Category: family

B258 – IT WAS PERFECT

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If after 258 days of these posts you havent realised that my favourite day is Sunday then please understand that sunday has to be the best day of the week. Its all about good food, naps movies and the odd adventure out. Well yesterday was all of those things, after a pretty heavy Saturday night sunday was perfect, we woke up and hit the cafe for some good old breakfast but on out way over there we came across this really cool little market which sold those foods that you don’t really find in a super market, like sause saus and really fresh tomato’s.

After some good old food it was back to the flat to clean up and watch some movies with the odd Nap here and there, what more do you want. at one point I thought I had food poising which is never good but amy reminded me that is must have been the hang over.

As our Swiss friends havent been to Winter Wonderland before and thats unacceptable, everyone needs to see Winter Wonderland, so after our naps and everyone was feeling tip top again we put on some warm clothes and head over in the afternoon, we literally walk round looking at food and eating all the good stuff, I don’t think any of us could have had a drink which made life a lot easier, I really didn’t want to even look at a drink.

its now Monday morning and as I write this post I’m trying to stay productive but my bed is just calling me, christmas has officially started for me but I really don’t want to spend the next few weeks doing nothing, so my plan is not to sit and watch all the christmas films but to get up get dressed and start taking photos or something.

Here are my photos from yesterday, enjoy.

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– the spinning bar at Winter Wonderland –
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– how good does this look, I wonder how easy it is to make the stuff –
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– tomato’s look perfect –

 

 

B257 – THEY ARE BACK

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Firstly I want to apologise for this post being late, I was trying to put it up earlier but after last night my brain just could focus and the laptop screen was hurting my eyes. I don’t think its got anything todo with the amount of beer I drank or even the because of the time we started drinking, I think its because I was up early and in the shops. Any other time and i would probably had said we started to early but our friends of Switerzland have come over so we had a mini party. so I don’t really remember much of the afternoon or evening. but what I can say is that we are having a proper Sunday evening now and you can read about it tomorrow.

We have a few plans this evening and thankfully none of those involve alcohol which is definitely a positive, im also not scared to brave the weather and travel because Im now in the doc martin boot gang and I cant wait to put them through their paces and see what these babies can do. I love buying products like doc martins because its fun to see what you can actually do with them before they break. I think I’ve got a few years in them yet before I need to replace them.

today might seem likes a bit thin on then writing and but its days like these where posting every day for 365 is hard but I need power through. Ill try and make some cool posts this week, I really want todo more portrait photography so I might try and find a model or someone to practise on and see if I can take a decent photo.

Anyway heres my photos and enjoy your Sunday. Also can people please read my post from yesterday and let me know what you think and if its actually any good? I really want to write more music reviews but not really sure if its helpful.

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– Soho on a saturday –
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– Welcome back to london Pauline and gigi –
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– the love of my life –

 

B255 – GRENFELL.

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There was meant to be two parts to this post today, the first part is a pretty serious thing. Yesterday I was at the Grenfell memorial at St. Pauls. Im not going to write more than that about it, ill just show you the photos I took. This isn’t the time for me give you my opinion or facts, it just all comes down to the people and faces you see. The second well Ive decided not to post that, it was going to be about a gig I went to yesterday, but I just post that another time.

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B252 – BANG BANG CHICKEN

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8am Monday Morning. temperature, 5 degrees. weather, rain / snow. What better way to start the day?

Thats literally what I said to myself as I walked out my front door and headed to Camden yesterday for a meeting, its hard to find a positive about the weather yesterday when the snow didn’t even set but I do quite like the rain in London, especially when I have my camera mainly because taking photos of people when its raining becomes so much better, everyone literally walks around like the are allergic to water and that makes for some cool photos. Don’t get me wrong I love to sun and the summer and would much rather be taking photos from a beach in the Mediterranean but that wasn’t an option yesterday.

After my meeting I decided to take a long walk back to the train station and grab some photos of the area, Camden is this cool part of London, which kind of feels like its separated from the rest this city and made its own set of rules and its own way of life. its kind of where punk rock has decided to plot up and fight the likes of TopShop and River Island and to some miracle punk rock seems to have won.

Josh’s Top Tip: If you ever find yourself in Camden that chances are your going to want to eat some food, now what most people would do is end up at the world food market and grab some sort of pizza of Naples or maybe a burrito for Korea but what I think is by fast the best option is to head down to the original camden market and pick up some of that Bang Bang Chicken, the food isn’t really fried chicken that you might get at KFC its more Chinese but possible the best Chinese you can get hold of. that stuff is completely out of this world and the guy who sells it might even sing you the Bang Bang chicken song. Trust me, there is a song.

