The Dog

Arty farty inside view

The Back entrance of The Dog

Here are some pics of our local pub "The Dog".  It is a really great pub with a nice quality of patron.  That sounds a bit snobby but there are a few other pubs closer to us that we do not feel comfortable in or even safe at some points.  The pub is especially good now that you can’t smoke.  There is a beer garden for the rare sunny day and also a great range of ciders and beers.  On Tuesday night they also have a free trivia night.  The food is quite good though typically british.  Our favourite is the BBQ chicken butty which is a chicken, bacon and lettuce in a roll  with chips quite nice and not too rich compared to the rest.

Our Thyme Plant

This is our lovely green thyme plant that grows on our window sill. It is nice to have a bit of green in our world as we have no garden and spend a lot of time indoors or hiding from the rain.

Warwick Castle

Collage of our visit to Warwick Castle

Here are some pics of our visit to Warwick Castle a few weeks ago. Warwick is a town about 1 hour away from us and is quite a nice place. It is mainly famous for its castle as far as tourism goes. At the end of the day they fired the replica trebuchet which is a big catapult type weapon in the bottom middle picture. It was pretty coll and fired a sacrificial virgin about 150 metres (just kidding).

The castle is different than most we have visited because it is not a ruin and has many functional rooms, though it is a lot younger than the others too.

The Wing Dragon

Finally what you have all been waiting for, video evidence of the wing dragon flying and taking off, but no good landings captured yet

Harrods is Crazy

Here is a video of an opera singer at the Harrods sales when we were there on the weekend. They really are hard core, there was a fossil mammoth tusk on sale for 75 000£ - amazing.

London!

We went to London again on the weekend. It was just as awesome as last time except that it was faster and busier. This was probably due to summer as there were lots of American tourists.
We went to the National History Museum on Saturday afternoon. It was fantastic with dinosaur skeletons, stuffed animals, birds and other cool things.

Can you tell which one isn't stuffed?

Saturday night we went into Soho where China Town and Leicester Square are. We really like it here because of all the little pubs and the awesome chinese food. We had a delicious dinner of peking duck, spring rolls, chicken and jelly fish, deep fried squid and fried rice! Very good. Then we had a few drinks at a couple of pubs. We stood outside most of the night and saw Kylie Minogue get into her car after dinner at J Sheeky's down the road. We didn't get a photo but luckily the paparazzi are always around, so here's one of theirs. Kylie. The pub on the left of her is where we were standing.

Sunday we went to the Tower of London. The lines to get tickets were huge but it was really good. There's heaps to see like the royal jewels and the armoury.

We thought the penis armour was quite a good idea!

The Wing Dragon Flies

A few weeks ago I bought myself a radio controlled plane - The wing Dragon. I was very excited as I think think most boys/men would be. My plane arrived by mail in a huge box and I quickly assembled it and on the first night too it out to fly. One of the rules with these smaller electric planes is that wind speed must be very low or the plane is knocked around too much. So of course the first flight with virtual gales blowing wasn't very fruitfull: Three crashes and one particularly bad one at the end that broke the wing. I repaired the wing but since then about 3-4 weeks ago, the wind has been blowing every day and I was beginning to think that maybe the plane was a dud or I was.
Well today I looked out the window and the trees were still. The battery was charged so we ventured down to the park, checked the flight controls and then launched................................



What a magnificent site. The wing dragon flying, not crashing and me in total control, turning, up and down, a loop and throttle control. We had 4 flights with 4 perfect nose up landings, not even a hint of a crash. Corinne and I were both ecstatic and we had 4 or 5 observers in the park too.

I now have renewed faith in the wing Dragon and myself and look forward to another windless day when i can take to the skies again!

PS neither of these photos are from today, they are form the first day of crashes, we didn't bring the camera today because we were sure it would be another sad day.

No More Smoke

Finally the smoking ban has come into place in England on the 1.7.07. Tonight we celebrated by going to the pub and now we are back and we don't feel sick or stink of smoke. It is great and although the pub was a bit quieter than usual it is so much better. I find it very satisfying to see the smokers standing outside all the pubs when i drive past.