Foto Friday

A late arrival today. Sorry, been busy at work since 6.30am this morning...

This week's photo was taken in Pamplona last year. It is from the opening ceremony of the Running of the Bulls or Festival of San Fermin as it is officially called.

The opening ceremony takes place in the main square and is a claustrophobic's worst nightmare. There are so many people that you can lift your feet off the ground and just hang in mid-air. It also gets very messy with people squirting bubbly everywhere and throwing flour once the midday gun fires to officially open the fiesta!

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Malta holiday pics

I thought I'd try something new. Below are some of my holiday photos from Malta. To view them a little bigger, just click on them.

Let me know what you think.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Foto Friday

Photo Friday time again! This week is a dive photo from my holiday. Yes, I finally got them back from the lab today!

The photo is of a lobster hiding in under a rock. Can you see it?

Chat soon,
DelBoy

DelBoy on...

OK, so it's been a while since my last post (about 2 weeks!). Time for a little catch-up!

DelBoy on work: I'll start with the boring stuff. Work has been really busy since coming back from my holidays. I'm running two pubs at the moment. The second pub is a gastro pub in Holland Park - very posh! It's fun, 'cos its something very different. They do double the sales that my other pub does and they do as much food in a day as what my pub sells in a week! It's only short-term until they find another manager, but apparently I'm there for at least another 4 weeks!

DelBoy on Carnival: I had a great Carnival this year. Not the working bit or the money we made, but the after-party I had with my staff. We drank steins (1 litre) of Margarita and shots of vodka until 3am. The neighbours were having a wicked party on their balcony which we joined. The next morning I felt it though!

DelBoy on Josh: The weekend before Notting Hill Carnival, we had an incident with Josh. We rushed him to hospital, but he is 100% now. As a matter of fact, they found nothing wrong with him at all!! They can only guess at what happened, but I tell you what, IT WAS F#$£!^G SCARY!! He is great now except that he went for his injections this week which he was not too keen on.

DelBoy on holidays: Malta is great! If any of you get the chance, just do it! Its quite cheap too (well if you come from London it is). The weather was magnificent all week - minimum temperature around 26 degrees C! The food on the island is delicious and very cheap - 3 course meal for 2 people plus bottle of wine for around GBP£15. Not only are there some fantastic beaches, but there is also a lot of history on the isalnds (5 of them) if you are interested in that kind of thing. I managed to do 6 scuba dives whilst there too, including a night dive.

DelBoy on diving: Although the water temperature averaged around 26 degrees C, I was a little disappointed in what I saw under the water. The fishlife wasn't very colourful - a bit like diving in Cape Town. The plantlife was a little better. The night dive was magnificent though 'cos there were loads more fish about. The 2 wreck dives were great too 'cos the wrecks have only been down there since 23 August 2006 and they are still very intact. I would love to go back next year just to see how things have changed! The dive in Comino Caves was also beautiful if only for the magnificent colours!

That's me for now. I will post some holiday snaps soon.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

PS: DelBoy on rugby: Despite getting the wooden spoon in this year's Tri-Nations, I would just like to re-iterate my favourite saying, "You're only as good as your last game". And yes, we beat the Kiwis by one point and then the Aussies by 24 - 16!

Foto Friday

This week's photo was taken in Cambridge a few years ago. It is the 'Mathematical Bridge'. It was originally designed and built in 1749. As myth would have it, this bridge was originally built without nails or screws and was held together only by its various joints. The story goes that it was disassembled by the Fellows of Queens College who then couldn't put it back together again without the use of nuts and bolts! For more info, see the Queens College website.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Foto Friday

Photo time again. Let's see what I can dig up for you this time...

How about this one? It was taken in November last year. We went to watch the rugby (we lost btw). Can anyone guess the city? Easy!!!

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Composure

Patience definitely is a virtue!

Today I had to go to the Home Office to pick up my and Josh's passports. This, in itself, is a nightmare 'cos it usually means waiting around for about 4 hours in a sterile government building with no music, heating (at least it's still warm over here) or smiling, just the occasional "ticket number A154 to counter number 29 please"!

But today was worse! I left home around 9.20am. Catching the tube was fine. I got to Victoria Station only to discover a 45 - 55 minute delay on all trains due to a thoughtless jumper at Clapham Junction. Why do people jump in front of high-speed trains at peak times? Can't they be more thoughtful to the rest of the world and do it in the middle of the night or something? After all, the Gatwick Express runs almost 24 hours a day!

Anyway, we pull out of the station 45 minutes later than expected on what should have been a 16 minute train ride to East Croydon (where the aforementioned Home Office is situated) only to stop just outside Clapham Junction station.

At first I assumed that it something to do with the insensitive jumper, but when the driver announced that we had to disembark, I started to get a little suspicious. The front 2 coaches were unloaded onto the platform first, then the back 2 (where I was sitting) were told to get off onto the tracks once the power was cut. When they told us to leave all bags on the train, I knew that something definitely was wrong! We started to make our way to the rear of the train and when I was about 6 feet from the door, the driver announced the all clear!

We then waited for them to power up the tracks and train again, move fully into the station and get everyone back onto the train before setting off once again.

Apparently some (even more inconsiderate, thoughtless, selfish) plank had climbed onto the train at Victoria with his suitcase and then got off again, forgetting the case on the train. This was duly reported to the driver who called ahead for the bomb squad!

An hour and a half later, I arrived in Croydon. Luckily I am a very patient person because another two and a half hour wait lay ahead for me at the Home Office!

I finally got back to London at 4pm, passports in hand!

I can't wait for my holiday next week...

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Foto Friday

In honour of this weekend's Notting Hill Carnival, I thought I would post a photo from my first ever Carnival experience - August 1993!

If any of you are interested, I will have my webcam on for this year's Carnival. The cam will run on Sunday and Monday from midday until whatever time (GMT of course!).

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Detox

Well, 7 days into the detox programme and I'm still in one piece. The headaches are gone and so is some of the weight. I'm very proud to say that I lost 2.5kg and 2cm off the waist just by cutting out the junk food!

The 'detox'/diet food that we ate this past week would have filled an elephant there was so much! I loved the cabbage rolls (sorta like lasagne) and I even got to eat a lamb steak and drink most of a bottle of red on Friday night!

Must clearly state though that I didn't care much for the tofu pasta on Sunday. That went straight out the window!!

Week 2 continues...

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Mountain Bike Video

For those of you that are interested, I have put the helmet cam video of our ride last Tuesday onto the net. Fall and all!

The video is on my video blog or you can see it at Vimeo.com

Chat soon,
Del