adriandale.co.uk

This is another “watching, not doing” blog entry. Can’t see myself doing this anytime soon:

I took this at the Thames Festival last week. It shows a member of the Free Running (aka Parkour) demonstration team performing a hand stand on the specially built stage. We were also treated to running, jumping and somersaulting from the rest of the team, all neatly dressed in their corporate sponsor’s logo. (Barclaycard - Who, incidentally, caused me a great deal of inconvenience this week, so I’m not feeling charitable enough to give them a free picture advert on my blog.)

Other highlights this week …

(more…)

This is Albert.

Yes, that Albert. Prince Albert of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria fame, now more famous for their museum than anything else.

OK, I admit they may be quite important but I had a useless history teacher at school and the museum’s what comes up top of the list if you type “Victoria and Albert” into Google. If you really want to see how times change, try typing “Prince Albert” into google and see what comes up first.

So, what’s Prince Albert doing on my blog?

(more…)

I recently bought myself a drawing board so that I could do some pencil drawings from the comfort of my sofa. Here is how the most recent one came out:

I’ve altered the colours slightly so that the picture shows up better on the web. The original is in light pencil. The picture is sketched from the left shoe of my pair of Patrick Cox snake skin shoes.

Turns out I’ve owned them for quite a long time, although they’re still looking reasonably decent as I keep them for special occasions.

So, why shoes?

(more…)

In case you’d been wondering why I’ve been so quiet lately, this month, my work took me to Dublin, where I’ve just spent three weeks working on a project for Bank of Ireland.

Of course it wasn’t all work, work, work …

(more…)

I’ve just got back from a week’s holiday in Mexico with my good friend Tom. We stayed at the Gran Bahia Principe resort near Akumal, on the Yucatan Peninsula, about 60 miles south of Cancun. The weather was fantastic all week, hot and sunny and only once started to rain as we were sitting in the aeroplane waiting to head back home.

We ended up having quite an eventful trip …

(more…)

I don’t really celebrate Halloween as such. It isn’t much of a festival, despite the commercial multitudes trying to turn it into one. However, I have a couple of Halloween parties coming up, so I thought I’d best be prepared.

I made an ordinary pumpkin lantern out of my first pumpkin and enjoyed making it so much that I thought I’d turn the spare pumpkin into something more elaborate.

This site has plenty of instructions on how to do this. I used their skull pattern (obviously) to make mine.

In case you’re wondering where the title of this article came from, you can click here.

Had a great weekend, doing all sorts of things, finishing with an impressive fireworks display at the Thames River Festival.

OK, so photography isn’t my main area of expertise …

I really like this festival. It has a friendly fun atmosphere that I find totally lacking at the Notting Hill Carnival. Because it is on a smaller scale you can get much closer to the action. If you’re really keen you can get right into the action, in fact. Whether it is experience that means I know where to stand, or if it is just the way things work, it is possible to get a perfect view from the kerb as the night procession goes past right under your nose.

So, what else did I get up to this weekend?

(more…)

I wasn’t sure which picture to put in this blog entry. There’s plenty I could write about - I even have a decent sized selection of possible pictures I could use. I chose this one because … well, Prince wouldn’t let me take any pictures at his concert, which is what this entry would have otherwise been about …

I took this at London Zoo at the weekend which I visited with my parents. We were fortunate enough to have nice weather and had a very pleasant afternoon strolling around trying to find an animal, any animal that was actually doing something. Anything!?!
(more…)

Seems strange that the Tour De France should come to England. I guess we’re neighbours, at least.

The picture below is from the Prologue stage around Central London.

As luck would have it …

(more…)

I took advantage of this bank holiday weekend’s miserable weather to do something indoors. I went to see Antony Gormley’s Blind Light exhibition at The Hayward Gallery.

If you’ve been out in central London recently you may have noticed a few of these fellows standing on roof tops along the banks of the Thames. What are they doing there?

(more…)