Happy Boxing Day

Boston's a bit of a ghost town over Christmas, everybody appears to leave the city to visit family and friends in the suburbs and across the country. Plenty of space on the park benches for an artist and a nurse.

Cheers.

Fruit/Flowers

Time has flown by as we reached our 4th anniversary the other day, and what better way to celebrate it by looking at some real human bodies minus their skin. Romantic we know. As mentioned before Em was interested from a medical stand point and me for the anatomical. To say Dr. Gunther von Hagens, Body Worlds exhibition is a little freaky would be an understatement, but interesting and compelling none the less. Sure some of the bodies looked like they had been modelled out of beef jerky, which I will not be eating again for the foreseeable future. Each of the donated bodies has it’s bodily fluids replaced with the doctors patented reactive fluid plastic which slowly hardens and preserves the bodies for exhibition. Beef jerky it isn’t. Also on exhibition was loads of individual organs highlighting how the body works and allowing you to compare between the healthy and disease riddled. The smokers lung was very pleasant, but I’m sure it wouldn’t stop my dad from smoking. We looked around for an hour or so and would have stayed longer if it wasn’t for those pesky kids on school trips. We’re getting old I know. We did manage to hold onto our appetites for a pub lunch, which was then walked off.

Evening entertainment began with cocktails at the Marriot. Well a Cosmopolitan for Em and a pint of Guinness for myself. It was then onto Boston's finest eating establishment in our opinion, Woody’s for a pizza washed down with a bottle of red wine (asked for white). All for a reasonable $40 plus change. Nice.


Christmas is of course upon us next week so it was time to put the tree up and some lights round the windows. Our tree was looking rather happy with itself with Emma’s hand made star at the top. That’s until we decided to hang some rather weighty baubles to some of his spindly arms. He’s coping with them for now but they may be on the floor one morning.

The Ipswich serial killer is topping the headlines this side of the pond. NBC News felt it necessary to add subtitles to the interview of an Ipswich local, which was slightly amusing. Maybe I need subtitles cause they don’t understand what I’m saying most of the time. I mean I asked for white they brought us red. We still drunk it though.

Cheers.

For more on the Body Worlds exhibition visit the website by clicking here.

Party.

Party nurses from the left: Em, Lindsey, Sarah and Carrie.

Last Saturday night was the BIDMC Cardiology Cardiac & Vascular Surgery Christmas Party at the Marriot hotel over the Longfellow Bridge in Cambridge. We wanted to see if Christmas parties were any different this side of the pond. Such as food, drink and music. So there we were, surrounded by some of the worlds finest cardiologists, cardiac and vascular surgeons. The main thing we noticed was the lack of free booze, no open bar, no wine on the tables. The lack of free booze aside a good time was had by all. The food was okay, Roast beef and mashed potatoes with an unusually sweet tomato flavoured gravy. A few one hit wonders that we had never heard of got most people dancing. Abba surprisingly cleared the floor apart from a couple of dancing queens. By the end of the night there was just our little gang of CCU nurses, myself, Sarah, Lindsey, Kamelia left on the dance floor. Even Mark joined in for a boogie.

Sunset through the apartment window

Bought the new camera just after Thanksgiving but not really had chance to go out and take any pictures. We're both just too busy working at the moment. Managed to take a break from my illustrations to capture tonights sunset.

Coldest day since mid March today. I guess it's only going to get colder over the next few months. Time to get those thermals back out we think.

Cheers.

Thanksgiving

Our second thanksgiving was again a fairly downbeat and quiet affair as most travel round the country to visit parents or grandparents. There was however the lingering smell of a few turkeys being slowly basted through the day. We ignored the coverage of the Macy’s parade, learning after last years sickly stage school performances. Myself and Em were truly thankful that Kevin Costner wasn’t playing catch with his dad on his field of dreams. That film broke us last year.

Sorry no pictures this time round, waiting for our new camera to be delivered. Got a great deal in the Thanksgiving sale. Today is known as ‘Black Friday’ the biggest shopping day of the year, and is named so because it brings all stores back into the black for the year, apparently. Stores opened at 5 this morning and off course people queued to get in.

We’ve not really been anywhere or done much apart from work this November, Em’s working through a batch of nightshifts and I have been busy working on some illustrations for a company I met in Portland last month. Nice little job which should allow me to treat us to some jam with our bread. Only joking. Just great to get some work in which will hopefully lead to more.

It’s our anniversary next month and we’ve a few plans on the agenda. A romantic trip to the Science museum to have a look at Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds which is an exhibition of real human bodies. Nice. Em’s interested in the medical side I’m going for the anatomical perspective. Boston Ballet are performing ‘The Nutcracker’ which should be fun, I think. Em says it will be and who am I to disagree. Finally of course, go out for something to eat. Original plans to go to the north end and spend a fortune in a nice posh Italian restaurant have slowly but surely been pounded on by the idea of just going to our local and favourite place to eat in Boston. Woody’s. Hopefully we will have a camera to take some pictures by then.

Cheers.

Portland pictures

Our battered and bruised camera has come through for us. Managed to download the pictures we took in Portland, below is a collection of the best from the weekend.


Cheers.

It's just round the corner...

