Happy Anniversary Baby. I love you more and more every day x x x x x

This particular film of Yosemite caught my eye.  Enjoy:

It would seem the rest of the world has woken up and things are getting busier. At least we have the unseasonably milder and dry weather to help us out when not stuck in the office.

I have done my best (as I always do), to try to have a brief walk at lunch and this weekend Richard and I saved a day to get out and about.

Having managed to put all our appointments and chores into Saturday we ensured today has been left for us to both relax and have a quiet day. Although not as warm as it has been it was sunny so we got in the car and took the short drive over to Audley End.

We spent the best part of the morning exploring the grounds and enjoying the fact that there were only a handful of people there. It felt in some parts that we had the whole estate to ourselves and we had a great opportunity to explore.

Of course following our walk around the extensive grounds we stopped for a hot beverage and lunch before heading back home.

I have promised myself that I will keep up my 366 project this year (previous years haven’t been that successful) and have so far (I think), managed to upload an interesting photo each day this year. I know it’s only early days but I am already quite proud of my collection of snaps…

My photo’s already include ex prime ministers, the ever-changing London sky line, protest lines of demonstrators and dramatic neo-classical follies. Go on have a look!

I’ve decided to have another stab at the Royal Academies Summer Exhibition and have paid for my application. I am taking a gamble this year as I am not sure I will have time to create anything new therefore I will probably submit an existing work… I must be mad!

Richard receiving his hand massage

It’s not been a bad start to the new year and one that seems to have meant that most people have stayed away from work until (I guess), tomorrow.  This means for those of us who haven’t jetted around the world at Christmas, we get to bed into the new year with some decency and with space to breath.

The new year brings some form of rail service and we have managed to get into London on the weekend and spent some of yesterday at Westfield having a look around the shops.  Richard must have been relaxed as he agreed to have a hand massage at L’Occitane – it was all about the Shea Butter apparently

Sadly the annual post Christmas TV depression ensues and the selection on all the channels has been absolutely dreadful.  We resorted to watching two movies last night.  In fact it’s been a weekend of movies as we went to the cinema today.

I am not sure what this selection of movies says about us but here goes:

Horrible Bosses - Richard bought me this for Christmas and we both enjoyed it.  I cannot say we enjoyed it as much as we thought we would be it was a good enough romp to while away a couple of hours.  Richard also bought me Transformers 3 which we will watch at some stage.

Chris Evans as Captain America

Captain America - Great nonsensical film which has a fair amount of action in it and the not to be missed topless scene of Chris Evans looking all ripply and delicious.  This film was spoilt by the service offered by Sony’s film on demand service (which comes straight into our Sony Bravia TV via the web).  Sadly in the most action packed part of the film the sound crapped out – is it any wonder Sony is losing money and market share?

The Iron Lady - This is a film which is acted wonderfully not only by Meryl Streep but the whole cast – including such surprises as Richard E Grant playing Nigel Hesseltine.  An interesting dramatisation of Thatchers reign of power but not a film I felt totally comfortable with as the writers chose to depict it through the eyes of a woman with dementia.  Having had a grandparent die a slow drawn out death due to Alzheimer’s I feel this is a sensitive subject and no matter who they are,  they should be treated with dignity and respect.  I am sure the writers could have come up with something else as a vehicle for the story.

A varied selection of films as you can see and this evening will probably be punctuated with Sherlock Holmes on the BBC.

I like weekends like this as we have done quite a bit but also had the opportunity to take time out and to relax. I just hope it lasts!  

I am not sure what is going on in Cupertino towers lately but I am not entirely impressed with the changes Apple is making to the way their products and services work.

To start with I signed up for iTunes Match and I am not completely sure why I have it or what it is supposed to do… I get that it allows me to have all my music in the cloud, I get that it allows me to backup my current iTunes library (note not all of it as I have too much music) and I get the I can stream or download my music anytime from the cloud to my iOS device etc

but…. This comes at a cost…

I now find my Music on my iPhone confusing. If all the music is visible I have to trawl through to find what is actually on my device. This isn’t helped when I only display what is on the device as all the cloud symbols confuse me and I am not sure what I have on me and what I don’t.

Since I am using the cloud I no longer am able to use Genius – which I didn’t realise I used so much until now.

My wi-fi syncing is slow and takes forever to show any new tracks or selections.

The very worst though (for me) is that I no longer see all my album art. I painstakingly updated my artwork and keep iTunes looking tidy and now more often than not I get that awful generic grey musical note graphic.

Apart from the iTunes match problems this years selection of freebies through the 12 Days of Christmas app have been appalling. I am not sure who Apple is pitching this too but my best guess would be 10 year old girls whose brothers steal their iPhones to play games! The selection has been particularly poor this year and the worst example of a “free gift” was the EA Sports “Need for Speed” racing game which kept prompting you to read ads’ buy add ons and go to the web site. Not great.

I think Apple have done a great job with iTunes and 12 Days in the past (and lots of other things obviously) but I honestly think they have taken their eye off the target and are failing their consumers.

I know I didn’t have to sign up for Match or get the app but if it’s offered then it should at the very least work!

One can only hope that Apple wake up and improve as 2012 progresses.

It’s a new year and an Olympic one for the UK.

Regardless of what the pundits tell you about the economic climate, the state of the middle east and the world of business, I have no idea what personally this year will bring…

We are now happily installed in our new home and it will be nice not to spend time house hunting etc. Of course we have plans for the house this year, a few odd jobs to make our mark. It’ll be nice to experience a full year in Essex and Colchester and to participate in all the annual traditions.

We didn’t see in the new year as we managed to fall asleep before Big Ben tolled! We had a lovely dinner last night and caught up on our favourite American programs. A nice relaxed evening which left us comatosed and relaxed.

Can’t say if there were any fireworks in Colchester as we must have slept through any noise…

Today will be much like Christmas day for us and we have already had a cooked breakfast which I put together this morning. There is another hunk of beef in the oven and we are looking forward to another day chilling out.

Thankfully it’s another day off here in the UK tomorrow as it’s a bank holiday due to today falling on a Sunday. I can’t say I will be glad to go back to work on Tuesday!

I was looking through my favourite music of 2011 and was surprised to see how the playlists on Last FM were slightly different to the music I mentioned. Especially Cocknbullkid as I did listen to the album quite a bit before our little online “dispute”.

Here’s my most played albums of 2011 (glad to see classics such as Rhythm Nation still make it in here):

My most played artists of the year (M83, Sound of Arrows etc don’t feature as they were late editions):

And my most played tracks of the year (see what I mean re Cocknbullkid,):

An interesting year all round and I hope 2012 is just as exciting. I already have one concert booked, we plan to be on holiday when the Olympics are on so that we miss all the chaos and I potentially have some other things to look forward to.

I am looking forward to another great year with my baby, miss Brandy and our wonderful friends.

(Not so sure I am happy about turning 38 in 30 days time though!).

Wherever you are and however you celebrated I hope you had a great New Years Eve and I would like to wish you’ll the very best for the year ahead.