After an excitable hour of getting ready, eating breakfast and watching the BBC build up, I headed off to the train to meet Jo and Ed.

We had chosen to head to Hyde Park, as they were setting up large screens to let the crowds watch the wedding.  We had assigned picnic duties to ensure that we had enough food and drink.  My assigned items were Champagne and strawberries .  Jo and Ed had prepared sandwiches and a host of other food, plus they also brought another 2 bottles of Champagne…alcohol was not going to be in shortage!

On arrival to Hyde Park, we were surprised to see that there were in fact 3 HUGE screens set up – each about the height of a 4 story house.  There was also a large collection of temporary bars, food stalls and merchandise stands.  Even if we did manage to get through the champagne (we did), there were plenty of supplies within easy reach

I guess we must had sat down on our picnic blanket by about 9:30.  We opened our first bottle of champagne by 9:35.  Popping open the first bottle at such an early time in the morning felt slightly naughty and exciting…but not in a society outcast kind of way.  Trust me – we would have been the odd ones out if we were NOT opening a bottle of champagne.

The buzz in Hyde Park was infectious. There was a strong festival like atmosphere.  The whole crowd were there for a common purpose, the crowd had chosen to sit on the grass, the crowd had chosen to be amongst other people rather than sitting at home in front of the TV.  The numbers of conversations with strangers and the willingness to hug random passers-by was way higher than usual.  The level of public camaraderie was atypically strong – what a great feeling!

The huge concert style, parabolic speaker sets ensured that everyone in Hyde Park was kept informed with each and every development of the wedding ceremony.  In fact, the speakers were even used to project ambient crowd cheering sounds across the park – noticeable by the eerie silence each time they muted the speakers at various points throughout the day.

The BBC switched their coverage to show the crowds in Hyde Park every now and again, just to remind us that the whole world was watching us! That felt pretty damn good

OK, time for another one of those emotional moments!…

Kate walked down the isle of Westminster Abbey, with a perfectly choreographed and beautiful set of clergymen, family, bridesmaids and page boys.

Hyde Park roared with laughter as Prince looked over his shoulder, caught a glimpse of Kate and then whispered something such as “She looks amazing” with a big smile to his nervous brother William.

Then it happened! The build up of emotion peaked.  The angelic sounds of choir were booming over the huge Hyde Park sounds system, the tens of thousands of people in the park were cheering and swaying in a sea of union jacks, it was impossible to escape the immense feeling of pride and excitement buzzing around the whole world at that moment in time…

THEN, the BBC switched to this stunning roof shot of the Abbey, showing the beautiful symmetry with the unmissable wedding dress as a centre point.  This served as a reminder of how big of an event this was!

This perfect shot summed up the grandeur of the day.  For whatever reason, or reasons, seeing this camera shot on the big screen, through the sea of British flags, and with the sounds of the orchestra and choir booming through the Hyde Park sound system, brought a little proud tear to my eye.  Thankfully I wasn’t the only one, it brought more than one tear to Jo’s eyes.

During the wedding vows, the eerie silence came back to Hyde Park as everyone listened carefully to each word from the priest, William and Kate.  There was a huge “ooooooh”, followed by a cheer from everyone in the park as William forced the (seemingly slightly too small) wedding ring on to Kate’s finger.  The park then erupted with cheers and celebration as they heard the words…”I pronounce you man and wife”.

As the choir (and Elton John) in Westminster Abbey started to sing “Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer” (“Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, feed me til I want no more, want no moooorre”), most of Hyde Park stood and listened, although a group of lads just behind us were singing at their loudest volume word for word – thanks to the lyrics which had been printed in the local London newspaper.

After the ceremony was complete, Hyde Park carried on partying thanks to the large amounts of BYO (BYO is an acronym i picked up in Australia meaning Bring Your Own) alcohol and food, the large selection of bars and a live band called ‘MIB” who entertained us with live covers of typical cheesey wedding songs from bands such as the Jackson 5 and Kool and the Gang.  We were also entertained by an on stage presenter who looked a bit like Dale Winton.  The rest of the afternoon was pretty much like being at a Hyde Park music festival (although the music wasn’t quite as good).

