Posts filed under 'Days out'
Wow! We have had the most amazing and bizarre couple of days in Jamiroquai-land! If you will bear with me, a brief synopsis will follow…it all started a few weeks back when I got a ‘phone call to say I had won seats on the “Gig in the Sky” ‘plane. We had known this was happening for a long time and luckily David was going to be able to go but not me 
However, one competition entry later and there I was - well there we both were - with a place on the flight!
It started on Tuesday morning with a car collection (bullet proof no less!) which took us to Heathrow, followed by a flight to Munich. Once we landed in Munich we were greeted by a Sony Ericsson rep who took us to the special check-in desk for the flight to Athens. We hung out in the dedicated lounge with non-stop food and drink (fortunately non-alcoholic!) for a few hours until it was time to board the Gig in the Sky ‘plane. Once onboard we were served by cabin crew wearing uniforms with the Jamiroquai buffalo man logo on the back of their jackets and we had a dinner of chicken followed by a specially decorated chocolate mousse. After dinner the gig started. Hurrah!
All I can say is, all this, “Please turn off your mobile ‘phone” malarkey whilst on a ‘plane is a load of old tosh! We were encouraged to use our new ‘phones (which we received earlier in the day) to take photos of the gig…so I therefore deduce that it *must* be safe!
The thirty-minute gig was cool - the band played a new song, “Radio” from the last album which has never been played live before and also a really fab version of an old favourite, “High Times”. Shortly afterwards we landed in Athens and were escorted to an area in the terminal where there was to be a longer gig, complete with more food and (very strong!!) drinks. We had a great time dancing and singing along…I wish I could remember how many times we have seen Jamiroquai now!!
A bus about midnight took us to our hotel, where we gratefully sank into bed - but not until we had looked at our certificates and badges which were left in the hotel for us. The certificate was to say that we had taken part in the record breaking Gig in the Sky. A mug of hot chocolate later and we were in the land of nod!
The next morning saw us in the rooftop swimming pool, before breakfast and quick zoom around Athens for 90 minutes. Surely the most odd thing had to be literally stumbling across the “Changing of the Guard” - what outfits!! A bus to the airport, a flight back (delayed due to wind at Heathrow) and a quick stomp from the tube station saw us back at home, at the end of a bizarre couple of days. A fabulous couple of days nonetheless…surely rating highly in the “Top Ten Jamiroquai Moments” 
Oh and in case you can’t suss it out, a link to all the photos is here.
March 2nd, 2007
I was politely reminded *ahem* that I haven’t blogged in ages at the weekend, so after the shenanigan’s of Sunday night, I felt the need.
As you probably know, David has run a Jamiroquai website (funkin.com) for a few years, in fact it celebrated it’s tenth birthday on July 13th. I help him out on some of the day to day stuff but really it is all him…though what do they say, “Behind every great man is a great woman” 
So, we went to the Lovebox festival on Sunday, saw Norman Jay spin some tunes, mooched around for a bit, ate delicious Caribbean goat curry and then went to watch our favourite band, Jamiroquai. I had been asked to keep a secret from David, which was that some of the fans wanted to take him out for dinner after the gig but I must not tell him. However, it transpires that it was all a big lie! I thought I was in on the secret but I wasn’t! David defintiely wasn’t as I somehow managed to not tell him anything.
Some rather lovely Jamiroquai fans who frequent funkin.com, as well as a superb forum jamirotalk.net decided way back in April that they wanted to throw a party for David and I to celebrate the anniversary of the site. We were absolutely shocked! It was wonderful. They had made banners, booked a really cool bar and the best thing was that they had asked for contributions to an A4 book, which comprised messages from lots of our friends (virtual and “real”!), including a message from Derrick (Jamiroquai’s drummer who we know pretty well now). It is fabulous! The really funny thing is that now the party is over, we have been allowed access to the “secret area” of jamirotalk where the whole thing was planned. It is very very amusing to read all the plans taking shape, them wondering how to get us both there, deciding I needed to be partially aware and finally being excited in the days beforehand.
We are over the moon that people would go to all this trouble for us (well, David really, but I seem to be included). Some people we had never even met, some we have and would consider to be great friends. It is overwhelming and once we have some photos sorted I will update this entry. I have to confess that currently my favourite page in the book is from woman called Deesha. It is a photograph of David taken in New York in October 2005, where he is in the press pit taking photos of the band (see, a photo of a photographer taking a photo, it’s cool)…she has printed across it a comment that David made to her earlier in the year when she was over in London. It says, “One day, when I am old I will look back and realise how lucky I am”. Not half as lucky as me to be married to him…
July 25th, 2006
We have just returned from a lovely few days in Polperro, a very small Cornish fishing village. The weather was very kind to us and we even got a bit of sunburn (or perhaps it was windburn?) on Sunday morning after walking for a few hours.
We soon discovered the delights of Stowford Press cider at The Three Pilchards pub, I even converted David away from lager on the last night! Also an interesting little pub was The Blue Peter, although the cider choice was limited which let it down in my opinion. We stayed at a pub called The Old Millhouse in a very grand sounding four poster bedroom and thoroughly enjoyed a full English breakfast every morning! The pub suffered from being a little “out of the way” in terms of attracting pasing clientele but suited us just fine. We also enjoyed a cream tea at the Plantation Tea Rooms. The nicest dinner we had was at Couch’s Restaurant - the thing that was funny about it was that it was exactly the kind of place that would be on “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” if you watch that show on channel four. The executive chef trained under various celebrity chefs (including Ramsay himself!) and it seemed as though they were trying just a bit too hard and not getting it exactly right. However, the saving grace was the delicious meat - David enjoyed a beautiful fillet of beef, whilst I scoffed down gorgeous lamb which I am sure we drove past only that morning.
You might have gathered from this that there was nothing except eating, drinking and a bit of gentle walking going on this holiday - and you’d be right! That was the plan, along with catching up on some sleep too. Of course, there was also some photography going on too…
March 21st, 2006
After a slightly late night (we had been visiting our god-daughter Alice and her mum and dad yesterday), we awoke a little later than we do normally this morning. It was sunny, crisp and there was a beautiful blue sky - so after breakfast we decided to head out to Richmond Park for a walk and to see what we could see!
Naturally, so did the rest of the west of London and by the time we parked the sun had well and truly disappeared! No matter, we wrapped up and set off on our walk. For those of you who might be interested, I walked 10,786 steps (which at my stride rate was just over 7kms) which I was pretty impressed by - and burnt off 588 calories! No prizes for guessing that Father Christmas bought me a pedometer.
However, I was more impressed by the photos of the deer we followed for just over an hour. David has been testing his new camera lens and monopod (courtesy of Sharon’s Mum and Nan for Christmas) and he took some excellent pictures. There were two separate herds of deer, interestingly the two came together on the rubgy pitch at Richmond Park, we thought it looked like a fight was brewing! The females (does) far outnumbered the males and there was what appeared to be a mix in the ages of the stags - given the antlers at least. Also, some of the herd still had their baby spots, so I can only assume that they were only born in Spring 2005 and are still finding their feet in terms of their position in the herd. Head over to our gallery to see the best of the shots from today.
January 22nd, 2006
