500 Posts!

I think 500 posts counts as an accomplishment worthy of celebration- and so I will appropriate pictures of another celebration-- My friend Elena had a birthday picnic yesterday and I finally got around to getting out my camera. I know Elena through fire-hazard and at any of our events there are, necessarily, nerf guns. It was a gorgeous day, my kite was attached to a bike and happily darting around in the sunlight, and there was hummous in 1 litre containers. A perfect setting for an all out nerf war.

The sky was blue, and I was sitting on the grass which meant that the sky kept beautifully framing people trying to shoot me. I started taking pictures and that soon developed into figuring out the best way to photograph a dart in flight. Most of the time this ended up with me being shot in the face and a menacing picture devoid of darts. Everyone once in a while it actually worked  and that was tremendously exciting:

Josh got hit in the face. 

I got hit in the face twice and totally missed Josh, but look! THREE darts flying through the air!!

Tom was out to get Ruth.

Gwyn looking all badass and trying to figure out how to cock two nerf pistols at once without the aid of a third hand....

Group Shot. (Heh. Pun.)

4th of July

The fourth of July was very well celebrated over here. On the third a bunch of us made a picnic and trekked over to Victoria park where they were having a World Music Festival. The vibe felt a bit like the concerts at Woodland Park Zoo where yes, the music is wonderful, but the real joy is in the picnics, little children dancing, people watching, and chatting with your friends. We made, once again, about 3 times as much food as was really probably necessary and had a marvellous time. Some of the non-musicians were a bit bewildered as the rest of us nattered away trying to sort out just what time signature each song was in.

At nine the park closed but we weren't done hanging out so we walked along the canals and ended up in a field right next to a pub where we sat and chatted for another couple of hours. I've recently learned to do headstands consistently and as it was a nice balmy evening and the grass was soft- I kept tipping myself upside down. Might need to stop doing that...I think I'm starting to annoy my friends...

On Sunday Meredith and I went up to Nottingham to visit Sarah and Dave and Dave's family. We had a big barbecue, met a bunch of his relatives, and re-enacted the battle of Trent with water pistols. It was very silly. Some of Dave's second cousins-in law (...) were visiting from Australia. One of them was an eight year old named Amy who had a pony named Aussie, a cat named Bull, and two adolescent mastiffs whose names I have forgotten though I am certain that I was told. She was great. Really looking forward to the wedding now, it was lovely to see Dave's family on their own turf- all relaxed and friendly and funny. So welcoming to us as well. We all took the train back to London together and it was nice to have the dinner club together again. We played a version of the surrealist game the exquisite corpse. In our version you write a phrase, the next person draws it, the third person writes a phrase that the drawing is illustrating, the next person draws that phrase, and so on until the paper is all used up. We thought to use Newspaper headlines as the phrases and ended up with some seriously bizarre results.

No fireworks, but a very well celebrated Independence Day none the less.

PS. Happy Belated Birthday, Mical!