John - Archived Entries for 2013 / 7

Try to pretend you don't want one of these tweed caps.

Dr John Hawkins

Welcome to my bit of the Maison de Stuff, home to a huge load of pictures, and my daily blog.

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Recent Entries:: Bubbles
Monday
Sunday in Abergavenny
Saturday in Abergavenny
Erika and the Dyson
Coffee
Birling Gap
Warwick Square
Erika's Play Pen
Panda Kopanda
Chap Olympiad
Friday
New Shirt
Polpo
Frank
Monday
Wimbledon Men's Final
Grandma Visiting
Goodby George, Hello Ai-san
Thursday
Wednesday
Tuesday
Monday
Downe

Bubbles: [Tuesday 23rd July 2013]
Blowing bubbles out in the garden.
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Monday: [Monday 22nd July]
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Sunday in Abergavenny: [Sunday 21st July 2013]
Sunday in Abergavenny, including lunch at the Bridge Inn in Herefordshire.
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Saturday in Abergavenny: [Saturday 20th July 2013]
Spent the day relaxing at Vera and Robin's house in Abergavenny.
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Erika and the Dyson: [Friday 19th July 2013]
Just a couple of pictures of Erika and our vaccuum cleaner.
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Coffee: [Thursday 18th July 2013]
Just one picture of mine and Kyle's coffees at work.
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Birling Gap: [Wednesday 17th July 2013]
What with all the hot weather we've been having recently it seemed a shame to just be stuck in the office all week. To add to that Chie seemed like she could do with a bit of a break from her daily routine of looking after Erika. So I took the day off, and we headed down to the coast.

It's hard to find a really good beach within a short-ish train journey of London, but I recall Birling Gap being at least quite scenic from the time when we walked along the Seven Sisters. So I decided we should head there. We got the train to Eastbourne, and after a bag of chips and some amount of faffing about trying to find when and where the bus went from, got the bus from there to Birling Gap.

The beach at Birling Gap is mostly pebbles, with just a few small sandy patches. I had images before we got there of lazing in the sun as Erika crawled about on the sand in a carefree fashion, but that didn't really materialise. I don't think she really knew what to make of it, and the sun was just a bit too strong today to want to stay out for long. I did dangle her feet in the water a bit, we bought a bucket and spade and just about managed to make a token sandcastle, and then Erika quite proudly carried her new bucket around as we took a look around the rockpools. So perhaps at least a partial success then.
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Warwick Square: [Tuesday 16th July 2013]
Met up with some of the other NCT Mums and Dads in Warwick Square Gardens in the evening.
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Erika's Play Pen: [Monday 15th July 2013]
Set up Erika's new playpen today, given that she's crawling now, and it isn't safe to leave her in the room by herself even for a minute!
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Panda Kopanda: [Sunday 14th July 2013]
Fairly quiet day, we'd originally planned to go to a picnic in West London with some of Chie's friends, but Erika wasn't very well so we decided not to in the end. So we just went out briefly in the afternoon to do a bit of shopping at Sainsbury's and Holland and Barrett.

Watched Panda Kopanda with Erika in the evening. Her attention span didn't last very long but at least at the start she appeared to be enjoying it.
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Chap Olympiad: [Saturday 13th July 2013]
Following last year's very short stint at the Chap Olympiad (as a result of having to go to Canada), this year I was determined to go for a decent amount of time, no matter what. Unsurprising then that fate conspired to have me end up being triple booked today.

In particular I'd noticed in past years that people take their kids along, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do something with Erika, and give Chie a bit of a break for a while at least.

It was tremendous fun as always, and an exceedingly pleasant feeling to be surrounded by other Chappish types.

In the evening, after popping back home briefly to change and help give Erika a bath, I went along to one of the other social occasions I'd been triply booked for (I forget what the third one was now, but it obviously fell by the wayside altogether) - part of Kyle's stag do. Owing to an unfortunate skiing accident earlier in the year, Kyle's stag do had rather unusually been postponed until after he got married.

It was a full day event, with various activities involved, but I just joined for some of the evening - dinner at place called Beagle in Hoxton, and then a drink at a bar near Old Street called "Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes". All very hipstery.
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Friday: [Friday 12th July]
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New Shirt: [Thursday 11th July 2013]
I'd picked up one of the two Turnbull and Asser Shirts I'd had made yesterday, and tried it on this evening. It is, of course, rather a good fit, and I'm really pleased with the cloth too - a sort of twill weave.

The other of the two shirts hadn't fared so well - I'd ordered a blue and white striped cloth, and somehow they'd ended up making it in a pink cloth instead. Then to compound matters they told me a couple of days later they'd ran out of the original cloth I'd ordered. Ho, hum.
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Polpo: [Wednesday 10th July 2013]
Goodbye lunch for Ai-san at Polpo.
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Frank: [Tuesday 9th July 2013]
Had dinner at the Coal Hole in the evening with Ai-san and Frank.
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Monday: [Monday 8th July 2013]
Just one picture of Erika playing with Ai-san's phone.
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Wimbledon Men's Final: [Sunday 7th July 2013]
I thought I'd give Chie another complete break this afternoon, so she went out shopping with Ai-san again, and I took Erika along to Al's house. He'd invited us there for the afternoon to watch the Wimbledon men's final in his back garden. I'd just assumed it would be an excuse to drink Pimm's and eat strawberries on a surprisingly summery day, but despite my general disinterest in all sports couldn't help but be quite excited at Andy Murray actually winning.

Erika had been pretty happy for most of the time there, but her mood had deteriorated during the last half hour or so of the game, and so I missed a lot of the build up to the end. Still, even though she was a bit teary (I think she was just tired and wanted a nap) it was lovely to be there with her at that moment - I'd never known a British champion at Wimbledon in all my lifetime up to now, but Erika saw one before she was even a year old.

Another favourite moment of the afternoon came when Erika was playing with the toy picnic set Chie had got her in Liberty earlier this week. One of the guests commented that Erika's picnic set appeared to have a little bottle of Champagne in it, which prompted another guest (I forget who) to say "She's John's daughter, of course it does".
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Grandma Visiting: [Saturday 6th July 2013]
Mum came to visit today, which made for a good opportunity to give Chie the afternoon off from parenting duties, so she could go out for lunch and then do some shopping with Ai-san.

Mum arrived some time after midday, we first fed Erika, then went out to get things for a picnic lunch out in the garden (of which I actually forgot to take any pictures)., with a jug of Pimm's. It was a lovely day for it - after a very disappointing June, July is really feeling like a proper summer so far.
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Goodby George, Hello Ai-san: [Friday 5th July 2013]
Leaving drinks for George, and then in the evening Ai-san arrived from Japan, and we had fish and chips in the garden.
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Thursday: [Thursday 4th July 2013]
Erika came to my office for lunch, and had raspberries in the evening.
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Wednesday: [Wednesday 3rd July 2013]
Oddly just took some pictures of my Hyatt Platinum card which arrived today.
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Tuesday: [Tuesday 2nd July]
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Monday: [Monday 1st July 2013]
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Downe: [Sunday 30th June 2013]
Went down to Downe for the afternoon.
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