#365 New Look

Here is a 'new' bike, built from bits in my spare parts box, plus 52€ on a new bottom bracket, seat pin and some handlebar tape.

I'm sure it will come in useful . . . somewhere . . . somehow . . . .

#364 Paella Bacalao

Friday: Lunch.
Restaurant: Sendra, Las Rotas, Denia.
Foreground: Paella Bacalao (salt cod paella).
Background: Mediterranean Sea

#363 Russian Pin

I just found a pin I was given by a young Russian soldier (Private Putin?) at the Goodwill Games in St Petersburg in 1994. I was with the Nike marketing manager who was handing out Nike caps in some sort of guerrilla marketing scheme. The soldier wanted to give something in return so gave me his hat pin. Браво!

#362 London Olympics

We buzzed down to Canary Wharf to lunch with John and Jasmine,
the Supremos of the 2012 London Olympic Triathlon.


















John gave me a LOCOG badge which I'm wearing with pride.






















Then we took the river bus up the Thames, passed under a wet Tower Bridge before landing at the Embankment and a stroll up through Covent Garden.

#361 Big Birthday & Lucky Draw

For my Mum's 90th Birthday six Lillies and six other friends had a slap up Sunday lunch at the Clissold Arms in Muswell Hill. We sat in the 'Kinks Room' which had been decorated with Kinks ephemera, interesting to me as the group is about my age and were our famous local band from back in the 60's.

The day before we three Lillie Boys went out for a Full English Breakfast, then to the Emirates stadium to watch the Arsenal scrape a draw against Leeds United in the FA Cup and a pint of Guinness on the way home. :-)

#360 Arthur

We came back to England for Arthur's funeral. While looking through his photo's I came across these pictures from his time in the Second World War. These three photos were taken in Berlin; showing the Brandenburg Gate, Arthur's foot on Hitler's broken head and the third with a mate and a statue in Hitler's bunker. An important time to arrive in Berlin and quite an experience for him, I imagine.

#359 Jamón Jamón

Not to be confused with Bigas Luna's 1992 film Jamón Jamón, starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, this is a genuine leg of Spanish ham destined for a friend of ours who has provided the Lillie Boys with tickets for the FA Cup game: Arsenal v Leeds on Saturday.
¡ Animo !