A sweltering week in London was finally broken by this sudden downpour, early in the morning of 29th July. Leaning out of my living room window and looking south towards Shoreditch.

I have an old chair I want to reupholster, so earlier that same day I rode down to John Lewis and Marimekko to look at fabric. This is my bike locked up on Oxford Street, right across from John Lewis. The temperature was up over 30 degrees, and right after I got home I rode out to the climbing gym in Mile End. So I was pretty worn out by the end of the day, and that rain really felt good.

They did a great job laying the new tarmac on this bridge.

Along the beach at Sizewell, Suffolk, petrol-powered winches are used to haul fishing boats out of the water and over the shingle. Each motor is covered by a plywood shell.
22nd June, 2008

The beach at Sizewell.

Sizewell Nuclear Power Plant

This pub on the beach at Sizewell had a pretty basic menu, but afforded a great view and was not nearly as crowded as similar places down the coast.
There was something about the way this little girl was sitting in this windswept setting that reminded me of Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World.

I had this great old couch that my friend James had given me in Oxford, but I couldn't fit it into my new flat. On moving day the charity that was supposed to come and pick it up cancelled, sooo I  thought I could just leave it here and before too long some lucky person would soon pick it up.
A neighbour thought otherwise; she came out and yelled at me that she would call the police if I dared do this. You know, I guess she had a point. The Brazillian guys who'd come to help me move loaded it into their van, and we took it to the dump.

My bedroom, right before I moved out.

The lovely garden I had to leave behind. This is the chair I want to re-cover. A very helpful person at Metafilter.com - an architect in Paris who owns a pair himself - informed me that it was made by 'Suparest' back in the 20s or 30s. More details about the chair are on Flickr, here.

I was living right next to the Heygate housing estate, which is slowly being decanted of tenants prior to demolition. The multi-billion pound Elephant & Castle regeneration will allow wealthy people to live here in safety, within easy commuting distance of the City.

Looking towards St. Paul's Cathedral

The Houses of Parliament in the distance.

Emanuela took a great picture of this building one night back in November.

About half of the tenants in this building still seem to be holding out. Here are some social workers going to check up on them.

For my sister, for her 'hoops around the world' picture collection.

Sad that all of this vast project - idealistic, utopian and in some ways even beautiful - will soon be reduced to rubble and splinters.

This woman is sunbathing on the roof of the disused Heygate community centre and shopping arcade.

Street art exhibit at the Tate Modern.

The plaza in front of St. Paul's Cathedral.

My sister and nephew came to visit from Ontario. Here's a bit of my sister's hair, and Coen, and my Mum on a stormy day in Southwold, Suffolk. Coen's also my god-son; my sister informed me of this right about then.

Mum was looking after Coen in the car while Ildi and I braved the driving rain and went out on the pier. Here are a couple of views of Southwold.

Dustin Hoffman getting a touch-up while filming a scene on the South Bank. The film is Last Chance Harvey, and the banks of the Thames seem to feature quite prominently. Could this be Dustin's chance to recapture some of the magic of The Graduate, Marathon Man or Tootsie? I wouldn't bet on it.
That's costar Maggie Smith in the background.

I was standing there, surrounded by all of these normal-looking people, and then something was yelled into a megaphone and I realised they were all extras in the film. I noticed in another photo, of which this is just a cropped zoom-in, that one of them was reading Stanislavski's 'An Actor Prepares.' 

And she turns up in this picture too, waiting with all of the other strollers for the guy to yell 'action.' This was about 2 hours later - I'd gone up to Regent's Street and was on my way back home.

A rainy week in Naples - late March.

I spent a lot of time just staring out of the window at the sea.

Fishing boats down at Fuori Grotta (sp?), Naples.

Emanuela at the same place. It was her 'Name Day' and we'd gone down to have lunch at a restaurant on the water.

The sun finally came out. This scooter loaded down with flowers was down by the castle in downtown Naples.

Capri, seen from the tip of the Amalfi peninsula.

Old quarry on the Amalfi peninsula.

Positano

Amalfi

St. James's Park, London.
This isn't such a good picture, and I can't remember why I thought it was worth posting here.

My bike again (a pretty sweet vintage Trek aluminum that I picked up on Ebay for £100), in front of the South African High Commission on Trafalgar Square.

Woman and Constable's Salisbury Cathedral.

Van Gogh's The Artist's Chair.