...are the words my dad used to, and probably still says when out walking and trying to find someplace. Well like father like son I found myself muttering those fatal words as me and Em tried walking back to the Portland train station and the nearby Denny's. I've never been to a Denny's and Em was raving about her childhood experiences of the classic American breakfast. Fueled by those thoughts we found ourselves crossing a bridge which slowly turned into a freeway. Things should have clicked when a car on the other side stopped to offer us a lift. 'No we're good' we replied. Five minutes later we would be making our way back towards the B&B to get a taxi. Denny's will have to wait.

An interesting weekend full of the good the bad and the kooky. The good being Portland in general, quite a nice place and a little English. Reminded us of various places back home including Bingley and Whitby. Loads of art & craft shops, pottery and interesting souvenir shops selling local produce, jams, mustards, maple syrups and salt water taffy.

The bad would be me, being a butter fingers and dropping my camera, then seeing a car run over it. It's not looking too good. Will have a go at download the pictures soon. I'll post up the best if I can get anything from the slightly crumpled piece of metal and plastic that is our digital camera. May it rest in peace. Also bad was the weather. 50 mile an hour winds and torrential rain on the Saturday. The wind hung around for the rest of the weekend, thankfully the rain moved on.

The Kooky would be the B&B, the oldest running bed and breakfast in Portland. 4 foot high bed and loads of old fashioned European fixtures and fittings added to its charm and character. A little different from your typical Holiday Inn.

Cheers.

Hopefully post some pictures up soon.

2 hours 13 minutes

That was Em's time to cover the 13.1 miles of the Boston Half Marathon at the weekend. A respectable time indeed. She was fairly nervous at the start, fearing she'd be the last home. Not a chance. While Em ran to the zoo and back along the Emerald Necklace. I was left to wander round our neighborhood and take a few pictures. Not done that for a while.


The trees are getting pretty colourful round here and we're planning to go up to Maine in a couple of weeks to see a little more of the New England Fall. We saw Jon Stewart last Friday and laughed along as he ripped into America, their foreign policies and kiddy fiddling politicians. He also talked a little about Americas gun culture and the recent school shootings. It's certainly been a little crazy and constantly on the news. They don't know how to handle it because they won't give up their right to bare arms.

Gig wise we should have seen Keane but they cancelled due to a boozy lead singer. But all is not lost we've the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the horizon which should be good. So I've waffled on enough. Until the next time, take it easy.

Cheers.

A week and a half back

and we're settling back into Boston life. Still missing family and friends of course but getting back to being a 'gang of two'. Em's back on the night shifts this week and easing herself back into work. The day after we got back I spoke to the art director of 'Boston's Weekly Dig' and sold him the rights to publish an illustration. More of which you can find on the sketchblog. The fall TV season has started so we're finding it hard to pull ourselves away from the TV between 8 and 11 most nights. ER, Studio 60, Heroes, Standoff, Smith, Bones, Jerico, CSI, My Name Is Earl and The Office. Not to mention Lost starts next week.


Em's training for the Boston half marathon is going well. I think. The run takes place a week on Sunday. She ran twice round part of the Charles River today, about six miles and plans to go out another 2 or 3 times before next Sunday. Em's hoping to complete it in around 2 hours, so check back in a couple of weeks to see how she got on.

Not been to Harvard for a while so that's our plan for the weekend, well Saturday afternoon, evening. Get some food at Grafton Street and a few drinks on the way back at Bukowskis. Probably just going to chill on Sunday and watch the leaves change and fall to the ground or maybe Spurs v Portsmouth.

Cheers.

Back to Boston

We have arrived back in Boston safe and sound after our little jaunt across the pond. It was really good to see and catch up with everybody again. Don't be afraid to send us e-mails, postcards, letters or Double Deckers. Keep in touch.

Cheers.

One year later...

It’s one year one week since we arrived in Boston and endured the first week where we thought we had made the biggest mistake possible. Leaving good jobs, a nice little house, cars and more heartbreaking, our familys and friends. Once that first week was out of the way and we were free from our misguided guide things quickly picked up for the better.

Today I’m sat on the sofa writing this and watching Watership Down of all things. It’s raining, showers from hurricane 'Ernesto'. Em’s working, doing an extra shift, which leaves me with this and the housework to do. Last Thursday we finally managed to go see the Red Sox. Tickets for the games are hard to come by. Em won a raffle at work which gave us a chance to buy a few. So down to the ball park we went, meeting up with some of Em’s work friends. We had seats in the right field with a pretty good view of the bases. The game finished 6-4 to the Sox and ended their loosing streak, which has hit their chances of making the play-offs. Still the atmosphere was great, the crowd was up for it and Em didn’t get hit by the ball as she had feared. Or flying peanuts, coke bottles and crackerjacks. We did our bit handing down money from other people to the vendors and singing during the 7th inning stretch.

Friday 1st September.
We took the fast ferry to Provincetown, or P-Town as it’s affectionately known. Not the greatest trip over Em was a little sea sick so we were relieved to reach dry land. P-Towns a strange little place you might say queer. It is known as the gay resort town at the end of Cape Cod. There’s a lot of love here, beautiful beach side houses and quirky little shops. We walked along the main street and sat on the beach with an ice cream and a bag of salt water taffy. Great to see a little town that’s holding onto it’s character, not a McDonalds or Starbucks in sight which was kinda nice.


Anyway thanks for reading, I’ll write some more soon, but I better do the ironing.

Cheers.

Nice shirt, will you be my friend...