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– on the bus toward to Camden –
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– Camden Market, the home of Bang Bang Chicken –
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– the snow yesterday unfortunately it didn’t settle –

 

 

 

B251 – LONDON BOUND

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Sunday night and now heading back to London, my plan is to get this post done on the train so tomorrow morning when I wake up everything is done and ready to go. Its been a really good weekend and enjoyed the little break but now I’m ready to get back to London and prep for next week.

Today started off with a breakfast at this place called Back to the Garden which is this café place in Holt, Norfolk where they basically serve up proper food that’s all locally sourced, with in the Café they have like a mini super market that’s got all the goods and the place to get hold of the legendary Stokes Ketchup. Trust me once you get hold of Stokes you’ll never see Heinz the same again. Its literally a different class of condiment.

For some reason I feel pretty ill, I’m not sure if that’s the Hangover talking or if its got something to do with how bad my diet has been recently but next week I’m going to up my game and start to eat healthy again, no more Pringles and cheese bagels for breakfast, its going to be all about the porridge and fruit. I really haven’t felt good this afternoon and to be honest I don’t have time to be ill. So I think ill keep this one short and sweet, I need to try and sort myself out.

But my plan for the week ahead also includes getting my Christmas presents sorted, its starting to scare me how much shopping everyone else seems to have done and Im no closer to having it sorted. If I can just get 80% of the presents sorted this week ill be a happy man. I really don’t want it to be a last minute amazon prime thing!

Here’s my photos from today.

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– the face of someone who just wants to go back to bed –
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– a proper norfolk country shop and Cafe –
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– I think we all can tell who comes first in this relationship –

B250 – MY FIRST TIME IN 10 YEARS

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Back in Norfolk seeing Amy’s family, haven’t been up here since August so its good to get back out into the country side and just eat food and chill out. one thing is for sure, the weather up here is definitely colder than it was last time I was here. Amy told me to bring loads of layers and over course I took that information on board and completely forgot. Could of done with some extra jumpers and maybe some thicker socks, but I suppose now Ive just got to get on with it.

So of the reassuring things we did yesterday was go to the Toy Super store Symths, I seriously had thought that those places didn’t exists since the likes of Amazon and Ebay where ruling the world, But business was booming. It was pretty cool to walk around looking at all the toys and see the ones that I used to play with still going strong. and to see kids running around playing with all the toys, just like they should do. I must actually sound so old when I say this, but its so true.

After the little flash back shopping trip, there was only one place to go now and that was for a bite to eat. and since I missed Amys birthday (I was working and also on the other side of the world), we went back to the pub where she had celebrated her birthday and had some food there. the pub was called Black Boys and it was unbelievable. I obviously went for the Black Boys Burger and it was just how a pub burger should be, massive and full of everything you need, Onion rings, tomato and some good blue cheese.  but I did end up getting some food envy over the pan fried stake, that was definitely worth a try next time. It looked like something special.

After food it was time to hit the sofa and watch movies and sleep. well I slept, a lot. but how can you blame me when theres a log fire and a really comfy sofa to sit on.

anyway its now early Sunday morning and I think its a jammed packed day of taking photos for a christmas calendar and eating more food. Heres my photos of yesterday, Enjoy.

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– Dexter infront of the fire, chilled out to the max –
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– the view for the pub window, theres not a better view than that –
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– my first time in a toy store in at least 10 years –

B249 – AN UPSIDE DOWN TEMPLE TO A COIN LAUNDRY

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From North Carolina to Shanghai, every build is different, foundations change, tactics differ and people’s ideas get thrown around. If you stand on the street in North Carolina, not in the city of Raighley, but on the outskirts in the suburbs. Things you take for granted like shops and restaurants are built quick and for maximum capacity’s. They are basically practical places to get done what you need to get done, they do what they say on the title. No messing about. 
If you travel to some where like Kensington in London, that little part of the UK where a flat will set you back £1M or will all of a sudden be standing in a building that’s meant to not only stand the test of time but built to look like something from Mary poppins. Red brick the works. 
Then you travel 12,000 miles to China and end up in Shanghai and all of a sudden you starring up at an upside town temple that looks like it’s been carefully put together out of 100 meter look match sticks. It’s literally like something that a baddest budist has dreamt up.  

What I like about that all these buildings is that they all serve the same purpose really and that’s for people to use to eat a task done. It doesn’t matter if that task is to pray, live in or some where to wash there clothes. A lot of the time, I’ll just get from city to city and not really look up, even in London a place I’ve lived my whole life, I just walk around and don’t really take it all in. but if you actually just stop for a second and look around, everything is actually pretty cool in its own weird way. 

