deck the halls: round 3

the crowd

Another historic post coming up for a year ago… I was reminded to post this by our invitation to the fourth Wilton St ‘Deck the Halls’ Christmas party,  without us as householders thsi year it will be a very different feeling!

Last years built on the successes of the previous events, upstairs did a marvelous job of decorating and it was packed to the gills again,  with the fire and Chhay and Krista’s potent martinis keeping everybody suitably warm. In fact a number of peeps have expressed their disappointment that we won’t be hosting it again this year!

deck the halls invite

ATP Film ¬ Les Savvy Fav ¬ 10 years of ATP

On the even of Bowlie 2 (which we won’t be attending alas) some more from the archives…

remarkable restrained Les Savvy Fav played at the screening of the ATP Film in Glasgow last year. As local acts often featue heavily on the ATP roster (and indeed Belle and Sebastian starting the whole process with the original Bowlie weekender) expectations were high. The film was enetertaining but a little limited in its scope I felt, Warren Ellis was definitely the highlight.

With the film as a taster later last year we headed back down to Minehead for 10 Years of ATP. As all the acts had played ATP before there was less of a sense of discovery but some fantastic tunes nevertheless. We didn’t quite manage to tap into an appropriate level of hedonistic attitude either – the 10 hour bus ride sapping our energy for the weekend.

cold but bright launch

We have had old school friend ‘the Guru’ around to stay this week – it has been a fun few days. On Wednesday evening we popped in to the liquid ship to catch our old friend Jamie Flett play, along with his brother Andy (together they are the sometimes duo Feltt). They were both in sparkling form and their sound really suits the intimacy of the Ship, when they play with a bigger band I feel they lose some of their uniqueness.

Listening to Jamie play reminded me to post on his album launch, now over a year ago – at a busy evening at the Griffin’s Head. The support act torturing a guitar with a hairdryer was interesting but knocked the tone of the evening a little and it never really recovered, the album, and its electro remixed cousin Bright but Cold, that wa sonly distributed on the night are excellent little nuggets well worth a listen.

birthday ceilidh masquerading

11/10

more than a year ago now!…getting older by the day

for our slightly more significant birthday’s last year cousin Claire & I hosted a masquerade Ceilidh in the ballroom of local bolthole Sloan’s. It was a great night, Chhay made a slection of her amazing cupcakes, there were some fantastic masks and the band were superb – particularly patient with our amateur ceilidh attempts.

fife ceilidh (again)

Another one that could be pulled from the vaults, although it is actually new annual installment – as we are just back from our third charity ceilidh that our friend Lynn’s parents organise. The attendees take it pretty seriously so we usually stand our like the antipodean interlopers that we are but we seem to be getting better year by year and it is a properly fun event.

After torrential rain last year the weather was absolutely stunning this weekend so we fitted in a visit to the beach, a quick glance at all the fabulous models & boards from the V&A Dundee competition shortlist (Lynn’s partner Craig and my offices’ are in rival bids – Steven Holl & Snohetta respectively) before winding our way through the East Neuk of Fife for some fish and chips in Anstruther.

brrr…winter campervanning in the northwest

brrr...northwest christmas 09

Another historic post,  for our Christmas – NW break last year – we tested Oswald to the maximum with a trip around the north west of Scotland (some of the most remote regions in Europe) in what turned out to be the coldest winter in 30 years.

He coped admirably – we only got stuck once although the deep snow did mean we stuck to main routes and didn’t get to explore off the beaten path much – mind you ‘main’ is probably a bit of a euphemism some of the single track roads were pretty hairy!.

Our flickr set tells the story in all the blinding white glory.

[flickr album=72157623037906591 num=30 size=Thumbnail]

cph weekend

Noma

We went to Copenhagen (almost a year ago) for a quick weekend visit to Howe before he left back to Vietnam – was a great weekend including lunch at Noma (above) for some ‘food as art’ foamy goodness – the second best restaurant in the world apparently!