September is round the corner and a new batch of students are arriving to the city. The Berkeley School of Music students are standing out the most. Groups of them being led round the streets, guitars on their backs or drumsticks in hand. All wearing t-shirts with their favorite bands logos adorning their chests. No doubt an attempt to communicate their musical taste and attract like minded souls.

Trains, Whales & Poisoning

Don't panic, neither of us has been poisoned. We took a little trip down to Mansfield, Rhode Island on the train. A double decker train too which was a little different from our usual. We were heading down to Rhode Island because Em had tickets to see 80's spandex cock glam rockers 'Poison'. I was just tagging along for the trip. Em was going to the concert with some friends from work, bit of a girls night out. So while Em was re-living her teenage years. I was in the hotel watching Chelsea get beat by the MLS All-stars.


The next day we took the train to Providence to go look round the Rhode Island School of Designs Museum which was pretty cool and featured an exhibition on the changing face of art and what defines something as Art. The exhibition featured works by some of my favourites, 'Pollock', 'Riley', 'Rothko', 'Lichenstein', and 'Jasper Johns'. Really great to see one of his American Flag paintings.

Finally took a trip out to sea on the 1st August and luckily for us it wasn't a wasted trip. The Humpback whales were out in numbers. The boat takes you about an hour out to sea, 40 miles or so. To a well known area the whales populate to feed through the summer. We could have stayed and watched them all day. The sea was calm and the sun wasn't too hot, to say it was one of the hottest days of the year. Really felt the heat when we returned to Boston and we both had a lovely red lobster glow to our faces.


Cheers.

Gravestones

From the 'Old Granary Burying Ground'. I just love the look, feel and design of them.

Trying to enjoy the sun...

... but it's not easy for us fair haired, pale skin coloured folk. It's been humid as hell lately, pretty unbearable. Bring back the snow and freezing winter. Things are going okay this side of the pond, saw Madonna last week which was great and after 21 years of waiting Emma was well pleased. Especially when we were able to swap our tickets at the back for some near the front. Madonna doesn't want to see empty seats at the front, so we gladly obliged and help fill the gaps. Speaking of gaps we were so close we could see the gap between here front two teeth.

Work wise it's a little slow if I'm honest, Em's working nights most of the time. I've had a couple of enquiries but nothings developed yet. So I've been sending out cards and samples to some more magazines. I've also signed up to the portfolios.com network. Hopefully this should get my work out to a wider audience. Time will tell. Feel free to have a look and let me know what you think.

Also opened a little store at cafepress.com to sell some prints of my illustrations. The plan is to sell each design for a limited time of three months to keep it fresh and ticking over. Only got the one print available at the moment, but it's a little cracker even if I do say so myself. So please have a look, hope to have a couple more available soon. I guess that's my little sales pitch. Buy one, your walls will thank you for it. As will I.

That's all for now, so thanks for reading.

4th July

The celebrations were a little crazy, over half a million people on the banks of the Charles River. We couldn't get anywhere near the 'hatch' shell to see the concert by the Boston Symphony. People had been queing the night before to get the good spots. The fireworks went on for about 25 minutes, hard to believe but they were better than New Years.


Over in the North End they were celebrating for a different reason. The Italian quarter went nuts after they beat Germany in the World Cup Semis. We're off to the pub later to watch the France, Portugal match. Should be good.

Hair today...

...gone tomorrow. Well actually last Thursday I think. I'm referring to my loosing battle on the receding hairline front. So it's all gone, well apart from a little bit.


Need to buckle down with this blogging lark, not written again for ages. I guess the excuse is we've been home to England and seen you all anyway so no need to write. Not that anybody's reading it. Well apart from Jackie. Thanks for your support Jackie. Returned to Boston safely, watched England play better but still get knocked out of the World Cup. Think we're going to the pub to watch the French run all over and stamp on the knackers of the Portuguese. Only joking if your from Portugal and have stumbled across my ramblings on the world wide web.

Well after what she says is 21 years of waiting Em's going to go see Madonna on Thursday, I'm going too but wont be buying a t-shirt. Hope she lives up to Em's expectations. Surely she'll be better than Take That, which at the moment stands as the best concert she's been to. Shouldn't be too difficult Madge.

Nothing more to say at the moment than it's the 4th July so lots going on today leading to a 25 minutes fireworks spectacular and Aerosmith playing a couple of tunes with the Boston Symphony. So we'll try and take some pictures, but don't be surprised if there just of the backs of peoples heads. They started queuing to get to the 'hatch' yesterday. There expecting about 700,000 people to attend. Anyway until then here's some pictures of some cows which are part of the cow parade.


More you say, okay then here you go.

Cheers.

It’s been a while...

... well a week or so. We’re counting down the days to our trip back to the home land of England and looking forward to seeing everybody. Not much going down this side of the pond, the weathers been good and bad. Been raining all weekend so far but we had a few days of sun through the week. watched England beat Jamaica yesterday and can’t wait for the World Cup to start. Emma says she's going to support America and Holland, but also wants to fly the St George from our apartment window. Not sure how that will go down in the neighbourhood. A few more footballs are being kicked around the parks, along with the Frisbees and baseballs. Not sure what the coverage on TV is going to be like. ABC and ESPN are advertising it as is the Fox Soccer Channel. I mean we saw more Premiership games out here. So we should be okay.

