Phantym's Real Life Picspam
As promised on whatever day it was (was it really only yesterday? Or was it as long ago as Thursday?), here is a non-whining post. Consider it a celebration of my personal New Year. These are pictures of trips I've done this year. Altitude, my family summer holiday, Guide camp, the Lake District and the Ealing Comedy Festival. I'm not really one for doing real-life picspams so here goes.
Altitude 2010
A few photos from Altitude earlier in the year.
This is the view from my balcony looking to the right. The snowy glory of Alps outside my window and the main street of Meribel.
This is my view looking left on a slightly less good day. This may well have been the last day, it was bad on the Friday. Those steps in the middle, they lead up to the Auditorium. I could literally go back to my hotel room during the interval of shows, it was that close. In reality, I don't think I ever once so much as left my seat.
I can't remember exactly what they called this. The Jib Session maybe? Anyway, truckloads of snow were brought in and a little arena created. This is all on the steps to the Auditorium, believe it or not. My snowboarding instructor is the boy in the grey suit with the orange hat just visible on the right.
This is the Friday afternoon, when the weather cheered up enough for me to wander down to the middle of town to discover there was a pool party going on. Andrew Maxwell is in there somewhere and that delicious boy in the long coat is none other than Ed Byrne's little brother Paul, also very pretty and possessed of an accent that sounds nothing like Ed's.
The glorious afternoon I took the cablecar up to the top of the really high bit of mountain. It was glorious.
More high-Alpine glory.
This is me snowboarding. I exaggerate not, those trousers are four sizes too big and on the last day, I spent the last half an hour praying they wouldn't fall down before I could get in the cablecar. For once I allow a photo of myself to appear here simply because you can't really see my face.
Summer Holiday
At 25, I'm feeling a bit old to be going on holiday with my parents but it's actually ridiculously hard to get out of it and while I don't want to go next year, I suspect combined pressure and guilt will find me using another 1/3 of my whole holiday allowance to go to the same place and do the same things for the 12th time. I shouldn't complain. Have some pictures instead.
These are not the same Alps as in Meribel but nonetheless, they are Alps. In summer. Very different.
An extremely tame butterfly that perched on everyone's shoes for photos.
I think I wasn't feeling too good this day but an Aston and a Panda parked together made me smile.
Swarovski's flagship store in Innsbruck. The photos are never as sparkly as the reality.
The Alps in a nutshell. Green meadow, blue sky, cablecar cables in the background and cowshed complete with cow scratching its head.
This picture actually makes me feel vaguely dizzy.
This is a special photo. This is from my climb up a mountain. I climbed a mountain!
Actually, these are the wrong way round. This one was about halfway up and the last one was near the top.
Ealing Comedy Festival
July. Ran up after work on the Friday and was back by 10 on the Saturday morning, having not slept at all and left the "hotel" before 6 in the morning.
Taking photos of comedy shows is somewhat frowned upon so none of the performers. But the outside bit looked like a proper festival.
Minus the mud, obviously.
Guide camp
Still with the location undisclosed but this is my piece of island paradise.
On the Sunday, I think, after the mist burned off. If it wasn't for the conspicuous pines, you could mistake this for somewhere exotic.
I have posted pictures of Guides on the internet. However, they're entirely in silhouette so I think that's ok. This is the same place as above but on the Saturday evening when the tide was way way out.
A semi-tame deer who was brought up around the outdoors activity centre and comes along to look at the visitors from time to time.
Seagull splashing in the breakers at the jetty.
I love this. It's beautiful, it's so exotic, the sea is amazing and I was born and brought up only a few miles from here.
Lake District
The pictures from Saturday are all of a grey dreary rainy boat trip on a lake where it was freezing. Sunday's pictures are better.
Obviously it's not as stunning as home but that's rather beautiful, isn't it?
I like autumn and I like water.