So, the Flash on the Beach conference is almost upon us, literally a week away as I write this. There are some amazing speakers lined up including Neville Brody, David Dunkley Gyimah, Jeremy Keith, Eric Natzke, Brendan Dawes and Hillman Curtis to name, with no hint of understatement, but a few.
Three full days of Flash oriented design and development sessions with a smattering of After Effects, CSS and video journalism thrown in for good measure. Two parties, some great announcements from certain sponsors, an amazing schwag bag and to cap it all off, ME! lol.
Really looking forward to seeing everybody and if I don't know you then I'm looking forward to meeting you :)
So, for the past week or so I've been laid low with a viral cough/cold combo. Not wanting to just sit around and do nothing, I've been very productive in the kitchen.
In the course of a week I've made new recipes and dishes with totally seasonal produce. I learned how to make butter and I made strawberry jam too (with frozen summer strawberries). I made salt from local Brighton seawater and numerous cakes, pizzas and breads.
This all culminated on Thursday with a favourite lunchtime snack of strawberry jam on buttered bread. Only, the bread was homemade, as was the butter and the salt within it and lastly the jam too. Everything was organic and natural, created from scratch by me this week from the rawest of ingredients possible. After a week of making food and not really having the appetite to eat it, well, I hope you can imagine how satisfying it was.
It feels like I'm coming out of the depths of viral slurry now and shall probably, as usual when these things and me get together, just be left with a nagging cough that lasts way beyond all normal expectations. At least I can smell the banana bread cooking in the oven right now...
Autumn is my favourite time of the year by far. It's the 'nesting' season for us as a family and we've been busy preparing the garden for the Winter by pruning, mowing, digging and planting. We've also made a new area for the chickens where they'll be a little more protected from the elements we normally see in abundance up here on the hill. The fences are due to be creosoted this week, as is the shed and other wooden structures and tools like the lawn mower will be cleaned down and readied for winter too.
Food is an important thing too and we've introduced a strict 100 mile rule recently. If it hasn't grown or been produced within 100 miles of us then we won't buy it - this is forcing us to look locally for things we'd have bought in a supermarket previously and I'm loving it. Being in the heart of the Sussex countryside we are a little spoiled for the sort of produce I'm talking about - from meat to vegetables and so on. For instance, we have a local farm that specialise in Lamb and other locally sourced meats so we go there instead of Waitrose now. It's also made us re-examine our diet and we've focussed on more traditionally seasonal meat too. Our Sunday roast in recent weeks has seen both venison and pheasant for instance.
For the last decade or so we've lived almost exclusively in the 'city' and whilst we do like that both Nete and myself are country people at heart. Prior to moving to Brighton we lived in some very remote places and we both miss it greatly. Our stint in the city is coming to an end - we can both sense it I think. Personally, I can't wait.
Happy Autumn (Fall) everone :)
Well hello vox aren't you nice? i signed up a while a go but after reading all
the great press out there i thought i would give you a proper try. So here
i am being very trying !!!!
The day started with a cool fog that burned off quickly around 8 am. I was riding towards Burford with a group of bikers splitting lanes a speeding through the countryside. It was to become a perfect day of riding. A cool morning opens up into a brilliant fall sun. My first stop was at Chipping Norton for some breakfast. I then headed north and to avoid a bad access to the highway, I took a side road out of town. This led to an english 1-1/2 lane road which meandered towards Banbury hardly a car to be seen, and spectacular views. I ambled about for a while and stopped for the occassional pic.
After touring around for a few hours, I veered towards Boughton on the Water where I had a very large "carvery" lunch and sat by the river.
Following lunch it started to cloud, and went south to get closer to my Monday destination of London. Found a great little town on the river Thames that had a collection of houseboats and river travellers.
I rented a VFR (9 years newer than mine) and road up to Oxford. Without a definate plan or destination I did much wandering as I found my way out of London. It was a grey day with the prospect of some sun that never materialized, but there was no rain and I quickly found a few twisty roads south of Oxford. This VFR has a VTEC engine which opens an additional 8 valves once you hit 7K revs, and sounds more like a Ferarri.
My first stop was just south of Oxford where I referenced my UK Bikers Bible of bike roads.
Arrived in London on September 11th. Very few people on our plan and was able to stretch out in the middle seats. I made a hotel reservation for the 10th (flight date), but didn't take into account that day change, oops. So our hotel reservation was cancelled. Fortunately we could get a room for the night, but a busy week in London and again several hotel hops during the stay. Great client meetings throughout the week and accomplished our goal of furthering design of gitello.