Last weekend we took a walk down by the river to the ‘Hatch’ to watch James Blunt perform at the ‘Earthfest’ festival. We hung around and listened to the posh English bloke warble for a bit. I’ve heard that a radio station back home has got so tired of him, they now refuse to play his songs at all. Poor James and his over exposed middle of the road tunes. A band called ‘The Fray’ also played a few songs before him and ‘Miss Rhode Island’ gave a speech about saving the planet, recycling and stuff. Which was nice of her. There was apparently 100,000 people there and loads of other tents and stands promoting ways to save and conserve energy. No doubt some of them may then have drove home in their big, cheap gas guzzling SUV’s. But there’s interest in Environment issues here. The price of petrol has been rising and according to the news it’s making people consider smaller more economical cars and even scooters. I’d like a scooter.

I’ve updated my website with some new work, there’s also some stuff on the other blog, 'Sketchblog' so please feel free to have a look if you haven’t lately. It’s all good. Well I think so.

Not been out with the camera much lately but here some of our latest shots of life over here.


Cheers and thanks for reading.

State of Emergency

It's rained constantly for the past few days, according to the news it's the heaviest rainfall in a decade. We've had about 8 inches in Boston so far, nearly 12 inches has fallen in Salem and other parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. More rain is expected over the next few days, maybe for the rest of the week. Great.

Wish I'd paid the $25

That's how much the FA Cup final was on pay per view. But you know how it goes, pay and it's a dull, un-eventful 90 minutes you'll never get back. So instead I was going to listen to the coverage on Radio 5 over the internet but no luck there because of contract shenanigans or something. Which left me reading the BBC's and Guardians coverage over the internet, updating every 5 minutes or so. The Guardians coverage was pretty funny with a few other people e-mailing in stories of why they couldn't watch the final. Anyway the final is been shown again on Tuesday, I may watch it then, with it being one of the best cup finals ever. Apparently.

It's May

and we're all alone again, sorry we haven't written anything for the past few weeks, but we just didn't have time with our parents visiting. So other than a couple of visits from the olds nothing much has been happening. Things are just plodding along and we're counting down the days to coming home for a week or so in June. I've finished my nightschool course in illustration which went pretty well, received some copies of the World Watch magazine which published a piece of my work. The art director contacted me about doing more work in the future, which was great and a step in the right direction. Em's being on a shopping splurge. (nothing new there) her training for the New York marathon is going well. She did quite a big run round the Charles River last Saturday. Hopefully she'll get in through the lottery selection. I would have done it too but I've come down with some sort of hayfever/flu bug. Maybe next time. Of course she's also been working at the hospital, she's really settled in now, has the odd crap night but you get those anywhere. We went to see the film 'United 93' which I'm going to struggle to put into words what we thought about it. Lets just say everybody should see this film and it's a very emotional experience. I think it opens in June over in England. We've had some good weather the last few days which has sadly left us and we're set for a few days of rain, probably going through to the weekend. Anyway here's some nice pictures when the weather was good.


Cheers and thanks for reading.

Springtime in Boston!!

Hello,
I hardly every get the chance to post things up here as Mark always gets in there first, but when you read this and see the typing and spelling mistakes you know why!!. So now its springtime in Boston, people are out in their summer clothes(but you still see people in their winter coast scarfs and all!), the birds are singing and all is well!!. Its so nice not to have to bundle up in at least five layers before you go out, then you still get windchill on any part of skin exposed. So now we can walk to the Charles river with a brew and watch the world go by. The leaves are beining to appear on the trees, tree pollen is high (yipee!) and they have filled the ponds up again in the common!, oh and the Ducks are running again.

We have been on a ticket buying frenzy lately, Pearl Jam, Snow Patrol and MADONNA!!, its fab being able to walk to a venue rather than driving into Leeds or Manchester, and we had forgotten how loud the Americans are especially at the arenas, When we saw Coldpaly last week the noise really added to it and made it memorable, even though Chirs Martin hit a few iffy notes, its' still in the top five!. New Hampshires fun, very different to Boston, quiet and parts close on Saturday lunchtime until Monday!. Yep and the Pancake sweats, ugh, well worth it, you should see the photos!.

Work is going well, I work with some lovely people and I am learning a lot, but I do miss the NHS!. Most peole think I'm Irish, must be the hair and my charm!. The Drs are very young looking and they all wear white coats. But they have all the same problems as home, nursing shortage and MRSA so nothing new there. They use abbreviations a lot, which is funny, they all laugh at my careplans and comment on the Englsih spellings and the correct grammor!.

We are both trying to get fit in two ways, one as you may know I have entered the lottery to do the NYC marathon in November, (will find out in June) so we have been running a bit, I can run around in my Man U shirt without fear of attack!. Marks bought a basket ball and shoots hoops in the mornings when I go to work and I have started doing Yoga. The other training is drinking!, we need our drinking legs for June, as at the moment after a pint we're giddy and after two we're in our PJs watching telly!, do'nt worry we will put the time in!.

Well I have finished my Grande non fat latte from Starbucks, ( I am now on first name terms with some of the staff in our local one, well just one young man who Marks now called my fancy man!) so I will be off. We are getting giddy as mums and dads are coming soon, more eating and drinking to be done!.

See you all soon xxx


Top left: Pancake sweats! Top Right:-Mark drawing by the river, Middle left:-This is what happens when we drink now!, Middle Right:- Me with a brew by the river, Bottom left:-Us in NH on a windy day and finally Men on bikes without helmets.

Red Sox opening day

was actually yesterday but here's some pics.


