An ode to the Duke!

On the spur of the moment we decided to go to the movies on Saturday night and as per normal we ended up at the Duke of York Cinema. But we didn’t realise until the film was introduced, that Saturday night was a special night there. The 97th anniversary of the Cinemas opening. To celebrate they were having a special screening of ‘Brighton Rock’ a film that was shot in Brighton and first screened here over 60 years ago.

Opened on Sept 22nd 1910 the Duke of York was originally a high class cinema with a catch phrase of “Bring her to the Duke’s, it’s fit for a Duchess”. It is the oldest cinema in England and must have seen much in its lifetime. Wars, depressions, mods, rockers and punks, you name it! Over the past 97 years the Cinema has seen both good and bad times but it wasn’t until 1995 when it was bought by City Screen that it was returned to its hey-day glory.
Other cinema’s closer to the city centre have come and gone but the Duke of York remains as loved and enjoyed today as it was when it first opened.

I can’t tell you how much we personally love this old cinema. The seats are comfy, the floors clean, they sell homemade foods (cakes and stuff) you can take a beer or wine into the cinema with you, their ice-cream is very good and the bar upstairs is well stocked. The line up of independent films and film festivals is always unbelievably good and when you add that to the architecture and the decedent old world auditorium you have a cinema worth going to.
It’s our cinema, it’s local, its history. It’s got class and elegance and is perfect for sinking into those plush velvet seats and letting go of reality for an hour or two!

To be there on the actual anniversary was quite special, especially since we had no idea that that was the actual day. The movie was pretty good too. Staring Richard Attenborough it was about the seedy mob underworld that Brighton ‘used’ to have. Loads of fun watching the screen and seeing places that we go too today, streets that we know and landmarks that we recognise.

Brighton just wouldn’t be Brighton without the Duke of York. Happy Birthday!!!!!

show and tell

Travelling really gets in the way of blogging. I'm all over the place with things I meant to mention weeks ago. Hopefully over the next week or so I should get caught up.

TodayI thought I'd share something I made for a friends birthday just before we went to Canada.
She’s rather notorious for having thousands of knitting needles carelessly thrown in the bottom of knitting bags and I was so please with myself for thinking of the perfect gift that I’m making one for myself!!

Back to work blues....

Groan…I feel horrible today. I haven’t felt good (well or healthy) since getting back from Canada. Is it withdrawal or jet lag? I’m awake when I should be asleep, asleep when I’m supposed to be getting off the train and groggy in between! My sinus’s (which have never really bothered me before) are tight and tingling and I’ve had a headache for weeks.
Even though I feel so bad I was kinda hoping I still looked like my normal self. However it appears the cracks are showing.
My ‘best’ comment today (and bear in mind that it’s only 11am) is “Hey, you look like crap!”.

Excellent!! Why did I get out of bed again?

Aside from feelings of under the weather-ness the weekend was good but short. (Definitely back to reality there!!) We have a glut of apples at the moment and they are rotting under the tree faster than we can use them. So I did some creating cooking on Sunday and made an Apple, apricot and cranberry chutney which looks lovely but I’ll have to wait a couple of months for it to mature a bit before I can taste it.
Also made a Spiced Apple cake which lasted about 10 mins…it was very, very nice. And some Spicy Apple muffins (a different recipe for comparison) which are disappearing at only slightly slower rate than the cake. Quite please with the results actually as I have another cake for the repertoire and have tested out the silicone individual muffin cups that I bought recently. I don’t know if silicone is any better than metal to cook your food in but they are definitely a lot easier to get cakes out off. (The trick is to wait a bit after you bring them out of the oven.)

A brief knitting word…when last I mentioned knitting I think it was to explain the horrendous mistakes I made with the arms. The good news is that I now have one arm finished correctly and have ripped back the other arm (again) and am about half way through re-knitting it (again!) I’m trying my hardest to get this project done by the end of September cause I have other projects to do before the end of the year. I’d also like to cut down the time it takes me to finish something cause the list of “I would like to knit…” is getting long and at this rate I’ll be 60 before I’ll have finished my current list!!!! The only good news about that is that my invite to Ravely has come through (probably only of note to knitters) so I can keep a track of all the stuff I want to do! (and find more!!)

Well that's about all the enthusiasm I can muster for today. Hope yours is better!

Thump of Reality

Oh what a shock to the system! We are back home and after a failed alarm call and a mad dash through peak hour public transport I’m back at work…and wondering why! (Oh yeah…the money!!)

Canada was really great. One of the most disorganised trips we’ve ever done (this refers to ME not to anyone at the Canada end) but it turned out to be one of the best holidays we’ve had in years. (this IS due to everyone at the Canada end!)
First and foremost the wedding was stunning. All the bridal party looked fantastic, the reception was fun and elegant with loads of dancing, fabulous food and fairy lights and of course the bride and groom looked beautiful and happy and very much in love.

After recovering from the wedding we managed to sneak away for a few days up the Bruce Peninsular, several hours drive north of Toronto. We went for the walking and the marine park but only managed a few hikes before the weather turned on us with the storm of the century (well almost!!)
With no boats running and not even a jumper between us we decided to cut the trip short and returned to London (Ont.) We were more than a little disapointed but with no rain gear there was little we could do so we decided that next time we’ll make some time to go up there again.

Also squeezed in a bit of shopping (since the exchange rate makes things so cheap) but didn’t make it into Toronto to the various yarn stores there and so came home yarn-less. To make matters worse I’ve just learnt there was one of the biggest (in Canada) knitting shows not more than an hour from where we were and I never knew about it. Sigh. Still I shall console myself with the fact that
a) the dollar has gone down again against the euro and so I can buy even more yarn over the internet!
b) I couldn’t have got anything else into my suitcase with the army of jeans I brought back with me!!!!!

Overall the holiday was more about spending time with folks than seeing the sights and most of the time we were sitting around somewhere just catching up on the last two years and generally having great time. In fact we had such a great time we nearly didn’t come home and 24 hours after arriving back we’re already talking about our next trip out there!!!

Can’t wait.

Here I am!

Sorry for the delay in posting. I meant to put something up here before we left for Canada but ran out of time.
So.....we're now in Canada! London Ont. to be exact. We've been hanging out with family for the past week or so and we are planing to take off up the Bruce Peninsula somewhere this week for a few days and do some sight seeing.

The wedding went really well. Very beautiful and loads of fun and we have hundreds of photos.
Here's one of the happy couple!
And one of the other happy couple!!!

The wedding was amazing with loads of great food, dancing and catching up with folks we hadn't seen in two years! We're only sad as this will be the last wedding for a while and there goes our excuse to come over here!!!

Ok that's all I have time for now but will post more details and photos when we get back from Canada in a week or so!