Yesterday, the 29th April 2011, was the date for the Royal wedding of William and Kate.  We decided to brave the crowds and head to London to part of the experience.  My story of getting up and motivated is worth capturing…

My day started off with an unwanted 7am alarm call from iPhone.  I jumped out of bed, muted the phone and switched the TV on to try and wake up my brain.  I’ll be honest – at that precise moment in time, I regretted arranging to meet friends early on a public vacation day.

I HATE the feeling of missing out on something just because I was too lazy to do it.  So a few minutes of watching the BBC news TV crews interviewing excited wedding spectators in central London, was all it took to get me excited and WANT to get out of bed.  I turned up the news loud enough to hear it in the shower, got washed and ready excitably quickly, and then thankfully had time for a quick bit of breakfast down in the kitchen whilst I continued to watch the build on the BBC.

I love how unexpected, and completely unpredictable moments often become the most memorable parts of an experience.  On the day of the wedding, one of the most memorable moments occurred for me before I had even left the house!

One of the BBC presenters was interviewing the crowd who have been camping out over night so that they could secure a spot to see the wedding procession.  The female presenter asked a question to a friendly, elderly (ish) looking man…

”So why did you come down here, rather than staying at home and getting a better view on television?”

to which the man responded…

1) ”Because you don’t get to meet great people like this by staying at home” (followed by a cheer from the crowd around him)

2) “Because being here makes it a memory you will never forget”

Seeing this, genuinely brought a little tear to my eye, whilst also getting me even more excited about getting in to London!  Before I had even arrived, that nice old guy had summed up the whole reason why we were getting out of bed early on a day off work.

We were going to be part of the crowd, we were going to make friends with the crowd, we were going to part of the event…we were going to make it a memory to never forget.

Despite having lived and worked in and around Reading for the past 8 years, the last time I went to the Reading festival was about 10 years ago…when I did not have the luxury of being able to get a train/taxi home, sleep in my own bed and shower. 

Whilst I wasn’t sure about going to a festival where I only knew 10% of the bands, I thought I would give it a try.  The festival got off to a great start when some random girls started conversation with me in the queue to get wristbands.  I am pleased to say that the friendly, unthreatening and inhibition free conversations flowed throughout the entire weekend.  For me, the people made the festival and a lot of the unfamiliar music pleasantly surprised me.  My list of favourite bands tagged on Spotify has increased significantly as a result of three happy, tiring and memorable days spent in the rain and sun.

Rather than a lengthy writeup, here are my 10 favourite quotes (in no particular order) from the festival…

It was not your fault this time

…which is of course referring to one of the main lyrics to ‘Little Lion Man’ by Momford and Sons.  I include this because they were one of the highlight bands of the whole festival for me due a number of reasons…

• the great album (‘Sigh no more’) I have been listening to for the past few weeks
• the great company I had from Gemma and Liz whilst watching the band…
  
• The awesome performance which included some songs which were emotional and audience arm sway educing, and others which had thousands synchronized in an energetic, drink spilling bounce. 

Here is the emotional opening performance of ‘Sigh no more’…

Would you mind if I sit on your shoulders to get a photo of the band?

…from the random girl (‘LOL’ painted forehead girl) who asked my friend Dan to assist her…

I love how everyone at festivals will say anything, ask anything and in most cases DO anything without inhibitions (see the next quote…).

 

Mate, can I borrow on of your spare cups? I need a pee

…from the random guy in the middle of the crowd who couldn’t make it to the gents toilets on the outer edge of the arena.  He quickly filled up one of the spare paper pint glasses I had, whilst the girls that were with him paid little attention…guess it’s wasn’t THAT unusual for them!

Mate, can I have another cup?

…yep, the same guy grabs another top quote spot 5 mins later when he asks me for ANOTHER cup! He actually managed to fill up 4 before we wondered off to another section of the audience!  Still, at least he didn’t throw the cups over the crowd…

At least it’s cold

If you watch a music festival audience for just a few minutes, you are likely to see music lovers throwing cups of liquid over the audience in front of them at least 5 times.  Now, bearing in mind the story of the guy from the previous quotes, and considering that the majority of people at the event cannot afford to waste drinks bought at festival prices…do you think all of the thrown cups contain alcohol?!

Most of the weekend was about rock music, but there was a refreshing dance music salvation in the NME tent on the Saturday night in the form of the computer game sound inspired Crystal Castles, Enter Shikari and crazily energetic Pendulum.

For some reason, we were in a spot which was repeatable targeted by cup throwers.  Every time we got hit, there was a lot of cringing, followed by “at least it’s cold”, which was the best method we had of determining that the liquid was at worst someone’s unwanted beer.

Here is a small clip of Crystal Castles with was accompanied by an amazing light show in the NME tent…

We’re staying over in Reading, but we haven’t got camping tickets or a hotel

…which sums up the care/consequence free attitude at the festival.  This lot didn’t seem to worried about the fact they were probably going to be sleeping on street (or not at all)…

No we didn’t offer them a place to stay! Well…at least I didn’t! I did leave Dan with them when I went home, so who knows?!….

 

You just lost the game

…which after a few glasses of wine I was very excited to see written on this guys t-shirt…

…even though none of my group knew what it meant, so looked at me strangely as I tried to explain.  For those who don’t know, here are the details…

Lose The Game – The World’s Most Infamous Mind Virus

 

Would you like a poncho?

…from the kind girl who gave me a free poncho as I walked through the Sunday afternoon rain in just a t-shirt, jeans, a flowery hat and a scarf.  Thank you strange girl – I was already soaked, but you did save me getting any wetter.

A British festival would not be the same without a bit of rain and mud…

I’m just a Teenage Dirtbag Baby

…for the awesome, audience pleasing, surprising and very memorable performance from Weezer! 

They sang a few of their hits which I didn’t know (but still enjoyed), as well as covers of ‘Kids’ by MGMT and ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus…

During the hour long performance the lead singer put on a blonde wig, danced on top of the speaker, high fived the entire front row of the the audience, rolled around in the mud and entertained the main stage audience will all of kinds of other stunts!  Weezer went from being a band I only knew from their ‘Buddy Holly’ song which was included as a sample ‘avi’ video file with Windows 95, to one of my favourite live performers this year!

We will meet you by the ice cream van

…which were the instructions my friend gave Mark to another friend Sam so that we could find her when entering the site.  Upon entering the arena, we discovered a little flaw in the plan – there were at LEAST 10 ice cream vans spread around the main arena.

Despite the challenges with finding people in the middle of huge crowds, with strong competition for limited space on the cell network and with numerous different acts playing on different stages at the same time, we did all manage to get together and share the experience of seeing some awesome bands playing live.  Top weekend, with top music and top friends!…

Rachael, Dan and I were planning to go kite boarding in Poole last weekend, however a lack of forecasted wind meant that we had to changes plans at the last minute.  What is the obvious thing to do when there is no wind? Sailing of course! (?!? )

Since Dan was the only one in the group who actually knew how to sail, starting out with a small amount of wind actually turned out to be a pretty good idea.  We booked in for 11am on Saturday morning, although we had to wait a little longer to start due to a sailing race which was happening on the same day.  After arriving at 10:30am, watching the professionals rig up their boats, playing a little Frisbee and enjoying the sun of what turned out to the be hottest day of the year so far, we we eventually wheeled out boat…

Once we (well, Dan) had got the sail set up, Mark and I boarded the boat for the first sail with ‘Captain Dan’.  Mark and I had literally ZERO experience sailing, so had to be taught which ropes to hold, when to pull and when to let go.  Dan got a little frustrated with us – although mainly when we were not taking it seriously and arguing over who was a better sailor.  Eventually we go the hang of it, and managed to have a lot of fun whilst also taking our job of ‘owning the front’ sail seriously…

Lessons learnt from captain Dan…

• A flappy sail is an unhappy sail
• ‘Li ho’ – actually, all I learnt was the phrase, no idea what it means
• Starboard=right, Port=left (although I did not learnt why they don’t just say right and left
• When the captain shouts “Ready about”, everyone is supposed to shout “Ready” to let him know they are ready to duck the mast as the boat turns

In addition, I learned that the wind can actually pull that boat, rather than push it!  I really had no idea about this before Dan explained how it worked.  The sail acts in a very similar fashion to a wing (or I suppose more accurately, a wing works in a similar fashion to a sail, since a sail has been around much longer).  So the boat actually sails IN to the wind when it’s curved surface produces a different in wind speeds on each side and results in a pulling effect.  Fascinating! Looking forward to getting some more experience sailing.

Despite not having much wind, we did manage to pick up speed on several occasions.  It was quite exciting each time we had to lean off the edge of the boat in an attempt to balance it each time we picked up speed.  Whilst I have not yet experienced sailing in strong winds, I can see that it requires team work, quick reactions and provides a great adrenaline rush.  Really looking forward to sailing properly in the sea

There were too many of us to all go on the boat at once, so we also had a picnic, Frisbees (which I somehow lost ) and kayaks…

Mark and I went for a circuit of the lake and thanks to the light winds actually managed to beat the boat around.  It was only when we go back to land that we realised we had been using the kids paddles!  Still lots of fun though   Whilst not quite the same, it reminded me of when Ali and I did sea kayaking in Thailand.  Definitely going to do more kayaking this year – maybe down the river in Reading next time.

The rest of the time at the lake was spent enjoying the sun, messing around and getting some awesome shots of (my now lost) Frisbees…

We’re in Cornwall for the weekend and today is a relatively free day.  Keith, Jen and I decided to take a trip to Looe, the lovely seaside town on the south coast…

I came here years ago with my parents during a caravanning holiday, at which time I had never been on a plane, so this seemed like the other side of the world!  Now days a 10 hour flight to Seattle seems as easy and common as a train ride in to London (more common at times in fact!), so the west coast of the UK feels just around the corner.

I must admit that it’s made me think about holidays and travelling, and made me realise that some of the sense of adventure has been lost lately.  I used to get excited to arrive at an airport, now days it’s become routine.  I used to feel uncomfortable, anxious, but excited when arriving in a new city or country, now days the places I visit do not provide enough unfamiliarity to provide a significant challenge.  Travelling in itself used to provide enough unique experiences to make feel like I was growing with every trip, that has not been the case recently.

Whilst I still love to travel and visit new places, I do recently feel a need to seek out ways to get outside my comfort zone.  Perhaps it’s physical challenges, perhaps it’s meeting new groups of people, perhaps it’s avoiding the comforts of hotels, perhaps it’s simply new locations/cultures I need…not sure yet, but definitely need to shake things up a bit! The question I can’t help but think about is ‘what then?’.  Is the pursuit of new experiences and challenges become a driving force in life and a source of constant personal growth?  Or simple a source of frustration and disappointment?  I think that former – as long as you spend more time ‘doing’ than you do ‘dreaming’.  Of perhaps the secret it to maintain a desire of change and challenges, whilst also being content from familiar and comfortable things.

In the mean time, here are a few pics of the lovely town of Looe, a beautiful spot for to enjoy one of the rare British days of sun, with fish and chips, Mr Whippy ice creams and crab fishing

Sailing boats by the harbour (no one was sailing today)…

A great spot for crab fishing…

Ye Old Lifeboat Station…

Tonight was a sausage fest at Windsor race course!  Yes that’s right, it was the ‘Best of British Sausage Festival’ horse racing night. 

Despite living just down the road, I have never been Windsor race course before tonight, so wasn’t sure what to expect.  We got Club Enclosure tickets, which got us entry to a nice section of the course with champagne/Pimms bars, plenty of space to watch the finish line close up and of course – the sausage festival…

10 or so English sausage producers proudly cooked their speciality sausages and handed out free samples to the visiting crowds.  All guests were supposed to vote for their favourite sausage, and the winning company supposedly was rewarded with an annual contract to sell their sausages at Windsor race events.  My personal favourites were from ‘Lewis of Sunningdale’, who cooked some lovely soft pork sausages which exploded and melted in my mouth with every bite…mmm…it’s nearly 11pm but I could still some now if I had any.  I think I will have to pay their farm shop a visit some soon!  