They won the opening home game against the Toronto Blue Jays 5-3. Actually getting into this baseball lark and hope to get to a game soon.

Cheers.

More from Manchester

I know I was going to post these the day after the first entry last week, but you know how it is. Just busy with other stuff but here I am back to finish what I started.


So what we have here going clockwise is: top left the high street of the quiet little town of Concord. A tombstone in the Manchester cemetery and a little pic of the stars and stripes. Sunset over Manchester. Shirley D's Dinner, we went there Monday morning for some pancakes and French toast, not forgetting the bacon either. Em got the pancake sweats after. Needless to say we didn't need to eat much for the rest of the day. Final shot is Em wandering around the cemetery.

Manchester New Hampshire

Spent the weekend in Manchester NH which is indeed named after Manchester in England. There were some similarities between the two cities, the main being the river, canal flowing through the middle. Not much was going on though in this New Hampshire city apart from the visit of Coldplay which is why we are here. A place even quieter was Concord, the capital of New Hampshire. It was Sunday but this little town was pretty much closed apart from a nice little bagel cafe. It was great to walk round a fairly deserted small town and take some pictures. We even noted that some of the shops closed at 2pm on Saturdays.

New Hampshire people like to live free, there were quite a few bikers out most riding around without helmets. The states slogan is 'Live free or die' me and Em could see more dying by living free. Anyway the bikes looked and sounded pretty cool. I really liked the whole look of parts of Manchester, had some small town America qualities that reminded me of some Edward Hopper paintings. Loads of businesses on Elm Street which apparently is the longest dead end street in America had LED advertising signs. It was like some LED sales man came through and managed to sell a sign to everybody. Mechanics, car dealerships, cafes, hairdressers, estate agents and a tanning salon or two. There were loads, all flashing there promotions at us.

Anyway that's enough for today, I'll add some more tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Updated website

Thanks to everyone who gave me some feedback on the illustration website. I've made a couple of changes to the portfolio page. The main being making the pictures bigger. Now you should be able to see more of the details in the work. Also made some space so I can add more work, which will be added as soon as I finish them. So please feel free to take another look and let me know what you think by clicking here.

Cheers.

Found some films

Found 3 films hidding behind some magazines so we thought we should get them developed. Turns out they are from Boston's 375 Birthday Parade last year. Picked out a few of my favourites below.

Going to Manchester New Hampshire this weekend, and to see Coldplay on Monday night. So check back next week for more pictures and stuff.

Cheers.

Happy Mothers Day

Fairly quiet weekend in Boston and the weather is slowly beginning to warm up.
Last night we went for a curry at a place called 'India Quality'. With a name like that we thought it had to be good, and it didn't disappoint. In fact it made us feel like we were back in Bradford and a little home sick. So we carried on and had a couple of beers to drowned our sorrows. Only joking but we did feel like we were back home. As you can see in the pictures on the way to the pub we past the Eiffel Tower and a sign for a 'Bali Shag'?


Today was of course Mothers Day, so we hope you both had a good day.


Love Mark & Em.

Website

Well after a month or so crash course teaching myself 'Dreamweaver' I've launched a website for my illustration work. So feel free to have a look here. Hope you like it, look forward to any comments you may have. Also set up a new blog where I plan to post sketches and more illustrator related content, freeing up Clam Chowder for more stuff about life in Boston and America.

Have a good weekend. Mark.

So our Oscar predictions were a little off. We had a good night watching the whole ceremony live, at a reasonable hour. We haven’t seen ‘Crash’ yet but apparently the DVD sales have shot up by some silly percentage. For me personally ‘Munich’ was the best film I’d seen closely followed by ‘Brokeback Mountain’ For ‘Crash to be better than those two films alone means it must be worth a look.

This week was Restaurant week in Boston, this involves some of the more up market places putting on a three course meal for $20.06 per person for lunch and $30.06 for dinner. This whole promotion is put on around this time every year because it’s a slow month for tourists. The problem was most of the places put on a limited set menu, with drinks and tips we would still have spent around $60 for lunch. So in the end we decided to go to our local ‘Woody's’ for a pizza and a couple of Stellas costing us a grand total of $20. Value for money.

Em’s applied to run the New York marathon in November. She’s been placed in a lottery and will find out in May if she has been accepted. Em’s been running quite a few times since we got here. I’ve just bought myself a new pair of Nike Pegasus to join in with her training. Went for our fist run together and I couldn’t keep up with her. She just ran along effortlessly at her comfortable pace leaving me behind. I felt like crap, so unfit. I’m going to need a couple of weeks to get up to speed and keep up with Em on these runs.

The weather has starting to pick up lately, we’ve had a couple of good warm days going into this weekend. We even got a bit sunburnt on Saturday. Looking forward to the spring and summer. Speaking of summer and training we’ve found a cool little bar called ‘Bukowski’s’, we plan to get our drinking legs back here for the BBQ in June. Looks like they do a mean cheese toastie too.

Pictures, from top right going clockwise.
For some reason the students like to throw theirs, or other peoples trainers into the trees. I don’t know why but there’s a few trees decorated with them. Sunrise after walking Em to work. JP Licks ice cream parlour, I had cookie dough, Em went for the vanilla with fudge sauce. Cow painting on the wall of JP Licks. Bench by the side of the Charles River. Me walking home from Bukowski’s. Em walking home from Bukowski’s. Em enjoying a pint of Guinness in ‘Sola's’ one of our local Irish bars. Middle picture is of the bar in Bukowski’s.

