to find eight Highland cattle have moved into the field that is about 10 metres away from the caravan. There's a gate separating us, obviously, but these cows are calving. I was actually told "they're alright, but just after they give birth is when you need to be careful; that's when they're really dangerous". They should all be dropping their payloads in the next few days so we'll see if that's when they break out and kill me in my sleep...

Sign of the Times

Today I was back to work in the field after a long weekend camping just outside of Falmouth. It was a fantastic holiday, and I shall share with you now a few highlights.

Firstly, I hadn't seen the tent before we pitched as Sam brought it down with her:
At first I was slightly apprehensive as it is somewhat feminine. However, as Sam repeatedly reminded me, I do currently spend my days picking flowers so I can't really criticise. I grew to love that tent though, it was surprisingly spacious for a two-manner and kept off the weather (which in fairness was pretty good). It didn't, however, block out the noise of the man next door who insisted on discussing the wind direction with his lift at 7:00am every morning. I let this slide though as you do tend to wake up with the sun when camping, which is no bad thing.

We managed to squeeze a lot into the weekend which was good because I think we both needed the break away from our projects. So, we hit the beach in Falmouth, and actually braved the sea despite it being the coldest water I've ever been in (I genuinely couldn't feel my own body afterwards). I won't disturb anyone with pictures of me in the sea, nor embarrass Sam with pictures of her. I thought I'd be acclimatised to coldness, what with not having hot water and all, but alas no. Remarkably I had more facilities camping than I do in the caravan. After the beach we had a sweet sweet barbecue back at the campsite, which, despite setting the grass on fire on several occasions, was a success.
We also partook in several country rambles, the most eventful of which ended with us having to hotfoot it over some barbed wire when a field full of cows kept charging every time we tried to get past. It was genuinely as if they were trying to block our exit, but we'd come too far to turn back. Needless to say we survived and rewarded ourselves with some well earned pub grub, after a trip to a very trendy little cafe with many board games on offer.
Ho ho. The evening meal was actually courtesy of my Grandma who sent me some money so we could have a nice meal out. I took this to the extreme and had a massive steak and a dessert, as you do.

We also stumbled across several odd and amusing signs on our travels, the Cornish seem to be excellent at ridiculous and stupid signs, so here's small selection.
All in all it was a great weekend, and nice to be away from the caravan. I am back now though, obviously, but am stocked to the rafters with canned goods after a tactical trip to Tesco's on the journey back, made all the more entertaining by the taxi driver exclusively discussing his last crash. Dear me.

By the way, you may notice a distinct lack of pictures of me or Sam on here, but I feel odd putting pictures of people on here, plus Sam's blog is actually read by professionals, so if they ended up here for some reason it might be weird to see soppy pictures of a possible employee. Just so you know.

That's all for now, byeeeeee!