An Early start at Houghton Mill

Years ago when I used to live in Scotland and take my photography very seriously I'd think nothing about getting up hours before dawn to be at a wonderful viewpoint in anticipation of the perfect light. These days, that essentially never happens ... until Wednesday morning of this week!! Being on my tod this week I decided to set the alarm for 5 am and headed down to the east facing Houghton Mill near Huntingdon.

The Swarm by Rob Heinz

Not your average read this but good nonetheless!!! Set on an island just off the American coast (only separated from the mainland by bridges) the place is thrown into turmoil one day when most of the community stop what they are doing and walk like zombies to a beach where they start to mate, only to wake after it has all done. It becomes clear that only the people who can reporoduce have become invovled and one of those that is n't films the whole thing on his iPhone and posts it to the net. The government quarantines the island and starts to hunt down the women who won't voluntarily temrinate their pregnancies. Prior to this a worker at the refuse department has discovered a small clearing where the land seems to eat scrap metal...... and after a while, even dead bodies. Nearly all of the swarm pregnancies do get terminated ...... all except one and it is the lead up that birth and the steps taken to keep it hidden that help build the story. All hell breaks loose at the birth!!! Great book :-)

My Kinda town......

I like where I live very much (now, but we'll come back to that later!). I recently moved further out from Cambridge where I work to Warboys, which is just a few miles north of St Ives and Huntingdon. If the only important thing in deciding where to live was where I liked then I would have moved to St Ives. I love the town. It has a wonderful atmosphere and the river running through it and bridges help to make it really pretty. I stopped off there the other evening to take a few photos and have a walk around and noticed just how many pubs and restaurants there are. I've now counted at least 5 pubs, including The Tap Room, our favourite. It was a really busy place come 8 pm on a Tuesday night, a bit like a seaside town, buzzing. It was suggested to me that this is bacuase of the people who tie up in there boats overnight ....... quite possibly. I first met my wonderful gorgeous gf on the bridge by the Dolphin Hotel so that will always hold special memories for us. First date was in the little cake / coffee shop overlooking the river and the second was a picnic just a short walk the other side of the hotel. Have I always liked living here .... in Cambridgeshire ...... no!! When I first moved down from Scotland and being a Yorkshireman at heart I really, really missed the hills. I used to love to walk them and photograph them and even just look at them as I drove past. It has taken me the best part of ten years but now I can say at last that I really love living here :-)

The Dark Path by Luke Romyn

This was going cheap on amazon (did I mention I'm from Yorkshire?!?!), appeared to by pretty much my genre and had good reviews. It did not disappoint :-) Started reading this just before we headed out to Spain and finished it in the sun, quite probably next to a massive bowl of mussells, a canya and my gorgeous girlfriend!!! The story of a dark assasin who is quite simply the best. He can get into anywhere, torture and kill his victim and be away before anybody or the security systems have noticed. As amazing as he is, he one day wakes to find himself tied to a bed and talking to "Priest" who recruits him to stop the "Sons of Soderrah" sacrificing the second coming in order to return their dark lord to this realm. Full of demons and aliens creatures, the devil makes an appearance at one point disguised as an old woman and the archangel Gabriel plays a significant role in the climax!! A great action packed story with a dark and admiral hero but what really takes it up a notch is the cranky, miserable, sarcastic and dark humor of the hero, especially in the scene where he and Gabriel start to take the piss out of each other!! Great read.

Summer Vacation - part 1 - Mazarron

The first week of my holiday I spent in Mazarron (Murcia, Spain) with Kate. Her sister has an apartment out there and offered to let us stay. We flew in style, Ryanair, and it went as smooth as silk. The apartment is lovely which is good as Kate's sister, brother-in-law and nephew are about to move out there permenantly. The weather started out hot and simply got hotter. It was great. Enjoyed my siesta's and really enjoyed our late nights! We ate really well with lots of sea food at the local restaurants, usually on the paseo (promanade to those of us from Yarkshire!). Mussels, clams and chopitas (tiny whole fried squid) all went down very well with the aid of a canya (small beer) or three and the lovely local and cheap wines. Speaking of cheap wine we were buying awesome local wine form the supermarket for a Euro a bottle (78 p) and even in the bars and restaurants the average was about 5 Euro's - my kind of town. The beach, town and whole locality was all stunning :-)