Thanks for reading.

Our Oscar predictions

Tonight is Oscar night and we're planning to watch the whole thing. Em wants to get dressed up or wear eveningwear.
Anyway we though we would post up our predictions for some of the main categories. So here goes and we'll see how many we get right.

Best Film
Mark: Munich
Emma: Brokeback Mountain (which will probably win)

Best Director
Mark: Spielberg (Munich)
Em: Spielberg (Munich)

Best Actor
Mark: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) Haven't actually seen it but he's won all the other awards.
Em: Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain)

Best Actress:
Mark: Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line)
Em: Dame Judi of the Dench (Mrs Henderson Presents) cos she's from York.

Supporting Actor
Mark: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain)
Em: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain)

Supporting Actress
Mark: Catherine Keener (Capote)
Em: Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener)

So those are our predictions. Em's going to go get dressed up now. I'm going to have a cup of tea.

What to do when its freezing outside......

Sunday was the coldest day known to man, (well us from Bradford) it made a winters day in Queensbury look tropical!. With all the cold weather we have been having our skin is very dry and in need of attention. Me being a girl regularly moisturises and stuff but Mark being a bloke does not!. To my horror he showed me his feet on Saturday night, ugh....dry is not the word I would use. So on Sunday with temperatures reaching the dizzy hights of -7 degrees C, (the lows were about -20 with the wind chill!) I did a pedicure on Mark, which included de-scalling, moisturing and polish!. He did choose the manly shade of brown!, Heres' some pictures for your enjoyment!.

How's it going?

Sorry people for not writing much lately, we've been a little busy. I'm doing my best to learn Dreamweaver so I can build a website for my illustrations. It's starting to come together and hope to launch it soon. Em's come down with a bit of a cold but she's okay apart from a chesty cough. We bought our plane tickets the other day so will be spending our summer holiday back in the Leeds, Bradford area of Blighty. Really looking forward to it and seeing family and friends for a few days. Also looking forward to eating some proper bread. This american stuff just isn't the same.

Cheers.

Snow, snow and more snow.

It's been a fairly mild winter so far, or so the locals say. The temperature has been hovering around freezing for the past week or so and today the snow finally came. Yippeee.

New York, New York

Crazy New York, it was about two and a half years ago since we last visited and we’d forgotten how big and over the top the place can be. The $15 Lucky Star bus dropped us off in China Town and I realised I’d forgotten my guide book. Frankly I’m lost without a guide book until I get my bearings. We found the nearest subway a couple of blocks away and then tried to figure out which train to get. I’m a person who likes to walk around, get to know my surroundings, make mental notes of buildings, landmarks so I know where I am. So we’re underground, on the train. Em’s cool while I’m suffering an anxiety attack because I didn’t know where we are and if we’re going in the right direction. Em knew we were going the right way and was finding it quite amusing watching me crumble into little pieces on the subway. finally in the daylight I had a better idea of where we were and where we needed to be.


The hotel was pretty basic, sitting between Times Square and Central Park. In fact from our room window you could see the park, a view some pay thousands for. The conference I was attending was also just down the street at the Hilton so the location was spot on. First thing we did after checking in was buy a map and have a brew. No tea making facilities in the room which was a let down, but what do you want, a view of the park or a cup of tea. One of the places we didn’t get round to last time was Brooklyn, particularly the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge looking back at Manhattan. You know the view, it’s in every film that takes place in New York and we wanted to see it for ourselves. I was more comfortable on the subway this time because I had my little guide, Emma and the map. We took the subway to York Street then walked back towards Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan. It was starting to get dark and Manhattan was lighting up as we walked across the bridge. I don’t think you could ever get tired of seeing Manhattan as the sun sets and the city skyline wakes up before your eyes. It’s a really beautiful sight to see. We stopped off for some food in a little Irish bar called McCanns. I had a pulled pork sandwich, you can’t go wrong with pulled pork. Em went for the honey fried chicken, which was nice once we had navigated past the bones.

I was attending the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators all day Saturday which left Emma to fly solo round the streets of New York. So while I was listening and learning from speeches by David Almond, a writer from Newcastle and some advice from Art Directors about the kind of work they like to see. Em was getting her nails done and doing girlie things, living a sex and the city type day. Unfortunately I think it rained most of the day which I think ruined some of her fun, and her ‘Ugg’ boots got a bit wet. I was starving by the end of the conference, which did serve a lunch of Caesar Salad and the typical Chicken covered in some white creamy sauce. No matter which Hilton you go to, you end up with slightly warm chicken covered in a white cream sauce. Hope nobody from the Hilton reads that bit. The rain continued to pour into the night so we tried to find a place to eat. For some reason we struggle at doing this sometimes and tonight was one of those nights. The first place we went to was one Em had seen earlier in the day. We walked in and waited to be seated as the sign told us to, nobody came and the only person who spoke to us was a little spanish woman demanding our coats. We both replied ‘we’ll get a table first’ to which her reply was ‘no speak the english’. ‘It’s okay we’ll get a table first’ I countered but still nobody was coming to show us to a table. Sometimes you just know the signs are not good so we turned and walked out to find a place that will accept us with open arms. We made our way to Virgil's, a popular place recommended by friends and family. One and a half hour wait. No thanks maybe some other time. So we ended up in a place called the ‘Harvesters’, at least I think that’s what it was called. A bit like the Beerworks in Boston, brewing it’s own beers and stouts. I’ll admit I didn’t eat many burgers back home in England but I’ve got a taste for them over here. So we both had a burger and a couple of home brews and dried out. Somewhat relieved we didn’t stay at the first place.

