Just spent a nice long weekend at the The Cormorant Hotel in Fowey, Cornwall with Pheebs. This is actually the hotel in which we got engaged at so it was quite nice to return to the scene of the crime so to speak. The view from any hotel room, the food and wine quality were just as good as I remembered. We even returned back to the Lost Gardens of Heligan which whilst is still a magical place, wasn’t quite as vibrant as it was in spring. Still, it was a very pleasant weekend away with my wife.

Man Camp 2011 proved to be just as messy and more extravagant than previous years, with the return to Hurst View campsite. We also were lucky enough to use Rob’s new purchase a large bell tent which certainly made camping much more fun and comfortable (or was the beer?). We re-visited the Gun Inn in Keyhaven as well as Chequers in Lymington to sample the local beer and cider. We also enjoyed fire’s in the evening, lots of bbq’d meat and some entertaining conversations from “back in the day”! The photo’s from the weekend can be viewed here.

Just had a great weekend with Pheeb’s old collage friend Charlotte and her fiance Nigel where we went for a pub lunch before embarking on a 5 mile walk around Sherfield on Lodden. Took a few photo’s of which can be viewed here. After the walk we headed home to chill out for the evening and enjoy a slow cooked stew with a few beers.

Happy birthday to my niece Kathryn who turned 8 yesterday (blimey doesn’t time fly! so we all went out for a family affair at Chiquito’s in the Atrium which was good as we don’t all get together that often.

Photo’s are available here.

Pheebs, John, Ruth and myself took ourselves off to Wisley for the day which was very pleasant to say the least. We were lucky enough to visit the hothouse when they had a butterfly exhibition on and had lots of exotic beasts flying around. As they were freely roaming the glass houses along with us, some folks were lucky enough to provide temporary landing pads for the butterflies. I managed to get some decent photo’s using Craig’s Canon 70-200mm lens I was still borrowing. I suppose I really ought to get my own at some point! Photo’s from the day can be seen here.

After some last minute shopping in the shops by the airport we chilled for a little while whilst having a drink and chatting to Laura and Rob. After that we went through to the departure lounge and then to our surprise into the VIP lounge with the rest of the Sagitta passengers. Whilst waiting g for our flight we watched a bib documentary on a large TV which was cool as it showed a lot of the places we had already seen. After that we boarded our flight to Guayaquil which took an hour and fifty minutes. Once we arrived at Guayaquil we collected our bags and found a café to chill out in for a couple of hours before checking in (our flight was at 9.10pm and we arrived at 3.30pm) After some chilling out at the café for an hour and a half we headed to the check in desk and waited for an hour in the queue in order to get rid of our bags. We then headed back to the café for a hot chocolate and to charge my phone in preparation for the flight home (10 hours to Madrid) and then (2 hours of London Heathrow). We then went through to the gate and watched as the plane came to the gate and was refuelled and restocked. The flight left late and we were subjected to the long flight but managed to get some sleep as well as some food (if you can call it that) After the flight landed we had rush at Madrid to get to the next gate for our flight to London. We had to queue through passport control and then queue again through security. Evenutally we made it to the gate and flight in time and home to Basingstoke.