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Sophie and the adorable Kitty Mae came over for a visit to our house. To see the photos click here click here

Later the same day I took a lot of photos of Kitty with her father Ash. To see the photos click here click here

It was Ralph’s 70th birthday party on Saturday night, lots of old friends, plenty of great food and drink, and meandering conversations into the early hours.

Ilse and I shared her camera and to see our photos click here click here

We took a walk up the Lea Valley today and around Walthamstow Marshes which in the unflattering dull light of a cold early March afternoon was spectacularly ugly in parts. I quite enjoyed it in a perverse sort of way.

Isabel and I travelled over to the Isle of Dogs yesterday to have a look the ‘Voyage’ art installation by Aether & Hemera which, we were promised, would consist of a flotilla of 300 paper boats with coloured lights sailing along Canary Wharf’s Middle Dock which you could control with your mobile phone. In reality it was a bit disappointing, although we did succeed, sporadically, in controlling the pattern of the lights using our iPhone. Although the installation was a bit of let down the actual trip was oddly fun, wandering around Canary Wharf at dusk was a novel experience and even navigating our way back through the rush hour was entertaining.

Here are some photos I shot at Kings Cross and St Pancras yesterday. I first encountered Kings Cross nearly fifty years ago when I went to secondary school in the area, back then it was even darker, greyer and dingier than the rest of London. Who could have imagined it would transformed into a cathedral of light.

 
Here is a photo of the brightly coloured cranes at work at the back of the station.

Sophie had her baby, a beautiful daughter called Kitty Mae.

To see all the photos of Kitty Maeclick here

I took a couple of photos outside my house yesterday evening when it was snowing and then today I wandered around Hampstead Heath taking photos. I do like snow.

To see more photos of the snow on Hampstead Heath click here

The New Year’s party at Tremlett Grove was a treat, Auld Lang Syne accompanied by trumpet, a waltz accompanied by trumpet and piano, a mountain of food and intoxicants, and of course the fantastic company and conversations of old friends.

To see all the photos from the party click here

Celebrating the new year – a few minutes of video

So Christmas has come and gone. A strange but pleasing period of cooking, eating, wrapping, unwrapping, slothful munching on the sofa interspersed with sudden periods of frenetic activity and large, noisy social gatherings, all conducted under grey leaden skies and a relentless pattering of rain.

Christmas Day was just just Isabel and I and Jess and Rosie plus a very satisfying Christmas dinner of roast lamb followed by two feature films back to back, after which the sofa had to be surgically detached from our arses.

Boxing Day was the customary large gathering of the extended Russell clan in Hackney, swirling noise and a seeming chaos out of which materialised a perfectly cooked roast beef dinner followed by an energetic Secret Santa round and a rather perfunctory game of Trivial Pursuits. Throughout the proceedings Cait’s young boys relentlessly sniped at everyone with their dart guns. And in the middle of it all sat a very pregnant Sophie whose baby may well have arrived by the time you read this.

Two days after Boxing Day it was the turn of the Swash family to gather, a process complicated by the need to arrange the logistics of transporting several elderly relatives. This was my Dad’s 89th Christmas. There was the usual chaos and noise in the midst of which everyone was well fed and cared for by Mel, Gary and their two boys. There was another energetic round of Secret Santa with a surprisingly low level of present stealing and then, once the older attendees had been safely taken home, a slow wind down and some surprisingly intense and serious discussions.

Needless to say I managed to grab quite a few nice photos and even a bit of video.

To see all photos from Christmas Day click here

To see all photos from Hackney click here

To see all photos from the Swash family gathering click here

Christmas Day at home

Boxing Day in Hackney

A few minutes of video from the Secret Santa in Hackney

 
 
The Swash family gathering
 

 
A few minutes of video from the Swash Secret Santa
 

Sophie and I went for a very pleasant lunch in the delightful cafe at Clissold Park today and then for a walk in the cold clear sunshine. The frost on the plants was exquisitely beautiful. Sophie will be a mum within a month.

To see more Clissold Park photos click here

We walked part of the Lea Valley today, in the crisp and frosty sunshine, from Clapton to the Olympic Park. It was quite busy with walkers, cyclists and runners but still very relaxing. Walking a canal in London always makes me feel as if I have stepped outside the city. We stopped at The White Building opposite the Olympic Park for tea and some delicious pizza. It feels as if that part of London is about to be transformed, you can feel the energy building up, obviously boosted enormously by the Olympic Park. I suspect in five years the whole area will be a very different sort of place, it reminded me of how Kings Cross felt a few years back. We plan to go back soon and explore the artists quarter on Fish Island.

To see all the photos from the Lea Valley click here

We visited the wonderful Ansel Adams exhibition, ‘Photography from the Mountains to the Sea’, at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich today. Not only were the photos brilliant and inspiring but the actual exhibition was in itself delightfully put together, plus there was a great cafe for lunch. I walked back along the river to Rotherhithe and took a few photos which I developed in the style of Ansel Adams, you just can’t beat a stark black and white photo sometimes.