Sunday was a beautiful clear day if a bit cold and windy, you could call it fresh if you wanted. I was back at the conference until two-ish. Writer and illustrator Marc Brown was the main keynote speaker and the other session I was to attend was by an illustrators agents in Boston. Unfortunately she could not make it at the last minute so Mela Bolinao from HK Portfolio stepped in to offer some words of wisdom. For me the conference has been a good experience and I’ve learned a lot from all the speakers and seen work from some of the other illustrators at the showcase on Saturday night. Basically for $100 you could display an illustration in the showcase and 10 would be selected for auction that night. Whatever money was made goes to the artist. I’ll be submitting some work next year and see how we go, but that’s next year. There were some other prizes too. The Art Directors speaking at the conference chose their favourite three pieces and the winner gets their work published in Picture Book which is one, if not the leading reference book for Art Directors looking for illustrators. It costs about $1650 I think per page advertisement. So it’s worth a shot next year.


In the afternoon we went to the Whitney Museum of Art, looked at some wonderful pieces by Edward Hopper, possibly my favourite artists. Also on show was a retrospective of Oscar Bluemner, a German born, American modernist who started as a budding architect before he begun creating these fantastic, colourful, abstract landscapes. Check him out. After a quick look round the museum shop we headed back downtown towards the United Nations. Sadly when we got there none of the flags were flying and we could not go on a tour inside, maybe next time. For the Evening we attempted Virgil’s again and even though it was Super Bowl Sunday we managed to get in. It was still dry after our meal, so we went for a walk round and took some pictures, we headed down Broadway towards the Flat Iron building, our favourite building in New York. Sadly it was covered with scaffolding so no new pictures unfortunately. Broadway was a bit dark and scary in places so we walked back up 5th Avenue and got some good shots of the Empire State Building. Back towards the hotel we picked up a couple of teas from Starbucks and watched the second half of the Super Bowl.

We returned to Boston on Monday after another crazy ride on the appropriately named Lucky Star Bus. Our driver had a tailgating habit, over taking and under taking any other vehicle in her path. We were glad to be home, we both realised we could not have moved, or lived in New York. Maybe we would have found a place and settled. Boston’s just smaller, more chilled and manageable and it’s definitely our American home.

Ecological footprint quiz.

I've just been doing some research for an illustration I'm working on. Trying to stimulate some ideas. The illustration is for an article based on a speech by Gaylord Nelson, a former Wisconsin senator and supporter of environmental causes including the establishment of 'Earth Day'. So I was looking on the Earth Day website and did this ecological footprint quiz and according to the results I need another two and a half planets to sustain my way of living. Great and I'm not even driving a car at the moment. Anyway if you want to find your ecological footprint click here.

Cheers.

Mark.

January

It’s February already and we’ve not posted too much on the blog so far this year. So here’s a quick look back on January for you if your interested.

Emma's’ Mum & Dad, Richard, Ian and Jackie all left us on the 5th and it was an emotional day. Didn’t really enjoy the day much and we were pretty down for a few hours once they’d gone. A few days later we had shaken off those holiday blues and began cracking on with 2006. I finished selling pots and pans at ‘Crate & Barrel’ which I wasn’t too gutted about. Sure it would’ve been good to stay on and keep some money coming in, but I’ve got other things I want to devote my time to, and didn’t want to start relying on the easy money retail can provide. So I’m back to working on my illustrations full time and bought a new desk which I’ve already wrote about so I wont repeat myself.

At the cinema we've seen ‘Munich’ and ‘King Kong’, both really good films. ‘Munich’ especially. The TV is a bit hit and miss over here, they have a habit of repeating things in the middle of a series. Take ER for example they show a few new episodes each week then the next week they show a repeat of one we watched a month ago. Strange and spoils the flow of the programme.

We tried one of Boston's Indian restaurants. The ‘Kashmir’, it was okay not as good as the Kashmir in Bradford, The starters were really nice but the main meals were a bit of a let down, too much chicken leg meat. We have found another one called ‘Quality Indian’ so maybe we will try that one next time. Or maybe not.

The weather has been quite mild, a couple of snow showers but nothing major. There have been some really cold mornings though when we’ve walked to the hospital at 6:30. Those are the days we miss having cars.

I’ve started my night school class in Illustration, Em has started a yoga class round the corner from our apartment. Apparently the teacher makes them do some vocal exercises too before they get into all the downward dog positions etc. The teacher used to be a ballet dancer and is obscenely flexible, like a rubber band Em says.

I’ve nearly finished reading ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Never read a book so fast. It usually takes me a few months at least. Em’s bought the prequel ‘Angels & Demons’ so I may start reading that when I finish ‘Da Vinci Code’ unless Emma starts it first.

We’re off to New York this weekend so will post some pictures and stuff next week.

Take it easy.

Mark & Em.

Illustration Friday 'Glamour'

This one took a little time. Pencil sketch couloured digitaly. Look forward to your comments.

Thanks Mark.

Illustration Friday 'Cats'

Pencil sketch coloured digitally.

Best $95 I’ve spent.

