Heffalumps

Went to the Elephant Orphanage yesterday. So cool to see all the baby elephants playing in the water! If you want to see some more photos I've put them on my Flickr site.

Blasted!

This photo shows the damage caused by a suicide bomber who was trying to assassinate the presidents' brother, also the defense minister. You can see how the wall has been shattered by the blast and there are thousands of pock marks where ball-bearing shrapnel peppered the wall. Amazingly the guy survived the attack, but four of his outriders weren't so lucky.

crab claw plant

cool palm bark

This palm tree grows in Leah's garden. I really like the growth pattern of it's trunk.

Red ants nest

This is a cool red ants nest that fell from a tree in the breeze today. The ants seemed to have abandoned it thankfully as I'm told they bite. They fold the leaf up and stick it together to make their home - the white stuff is ant-glue; strong stuff...

Lazy dog....

This is Leah's dog Jade, who spends a lot of her time napping in various different places. She's not really allowed in the house, but she sneaks in when no one is around to kick her out!

Family making christmas cake

It's a family tradition to get together and bake a christmas cake in the Marikkar household. A time to share stories and gossip and generally have a good old chat about stuff!

In Sri Lanka

Well, here we are in sunny Sri Lanka, well it's hot at least if a bit overcast. Not sure what time-zone I'm in at the moment, cant seem to wake up before midday and cant seem to sleep 'till some early hour of the morning. Apparently there's also some nasty mosquito transported virus around that everyone is coming down with. I'm kinda worried as they seem to love my pale flesh - easier to see where the blood is I suppose. Anyway, I'm drowning myself in 50% Deet creme at the moment, and none of them are coming close! Have a feeling my skin will fall off is I carry on like this though...We're out tonight as it's Friday and there are people to see, places to go.

Now that I have no job and no home it's going to be odd answering those inevitable questions: 'what do you do?' and 'where are you from?'....I'm working on some answers though - suggestions welcome!

Hang Over

As I thought, we're all a bit of a mess today here at Factory. Christmas do was drunken as ever. I have to say that the Hard Rock Cafe is anything but, it's more like Soft Pop Diner. We ended up in Loop dancing the night away.....

And today is my last day at Factory! It's been nearly three years, but I'm taking a break to go travelling in Lain America with Leah, woo hoo!

woo hoo: Christmas do!

We're off on our company christmas do shortly, everyone is tarting themselves up in preparation, well the girls are anyway, the lads are just kicking around making banter!

Tomorrow we may regret, but it's all about the now!

BA Self Service Restaurant

For those that don't know, I do product design for a living. British Airways have just launched a new self service restaurant for those of you privileged enough to fly Club World. We were involved in taking the initial sketches into a finished form. Check the factorydesign website for images and more details.

Moustach

This is my very silly moustach that I grew to go to Kala's birthday party. It was all in aid of prostate cancer though! 

Blue Plaque

This is the blue plaque on the house where Sir Joseph Bazalegtte lived. Leah and I went for a walk up to Hamilton Terrace to take a look this evening. It's cold out this evening! 

The House that Joe Built

OK, he probably didn't build it as he was very busy with all the other great things in London, but this is the house in Maida Vale where Sir Joseph Bazalgette lived before moving on to Wimbledon. 

woo hoo, winner!

Well third place at least; my photo of Bobby and Heddwyn made third place in the shootexperience.com monthly competition. Cool eh? The theme was 'family' and I really like the shot of the two of them in their own worlds, lost in thought after spending the day out walking and talking - see the previous blog entries below for more on that.

truman brewery, Brick Lane

Took this on my way to record some stuff at Rich's last weekend. Although the weather was predicted to be pretty bad, it was lovely, crisp and sunny as I walked up Brick Lane. 

commuter rush

Ended up taking a rather convoluted jouney in this morning. My Bike frame has snapped so I no longer have my own wheels to speed me along. Instead I'm taking the tube, which is awful, except that I get to read the Climbing Essays book by Jim Perrin that Becky bought me for my birthday.

This morning when I got to paddington the district line was ruined, so I decided to take the Hammersmith and City. This means crossing the whole of paddington, which would be annoying except that the sunlight was streaming in and made an interesting picture of the rushing commuters.

friday....I'm ready to go home

Man, sometimes days can drag on. Makes you wonder what you're doing. My job is cool - product design, but I find it hard to sit here and draw shape after shape after shape. Searching for some new design feature to seel to the client. Product product product. I'm ready to go home and chill. Well, out for dinner tonight at Sianny and G's house. I'm looking forward to that. Leah didn't get her Argentinian Visa yet, which is hampering our plans to dissapear, and quelling the excitement, replaced by anxiety.

MUJI design competition entry

 

MUJI SUMI

I entered the MUJI design competition this year with this photo holder. Unfortunately I didn't win! To see the winners click here. 

busy bazalgette

According to Wikipedia, Sir Joseph was a very busy man indeed, not only engineering London's sewerage system but also:

Albert Embankment (1869)
Victoria Embankment (1870)
Chelsea Embankment (1874)
Putney Bridge (1886)
Albert Bridge (1884; modifications)
Hammersmith Bridge (1887)
the Woolwich Ferry (1889)
Battersea Bridge (1890)
Charing Cross Road
Garrick Street
Northumberland Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue
early plans for the Blackwall Tunnel (1897)
proposal for what later became Tower Bridge

Holy moly!

me dad and me brotha...

 

lovely!

 

A reservoir in Wales

Before heading home we went for a walk by this reservoir in Wales. It was lovely, but the Water levels are still very low! 

sparklers!

 

 

Pop - bang - whizz

 

Fireworks!

These rather small fireworks were made more exciting by the fact that they kept falling over and threateneing to shower us all in sparks... 

Bonfire night at Fforest

We spent saturday collecting wood that had fallen from the trees surrounding my dad's place and made a large bonfire. 

Tom in Rhonda

 

Me at the Helm

 

Two people who cant wait to get in the sea

 

MIddle Bay

 

Tom and Leah

Inside Rhonda it was warm and dry. Outside the wind was blosing, the waves were large and messy and it was cold. 

Leah, ready to rock