For my birthday we went for a walk round the assorted attractions/historic monuments of Runnymede. We visited the Air Force Memorial first (after accidentally interrupting doggers in the car park). The memorial is a beautiful work of architecture and incredibly peaceful and moving. We managed to not destroy the peace. Didn’t manage to see the other monuments as got a little caught up with the logistics of the day and failed to get a cream tea as the cafe was packed. Had a look round the gallery opposite the tea rooms which I absolutely love.

Big thanks to those that came along.

Some pics of the Air Forces Memorial.

Full set of the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial.

Having another massive camera clearout. Here’s the first set.

Sometime last year we went on a big hike around Bledlow Ridge with Emily and Katie, while walking we kept hearing weird loud noises which we couldn’t place, eventually worked out it was a steam train on the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway. Emily found an ad for a Nature journey so we planned a picnic and a trip along with Max, Fi and Caden. Unfortunately Emily and Katie couldn’t make it in the end.

Slightly disappointed to find out it was a diesel train rather than a steam train when we showed up (none of us had actually read the advert properly) but it was good fun. It was very different to our expectations, we had expected a planned tour with items of specific interest pointed out, what actually happened was the train moved very slowly for an hour or so and we were all told to yell if we saw anything exciting. We saw a deer and a shedload of red kites. Good fun really. Bit of a walk down the road to find somewhere for our picnic then we went home.

Full set of Chinnor & Princes Risborough picnic day here.

Our train

Got back into the bad habit of leaving weeks worth of photos on the camera, also not really had much of a chance to take too many photos recently. Work has been a shit. Processed a load today, some more to come when I next get a chance.

Went for probably the last proper expedition of the year with Scott a few weeks back. Torn between doing a tour of London or Salisbury Plain we decided it was far too hot to go into the city so escaped to the plain again. Tried out a couple of places we hadn’t been before, including the best pub-restaurant I’ve ever been to – The Boot Inn in Berwick St. James, the food, the service and the setting were all pretty much perfect. Didn’t take many photos on the firing ranges as covered them in enough detail in the past.

Crofton Beam Engines

One of those places we had seen tourist signs for ever since we’ve been visiting the plain. Stopped to have a look for the first time. Pretty interesting piece of engineering, as far as I can ascertain it’s a big steam powered engine in a building that was used to push loads of water uphill. I could be wrong, I did take a brochure/guide but it’s somewhere in my mess of an office. Lots of shiny machinery mixed with a picturesque landscape. Full set of Crofton Beam Engine photos here…

Scott interfering with the machinery

Berwick St. James

Pretty awesome little village. Could happily live there. Asked the nice lady who runs the Boot if she ever misses the noise of city/town life (she used to live near me), she looked at me like I was mental. We explored the church a bit then moved on.

The Boot Inn

St. Alban the Martyr

Another location we’ve driven past many times but never been inside. St. Alban the Martyr is a military chuch in Larkhill. Nice lady showed us around and pointed at items of specific interest, slightly awkward moment when she asked if we were military and what our interest in churches was (no & they look nice). Very impressive inside with some great windows. Full set of St. Alban the Martyr photos.

And finally…

Look at the size of this fish we spotted off a bridge in Marlow. Any idea what it is?

We took a day off last weekend. No work, no study, etc and went to feed the ducks on Ray Mill Island (not for the whole day, there’s only so long you can spend distributing bread to waterfowl). Was great to get away from technology and swearing for a bit, I showed Karen how to get the geese to come and take bread out of your hand (they are a lot less threatening when you are offering food) and we saw some baby geese and moorhens. Only slightly marred when we sat down with ice cream and someone’s dog came and crapped right in front of us. Lovely. Here are some pictures. (Promise to post something that isn’t just a bunch of pictures soon).

Quick photo catchup. Accidentally have a mix of slightly dark/gothic looking pics and assorted spring pics (not really a surprise). We took a trip to West Wycombe with Emily and Katie during which everything seemed to be unnecessarily expensive, £5 each to walk round the park, £5 each to go in the caves (we didn’t bother), couple of quid each to climb the church tower (we didn’t bother).

Recent favourites:

Noisy Tits in the garden

House by All Saints Cemetery in Maidenhead. Up for sale, very tempting.

Somewhere in Shiplake

In the woods…

Karen, Emily and Katie posing for their Indie-rock album cover (by the Temple of Venus in West Wycombe park)

In lieu of actually writing anything, here’s a quick roundup of recent(ish) photos…

Knowl Hill in the Snow:

Braving the wastelands of Knowl Hill in the snow:

Katie – Rescuer of abandoned Christmas Ornaments

Ed’s favourite ride

Full set of Knowl Hill Snow expedition photos.

Avebury:

Quick visit to Avebury for lunch with Dad and Jan.

Full set of Avebury photos.

Wargrave Commission, Maidenhead in the Snow

More shots of Maidenhead in the snow.

Hush now Daily Mail readers, Typaedia has nothing to do with children. I love this book, mostly for nostalgic reasons but also for the little bit of history as well.

