Family drinks

This is my uncle Bud - taken when we were all having pre-dinner drinks.

Lunch in Annapolis

At the Dock Street Bar and Grill, bugers all round.

Visiting the boat

Day three of the families visit to DC for Xmas. We are in Annapolis to get some sailing clothes for my Father and show my sister Chuffed (the boat). Tried to get the engine started, but it was too cold and I gave up.

Dad and I having lunch at Stoney's, my neighbourhood bar. Mum and Joanna are clothes shoppikng. They all arrived safely and without delay from fog bound London last night. Mum had ommitted to tell me their flight details so I was a tad concerned.

Celebrating Xmas

Dinner at AV Ristorante, a DC institution. Due to close Oct 18 next year, a casualty of the gentrification of DC. The pic is of Jennie, who is not so amused by the photo!

Xmas Tree

I put up my tree yesterday. It is a quite a bit smaller than previoujs years, but fits well in the corner b y the stairs. I did, however, only have to use half of my lights and decorations. Ciao for now.

Lunch with Jacobsens

Lunch with Simon and Ruth at Peacock Café.

Los Amigos Invisibles

The pic below is of a Venezuelan band, playing at Black Cat. Great fun ......

Dinner with friends

Reinvigorating my blog

It has been quite some time since I have posted to my blog. I have upgraded so that I can now upload from my phone - which is what I am testing with this entry.

I am sitting taking a coffee in my local Caribou Coffee shop. It is a great day, although thirty degrees colder than it has been all week. A shame really, the last few days have been great winter sailing conditions - freah and breezy. Today - of course - it is just still and cold.

Visit soon!

Catching Up

It has been a long time since I updated my news. It is now May and I have been spending a lot of time sailing. I am trying to go at least once each weekend - weather permitting. The boat is working out well, and I am very pleased that I have kept it at Mears Marina (http://www.mearsannapolis.com/) in Annapolis.

This picture is of me sailing and watching the Volvo Round the World yachts when they were visiting Baltimore and Annapolis. I went out to see them twice, the first time was The Bay race a couple of friends Giles and Olivia came, and Giles took these great pictures of the Volvos.

The next week I went with a bunch of friends to see the start of the Annapolis to New York leg of the race. The wind shifted at the start, so the yachts ended up having to sail through the spectator fleet -which was great to watch. Unfortunately my photos are not that great.

The week before was very busy with Simon and Ruth's wedding. My parents had been visiting the previous week (and yes I had gone sailing), and then Roger and Sandrine came to stay. It was really great fun having them visiting, and the wedding was a blast. We had gone shooting for Simon's bachelor party out in the Virginia countryside, followed by a really great dinner in DC. (And then early to bed as it was school night.

What a motley crew. There were some very good shots - although I cannot claim to one of them. One of the guns was quite cool - a carbon fibre recoiless shot gun.

After Roger and Sandrine left I had my place to myself. The following Thursday, I went to the 100th anniversary Gala of the American Jewish Committee. It was really incredible, the President spoke, as did Angela Merkel of Germany and Kofi Anan of the UN. Although I am not, what you would call a fan of Bush, he did make a good speech which included a strong denunciation of the genocide in Darfur. As did Merkel. Anan's speech however was very limp and disappointing.

The other exciting news I have is that Isabel and Simon, and most importantly my Goddaughter Georgia came to visit. They stayed with Amanda and Jonathan, but I was able to spend quite a bit of time with them. And I got to take Georgia to Peacock Cafe, one of my favourite restaurants.

Keep visiting for more news. Mark

Jan 8th

The new year is going well so far. I went to check on the boat today and all is ok. I was able to fly the courtesy Red Ensign that Joanna gave me for Xmas. I have been playing with video-email. My first attempt, a tour of my flat can be found by clicking here. My video skills need some practice (although in my defense I was only using an inexpensive webcam) ~ and for some reason the audio cuts off half way through.