Space is important to me, I’m not a fan of clutter. If there is clutter, it’s organised. It’s there for a reason. Serving a purpose. I’ve been struggling slightly to find a space to sit and concentrate on drawing since moving into the apartment. Sofa, chair, bed, at the dinning table even on the floor. I’ve produced work I’m happy with from these places but I’ve felt for a while that I need a space to sit and draw and paint. An area where I can focus and concentrate. A space to serve this purpose. So to start with I bought a desk for $95. Placed it in one of the corners of the apartment, so there’s now a designated space for me to create and produce and funnily enough I feel more professional. Before I would have to tidy up, close my sketchbook, put it away in my bag. It was kind of out of sight, out of mind. Now it sits open on the desk with pencils, brushes, rubbers and reference books. It’s a constant presence seeking my attention. Sketches, ideas and works in progress demand to be looked at, worked on, finished. To this effect I feel more focused, what I was working on yesterday was still there today willing me to continue.

Yesterday was the first time I had picked up my paints this year. I’ve been concentrating a lot on the digitally created stuff of late, so it was a refreshing change. I continued with the painting today in my sketchbook and love the final results. The paintings of a character walking home from school who decides to take a short cut through the woods. Then gets caught in a snow storm. It’s a competition brief from the Society Of Children’s Book Writer’s & Illustrators. The brief is that he takes shelter from the storm in a cave and then discovers? I’m still working on what he might discover. I will post up the final illustrations when I get round to starting and finishing them.

It’s Emma’s last night shift for this month tonight. Hopefully going to go see ‘Brokeback Mountain’ tomorrow if she’s not too tired and then to ‘Brown Sugar’ for our tea. Lovely.

Well it’s Friday so I need to crack on with this weeks ‘Friday Illustration’ topic, which is ‘cats’. Hope to post the results tomorrow or maybe Sunday. Could even be Monday. Whichever day it is. It will be sitting on the desk demanding to be finished.

Alternative Top 10...

... of things to do with a 70 OZ box of Rice.

Number 9.

Disco dancing to Saturday Night Fever.



Instructions: Find copy of The Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever, place one speaker on it's back and pour the rice onto it.
Turn up the bass and watch the rice get on down.

Illustration Friday 'E' is for (part 2)

Luigui's 'Extraordinary' Pizza Machine.

Illustration Friday 'E' is for

Emma.

So this morning I received the e-mail with this weeks topic and began to think up some ideas whilst doing some other stuff. I had 'E' is for 'Elephant' and 'E' is for Luigui's 'Extraordinary' Pizza making machine among others. The pizza machine was taking shape when I stopped to go wake Emma who has been working nights. "What's the topic"? she asks, 'E' is for something' to which she immediately replies with a giggle "E is for Emma".

I can't believe I didn't think of that, so here is a portrait of Em I did last year.
Pen & ink, coloured digitally.

I like to do new works for illustration friday so will continue with 'Luigui's 'Extraordinary' Pizza machine' and post it as soon as it's finished.

Thanks.

Is it me...

...or is this year already going too fast. I don’t seem to have got started on any of the things I hoped to do. I’ve still got stuff left over from last year to finish too. Maybe that’s why Em bought me a 2006 planner for ‘The Creative Procrastinator’. My time management's not too bad I just seem to come up with loads of ideas of things to do and end up doing none of them. This year I plan to change that and do as many drawings, paintings, illustrations I can. Carry my sketchbook at all times, watch less TV and read more books. Speaking of reading. Just started ‘The Da Vinci Code’ which is one of the things I was hoping to do last year. I’m not the fastest reader but hopefully I’ll have it read before the film comes out in May. Speaking of films, we saw ‘Munich’ last week and I highly recommend it. Edge of your seat stuff, I don’t recall seeing a film lately that builds and holds the tension so high. Hope to go see ‘King Kong’ soon, it’s going to rain on Friday so that may be the day to go. Well enough of my waffle, got other things to crack on with. Cheers, here's some of our latest pics.

Pictures going clockwise: Mark in Starbucks. Red Sox souvenier shop. Looking down the street from the river. Lady waiting for the Bus on Mass Ave. Charles River frozen on Christmas Day. Em being happy. State Law.

Illustration Friday 'Sea'

Aaaarrrrggghhhh shipmates the seas will be safe now Captain 'Wood leg' Wilson has caught the shark which as been terrorising our shores. Or will they.

Alternative Top 10 of things to do with a 70 OZ box of Rice

#10 Use it as a baseball bat.

We had some family and friends visit over Christmas and for some reason a 70 OZ (4 LB 6 OZ) or 1.98 Kg box of rice was bought. We ate about 1% of the boxes contents over their 2 week visit, leaving myself and Emma with the remaining 99%. We like rice, curry and rice, rice pudding and other rice dishes. I'm not a fan of risotto though. Anyway it will probably take us all of 2006 to eat all the rice in the box which made me think of alternative uses for the box and it's contents. This is the first entry at number 10. Any suggestions feel free to leave a comment, number 9 will be posted around this time next week. Take it easy.

Happy New Year

Brought in the new year with a bit of grub in the Hard Rock Cafe. A walk down Boylston Street with the Grand Procession to Boston Common for the fireworks. A few drinks to warm up before heading out to the harbour for the midnight fireworks display. Sorry no pictures from the harbour. 1, Run out of space on my camera. 2, It was too bloody cold to take my hands out if my coat pockets. Happy New Year everyone, hope you have a good one.