Here are some photos that I’ve taken from the places I’m talking about. It’s a bit of a rushed post today, but we all have days like this right?

– the Mary poppins buildings around Kensington, London –
– the upside down temple in Shanghai –
– a coin laundry by the side of a road somewhere in North Carolina –

B243 – IM BASICALLY A CHEF 

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Yesterday Amy and me had the family come round for some food and for a little catch up, I haven’t really seen any of them since my birthday which was like two months ago, so it was good to see them all, even Esme. 
It wasn’t all straight forward, amy and me had a lot of pressure planning today, from what everyone was going to eat ( I cooked a banging curry) to the most important thing the orange cushion that WE (Amy) had to get. 

Yesterday was the first time we played host to my family and I think I was a success, apart from being a bit short of cutlery and plates but who’s counting anyway.

I’ve normally always been the guy sat in the sofa drinking beers and watching TV so never really worried about what’s going on in the kitchen, I’ve just worried about what time it’s been served. My hat goes off to anyone that’s ever cooked a large meal I’ve eaten, it’s 100% pure stress. 

The cooking isn’t the stressful part, it’s the washing up that’s the stinger, you fill your face and then all of a sudden you’ve got a million plates and hundreds of glasses to wash up, and I don’t even have a dish washer, proper 1950s stuff. 

Anyway, it’s now 5am on Sunday and I’m up and out the door off to work, so I’m going to keep this one short and sweet. Here’s some shots from yesterday. 

– I know it’s weird for dogs to wear clothes but I think Mooney pulls it off –
– mum and flo haven’t a moment, or in reality. Mum trying to get flo to sit still –
– she was scared to the Xmas tree pines –

B235 – 5000 CALORIES IN ONE NIGHT

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Yesterday was the first time in ages that ive had “that friday feeling” and today being saturday morning I have that “horrible hangover feeling” but I cant stop and moan I have a proper ikea mission first.

Any way back to yesterday, it was a bit of a gamble to be honest, I had been stuck at my kitchen table all day working on my laptop, just getting stuff done, even though its a day not at work I try to treat everyday like a work day, other wise ill spend the time watching a Netflix series or something which is never good. my aim is to always be out of bed by 9am and always do something productive and yesterday was no exception apart from the afternoon bath, which by the way was amazing.

It got to around 4 / 5pm and I started to think about my plans for that evening, there was talk for Winter wonderland in hyde park, I was adamant that its still to early to celebrate Christmas so it was a No from me, I would just meet charlotte and stay in East London.

After a few beers and a few more phone calls, we are all on our way to Winter wonderland, who would of guessed! and what a great decision that was, I hadn’t seen a lot of the people there in ages and im not really sure what happened after the first hour or so it gets abit blurry. I do know how ever I eat way to much food, 1 hot dog, 1 Calzone Pizza and a Mcdonalds and some Pasta. What was I thinking, this morning I feel like ive put on about 2 stone and eat like 5000 calories in the space of 4 hours.

anyway here are my photos from last night.

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– I think Aaron was happy to see me –
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– just dave drinking from a bird bowl or maybe a water tap, im just not too sure –
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– this is the perfect meeting place for anyone at Winter wonderland –

B197 – AFTER TWO MONTHS ITS FINALLY HAPPENED!

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Today is a bit of a special day, today was the day that i actually had a home cooked meal, not just something from a restaurant but some home cooked vegetables, home made pasta and some other ingredients that I’m not too sure what they were called.  Its a massive difference from the normal late night Italian or Chinese that I’m used too and I genuinely cant complain. I did end up have this really large cookie for desert but to be honest it was home made so doesn’t really matter. When im firmly back at home thats one thing im going todo more, I want to cook good proper food without the added salt or other things.

other than my rant about food, today I was back in this sleepy part of New Jersey, and to be honest its one of my favourite places Ive been. growing up in some sleepy part of London in a town called Biggin Hill, I know people think its this tough place just outside bromley but its really not. sorry, but its just not. anyway I think that part of me loves the idea of living in some quite town somewhere just enjoying life and moving at a slower pace. its weird because at the moment I love living in the city, sounded by constant noise and always something todo, but I can definitely see myself moving to the countryside when Im older in a place a bit like Bedmister, New Jersey and just having fun. Places like this would make me get up early and go take photos or ride my bike constantly.

Its just one of those things, if you love the country side then I think you will alway want to call that home. anyway heres my photos from today, I really wanted to show the sleepy side to living in the “sticks” but I couldn’t resist showing off what I had for dinner.

enjoy.

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– this lady is just sat enjoying her tuesday –
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– so is this man –
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– nothing beats a home cooked dinner –