Afternoon at the beach

We've all been slack, lately. I have returned to college and, for some reason, I am unbelievably - and depressingly - busy. But this is the holiday weekend, and also our anniversary weekend, and we managed to get to the beach yesterday for a lovely fall walk. Unfortunately both Rich and I are ill... but hopefully the worst is behind us both :)

no it's not underexposed..its arty!!!!!

i know... we've been slack!

but here are a couple of recent photos of grace.

grace and her class mate and neighbourhood friend, juan. and grace with bright pink cast! she's in 2nd grade and loving it. the school here has been a really wonderful experience for grace. she definitely thrives in a large, school with lots of diversity.....quite a far cry from her little brixham school!

Day at the coast

Baby Archie

And here he is.. the newest member of the Clan:

Archie Bear Uppal (Campbell!)


Becca with baby Archie



Mum and dad with Grandson, Archie....

Becca and Archie...

Today's Scorecard

Today's scorecard perfectly depicts the highs and lows of playing sports. The first set went exactly the same way as yesterday - I lost 6-0! O'no, not again, everything (namely serving), was not going well. Then, then the second set completely changed - with both of us playing well - it went to a tie-breaker and well, a 7-6 set victory stopped the tennis rot for me!! We were exhausted afterwards given that we had games with 10-15 deuces, so we are good for nothing this evening....except the boys need a walk soon!

check out this myspace link....there you will see the cd cover for the album 'everything that's good' designed by me!! the picture by the way for anyone that cares! is of a fairground ride on paignton green circa 2007!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=26819200

Summer Pics

Mixed Bag

We are still playing tennis - and it's been a mixed bag results-wise for the both of us. Even though Al has a fractured rib, she has still wanted to get out there and recapture our golden tennis years of 99-00.

On Wednesday, we tried some new courts in Portland, Deering Oaks Park which runs close to the busy 295, not far from the center of Portland. Well, it was a good day for me - running out a 6-4, 6-4 winner with both of us playing well. Though Al, facing the busy road, offered the theory that the cars were putting her off! I thought it was the smashes I was hammering down, but could see that it had some validity to it.

So today, back to our quiet court in Standish, surrounded by trees and birds singing - and well, it harked back to 1998 when we first picked up the rackets in anger and Al would hand out near daily solid defeats since I went down like a lead balloon today - 6-2 and 6-0. Boy that hurt, and reflecting back on it now - I'm thinking the trees put me off! That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

Salt Water Moon

Al & I went to the theater last Friday, at a favourite little spot of ours - the Saco River Grange, Bar Mills. It's a great spot on the banks of the Saco River, and fits about 100 people at the most. It harks back to a victorian playhouse, and the audience are perched on small seats, very close together. The back few rows are elevated.

The play was called 'Salt Water Moon' by David French, and was set in Newfoundland a few years after the end of the First World War. Its themes were mainly rekindling old love, festering resentment of the war's victims etc. It had only two characters and the accents were quite Irish sounding. There lay the plays problems, since the female character started out talking too fast and quiet and with the accent too - we both lost the plot for a few minutes. It improved quickly, but I'm sure that any older audience members towards the back must have had real difficulty listening or thought it was mime. Though the male character had a booming voice/part so that balanced things somewhat.

Overall, the performance/writing was good, and the performers were excellent - though we were pleased when it was over, since we began to get a bit uncomfortable, and we thought there was a second part but then Al saw it didn't have an intermission so when the couple embraced it was all over. We're not huge fan's of only two part plays (we didn't know beforehand), since it's all back and forth, back and forth with little silence, light relief etc. We were (sorta) hoping that some character would have burst in on the proceedings with a loaded shotgun and....well, made it a murder/crime mystery!

Another cutie

photoshop and grace

Anyone for Tennis?

It's been over 8 years since I picked up a racket, and I believe that my last match was playing Sam and Melissa with Rich. Too many running injuries to play, I thought my tennis playing days were well over. Rich played 6 years ago with a couple of British guys in Boston... But last weekend, with memories of Tiger Tim in mind, we headed to the local court and resumed our play. It's been a lot of fun... We're a long way from our epic matches in Spain, but it's surprising what you remember.

Rich was VERY keen to blog following our first scoring match, which, of course he won in a 7-6 tie-break, but less keen when, the next day I thrashed him 6-2,... and then the next day 6-1. He did come back ad take a set at 6-3, but yesterday we had another round and he lost 6-1.

Aside from tennis we've been busy gardening, swimming in the lake, cycling, rowing, and walking the pups...

Oh yes, and watching the Tour de France.

grace!

my ever willing photography subject!

the biggest butterfly i have ever seen!

maybe south carolina is the place where the worlds largest butterflies live! certainly gasped when we saw this one on our deck.

what's in there????

a quick note from here, having just been over there!

bex looking slightly rotund methinks! but also looking very pleased with herself!

Freya

This is the sweety Freya in her back garden.

Jose Gonzalez

Yesterday, Al & I headed off to Newmarket, New Hampshire to see Jose Gonzalez. He's only our favourite singer songwriter ever (well since 2006)! What he was doing playing in Newmarket, New Hampshire who knows - but he was, and we had tickets. If this was Sweden (where he's from, or the UK we may not have been so lucky, lucky, lucky - more of Kylie later in the post).

The venue (an old converted church) was very small and intimate - a bit like a concert in your living room. In fact we could have bought out the scrabble board while he was playing (please refer to a previous post for that reference). Actually it was better than a living room since it had a bar on one side. Probably held about 50 people with the same quality of music tastes!! We were near the front - on little folding chairs. The support band were fantastic too - the name escapes me - lots of spanish guitars and vocal harmonies.

Then Jose, came on and played most of the songs from his two albums, plus ending with a cover of Kylie Minogue's 'Hand on Your Heart' which was probably missed on the crowd since Kylie isn't a big deal over here (or Jason Donovan for that matter). Great cover, as was Massive Attack's 'Teardrop.' He played all our favourite songs bar 'Save Your Day' but it wasn't a huge disappointment since he was fantastic throughout. We await that third album, Jose - if it could be remixed by Zero 7 or Four Tet in some manner then you've got our $10+ guaranteed!

A summer walk

This is one of our favourite walks. It's a trail a mile down the road and much of it follows the old railway line. A couple of miles in and you reach two beautiful ponds which we all swim in during the summer. Rich often runs on the trail while I sometimes take my mountain bike out. I'll post some of those pics another time.


Waiting for dad... patiently...



Finally we reach the trail...




Sammy rolling AGAIN....



Rich does 'urban Mid-West'...





First swim of the season and Sammy takes the lead... Sammy wasn't a big swimmer last summer but this year he's already sprouting his water wings :-)





Mucky puppy drying off....



Slow journey home...




Dirty and tired puppies on their way home: