Life of Pi...

I finished Life of Pi last night. Great book, but as I suspected there was something "big" at the end and I'm not happy about it. I need to speak to Chris Esch.

Weekend guests...

We've just spent a great weekend hosting Maggie and Sarah from the US. Maggie was a work colleague of Marla's when we still lived in KC, she and her friend Sarah were on a European vacation. They had spent over a week in eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic & Hungary) before coming to see us for the weekend.

On Saturday we went into Bath and did some tourist stuff (Roman Baths, Abbey, etc) as well as having lunch at Jamuna, which was excellent as usual. Then played Balderdash in the evening - Griff joined us for that. On Sunday, we went to Lacock and Lacock Abbey (Griff came again) and had lunch in a traditional olde English pub. Then on Sunday evening we all went for a drink with Andy and Fi, which was an excellent laugh.

Maggie and Sarah left yesterday morning for a day in London before flying back to the US today.

In other news, Marla has her UK driving test this weekend. It should go well, but you never know with these things, so fingers crossed!

Photos from the trip...

Here are links to four Ofoto photo albums with pictures from our trip to the USA (about 70-80 photos in each):

Album 1 :: Day 1 - Travel Day; Day 2 - Sedona; Day 3 - Tuzigoot National Monument & Jerome; Day 4 - Walnut Canyon National Monument

Album 2 :: Day 5 - Sedona (Cathedral Rock creek walk & Schnebly Hill sunset); Day 6 - Slide Rock State Park; Day 7 - Montezuma's Castle & Montezuma's Well National Monuments; Day 8 - Hubble Trading Post & Canyon de Chelly National Monument

Album 3 :: Day 9 - Monument Valley; Day 10 - Grand Canyon National Park; Day 11 - AZ to CA drive; Day 12 - Sequoia National Park

Album 4 :: Day 13 - CA Route 1 (coastal road); Day 14 - San Francisco

Blogs and books and golf...

I just had a clicking session of the Next Blog >> link that appears at the top of all Blogger blogs (including mine). I am amazed at how few weblogs there are out there written by normal people. Most of them were either complete nonesense or by people who seem to be a few slices short of a loaf. It was actually refreshing to come across a weblog by someone normal. Weird. I wonder if it is a symptom of the Internet age. People are more willing to express their weird foibles over the Internet than they are in public.

I am reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel at the moment. It was highly recommended to me by Chris Esch, who's opinion I respect more than almost anyone else. I am nearly finished with it and I can't tell whether it is an excellent book or just a highly enjoyable one. I like it very much and am reading it faster than I have perhaps read any book before, but I'm not sure it is offering me anything. I am certainly not feeling particularly challenged by it but perhaps that is because it is so easy to read. I gather from where the book is going that there is something large going to happen at the end, which might help me make up my mind. In any case, it is a jolly good read and I recommend it so far.

Next on my "to read" list is Bill Bryson's A Short History of Everything (or is it A Short History of Nearly Everything?). Which, given my reading speed will take me nicely into 2005. Anyone got any suggestions for what I should read after that?

One more thing. Europe won the Ryder Cup on Sunday; and won it convincingly! The Ryder Cup is one of my favourite sporting events and I was annoyed that I did not get to watch much of it (other than highlights on BBC). But what a great performance by the European team. Every time the Ryder Cup is held the European team is the underdog, but I think it is now seven times out of the last ten that the European team has won or retained it. From what I read in the papers, there is a consensus that Europeans are generally better at the whole "team" thing that the USA. Whilst the Americans were preparing on their own as individuals, the Europeans spent the three days before the event together practising as a team. I am currently germinating a little theory that Americans are generally not all that good at team-sports. Before anyone has a go at me for saying that, let me just repeat that it is a very little theory in the early stages of life...

Back in Jolly ol' England...

We are back from our great trip to Arizona and California. In fact we arrived back on Friday but have been busy and tired since then. We did so many things over the two weeks - as listed on a previous weblog post - including Tuzigoot, Montezuma's Castle, Walnut Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly National Monuments; Grand Canyon and Sequoia National Parks; plus Monument Valley, California Route 1 (coastal highway) and downtown San Francisco. The photo above is from an evening we spent overlooking Sedona from a rocky hill (known as Schnebly Hill)... it was a beautiful sunset!

My personal highlights from the trip include Monument Valley, which was far better than I remember it, and San Francisco, which is almost the perfect city with a waterside area, great landmarks and interesting sights.

I will soon post links to Ofoto albums of many of the photos I took on the trip. Between the three of us (my dad, Joe and me) we took almost 2000 digital photographs. But don't worry, I'll only post a fraction of them.

Final preparations...

We leave for Arizona tomorrow morning at 3:40am. Our flight is not until 7:55, but we will be taking the National Express bus from Bath to Heathrow. Our flight lands in Chicago where we have a 2-hour layover before our onward flight to Phoenix. Hopefully Marla's parents will be able to meet us at O'Hare to say hello and see us for the first time since last Christmas.

I am taking our laptop computer on the trip and hopefully will be able to have Internet access so that I can post on the weblog occasionally. Maybe even upload some photos. If not, I'll have to do it all when we get back. So, until next time... bye.