I also tried the Mexican food, which was OK, although I was slightly disappointed with the American style liquid cheese rather than good old grated Monterey Jack!

We were told that Lewis won the competition – no doubt partly down the very entertaining pair running the stall, who kept asking if there were any vegetarians and then offered anyone who put their hand up a bread roll

The Racing…

The event lasted for two and a half hours, featuring about 15 or so different horses over 6 races, with 30 minutes gaps in between to place bets, eat and drink champagne…

None of us had any idea what we were doing, so most of our selections were based on either how ‘pretty’ the jockey’s jersey looked, random numbers which popped in to our head or those horses with the most amusing names.  Keith and I did try to pick those with average odds, but quickly learned that it’s VERY difficult to successfully bet tactically.  We missed the first race because we arrived to late, and I mistakenly bet on the wrong race for my first bet, so I also technically missed the second race.  By the fifth race, none of us had one a single penny, but we decided to give it one last try for the sixth and final race…

I placed 3 bets, which totalled up to £7 (we had some vouchers to get free and discounted bets).  For one of my voucher discounted bets I was asked to choose three horses, so I selected three with varied odds – not actually having a clue what the bet meant and what I needed to win! 

The race finished, and 2 of the 3 I had selected came within the top three.  Zoe and I had similar, but slightly different bets, but neither of us thought we had actually won anything.  We went to check anyway, and I was VERY surprised to hear that I had won ‘52’, but then even MORE surprised to hear that it was 52 pounds, rather than 52 pence as I had initially thought!

It’s nice to actually get back from a night out in profit

It is the warmest day of the year in the UK so far (28 degrees or so), so it was a great evening to be outside, drinking champagne and watching the sun go down to the sound of horses galloping and people cheering.  Windsor is a lovely place, and the racecourse is a great place to spend any evening in the sun.

Yesterday we went for a random day in London and decided to check out Inamo, a restaurant which has an ordering process with a difference.  Rather than having paper based menus, and a waitress to take your oral order, the restaurant users interactive tables which project a digital menu of food, drinks and some other options directly on to the table service in front of you!

There is a large selection of Asian food to choose from, and an image of each menu choice is projected on to the plate in front of you as you navigate the options.

Despite appearing to be very similar to Microsoft Surface, the tables are way less sophisticated and in fact are merely a projector above each table, which displays a clever menu system to be navigated using a cursor controlled by a touch pad in the corner of the table.  It’s still VERY cool though!

As well as selecting food and drink, you can also use the menus to change the background, find out about local attractions and play games!  We started to play 2 player battle ships, however it’s a little silly because each player is shown a small display with their configuration on it – which is very easy for the person opposite to see and cheat.  Again – still very cool though

The food was amazing! There were four of us, so we ended up ordering a combination of things including fish, beef salad, cinnamon chicken (one of my favourites), duck pancakes and more.  We also all ordered dessert, and ended up coincidentally ordering exactly the same thing – Macaroon and white chocolate moose – mmmm

We also managed to get through 2 bottles of champagne, although I must admit that 2 glasses were knocked over – one by Ilona, and I forget who did it the second time The staff were very insistent on cleaning up the spill thoroughly – but were not too worried that we smashed a glass.

Our ‘lunch’ ended up lasting over 2 hours, and we were all STUFFED after the three courses of food which arrived in a random order (whenever it was ordered/cooked), but at a steady pace.

Will definitely be going back there again! Great experience and lovely food – would like to try it at night next time.

The Reading Beer Festival is held every year in Kings Meadow, Reading.  This year it took us a LONG time to get in due to the fact that the toilets became blocked and they would not let any new people in to the event before they were cleared.  Once we were allowed in, we did a good job of sampling the beer (or wine in my case).  Here is a quick summary video of the day. . .