The Typaedia is exactly what it looks like, a great big book of index numbered typefaces which you could leaf through to order sheets of letraset-type font sheets to create layouts, negatives and all the other stuff a working print-shop may use typefaces for. There’s an introduction page:

Introducing Conways’ Typaedia*
Conway’s Typaedia is a unique collection of some 4000 display faces.
Each is shown in its entirety, with caps, lower case, variants, punctuation and signs, arranged alphabetically in two separate sections, and all available at Conways’ as headline photosetting.
The first section shows the bulk of the faces – 3300 in alphabetical order with the second section showing 700 faces in the Agency series.
There is an Introduction to each section, a Latest additions section and a comprehensive Index.
The first section of 3300 faces is enclosed along with with the full Index.
The Agency section together with the introductions and the Latest additions, all at present at the printers, will be delivered to you early 1980.
Altogether…a unique work of reference
* Typaedia,-paedia (Latin,fem), a doctrine or learning.

From there we just dive into pages and pages of fonts, no other explanation needed. It’s a lovely catalogue, nicely spaced with no unnecessary crap, no explanations, no sales pitch it assumes the reader knows it’s purpose and doesn’t need to patronise or hard sell at them. Lessons on simplicity could be learned from here (mostly by me).

It’s a great reminder of how stupidly easy it is for us these days even in comparison to 30 years ago. When we need a new typeface we can purchase it and be using it within a couple of minutes, back then you had to go collect them or wait for an order to turn up. Every character you used had a cost, if you knackered up your design there was no undo, it was back to the supplier to get another sheet. And most importantly you had to keep your stash of lettering safe from your 8 year old who found the whole concept fascinating and would happily apply your lettering to any surface given half a chance.

My Dad gave me this book recently, which was really cool. For most of my childhood he ran a print shop (and still does), and I have some really happy memories of laying into his assorted work materials and making crap with them. I have especially fond memories of letraset and some really sharp memories of sitting on the floor rubbing the letters onto whatever materials happened to be around. Not with any real creative intent, I just found the whole process amazing, it held an almost bubble-wrap type fascination. The Typaedia was never that far from hand.

The book itself is well used, covered with splatters of ink, random bookmarks, biro scribbles and the other assorted grunge of a workshop. It’s almost comforting to have on my bookshelf. I’m slightly annoyed that I forgot to photograph the back cover which has one of Dad’s promotional stickers on it as drawn by a local illustrator (Peter Classey), as they also form a strong part of my early memories.

Thanks Dad.

Full set of Typaedia photos on Flickr.

Hurrah for books, especially obscure books that serve no purpose other than being intriguing. I’ve been practicing my (not so) l33t photography skillz on my esoteric book collection. Here’s part 1: “Highrise Buildings of Shanghai in 80′s”.

I picked this up in a charity shop in Newbury for about £3 along with a nice selection of arty books. I have no idea of the purpose of this book, assuming it had a purpose in the first place. It’s a lovely chunky hardback containing shedloads of text, some colour photos of Highrise buildings and a mass of intriguing floorplans for aforementioned buildings. None of the text is in latin script apart from the title on the cover and a couple of chapter headings, I’m assuming it’s all in a Chinese dialect. I don’t want to know what any of it means, that would ruin the magic, it’s probably an exceptionally dull text book, but it looks nice. It’s been rubber stamped on the inside cover (again in Chinese), which may be  a library stamp, or a school stamp or may not be. Enjoy the intrigue.

Disclaimer. I may be violating someone’s copyright here. If so, contact me and I shall remove this entry and photos.

Full set on flickr.

A short while before Christmas the lovely people at Boville’s in Maidenhead organised Art on the Street, being a two day art market aimed at local artists, with the benefit of sponsorship it only cost £25 for a pitch for two days meaning it was accessible for everyone and just off the main shopping centre in Maidenhead so that people actually turned up to look at and buy the art.

There was a pleasing selection of art on show. I’d expected nothing but still life and landscapes, not that I have anything against still life or landscapes, it’s just good to see a little diversity. We hung around with Jen and Neil for a bit, bemoaned the timing of the market (too close to Christmas, I’d already spent all my cash), bought a couple of prints then sodded off home. Really enjoyed it and looking forward to the next one.

More that a little pissed off with myself for having not got my shit together enough to have taken part. Another year has gone by where I’ve prioritised other people’s projects over my own and let work get in the way in the most horrific and unacceptable manner. I have been taking steps in the right direction, hopefully I’ll have got myself sorted enough that I might have enough finished material for the next market (May). I have a couple of sketchbooks full of ideas but nothing concrete yet. It was good to see that both Jen and Neil had created a load of really brilliant work alongside their day-jobs, with the right mindset I may get something finished. Had a chat with Scott and Emma today about maybe sharing a pitch at the next one, should give me a bit of motivation.

So, thanks to Boville’s for injecting a bit of art and culture into our otherwise fairly dismal town, and if I fail to get enough material together for a future event I’ll just have to go on an axe wielding rampage through the town instead.

Some links of interest:

• Jen’s art blog
• Neil’s art blog
• Buy Neil and Jen’s art here
• Harriet’s art
• A. Boville Wright
• Art on the Street

More photos here.

A Christmas decoration hanging in our window…