JFK to PHX to SMF

June 9, 20251 Comment

And so we ended the Spring Break trip to DC (the nation’s capital) and New York (the real capital) (yeah I know, New York isn’t even the capital of New York) (it’s a bit like explaining that Harry Kane was not the captain of Spurs, that being Hugo Lloris, despite being England captain). We flew from JFK in, ahem, first class. Yep, through the magic of airline points we managed to get a deal that got really good seats in first class all the way back home. Well, all the way to Phoenix, and then another short flight but those seats were nice too. These ones however had the little compartment with the massive screen and the lie-flat seats. No cushions or blankets though. It was strange to be seated at an angle on a plane. The attendant was very attentive (yeah don’t put your hand on my shoulder when asking me if I want a drink mate), though I did not know what to order, I felt I had to be fancy, but I just got a wine which I didn’t even finish. I sketched, watched Avengers: Infinity War, tried to sleep a little, basically it was like being on a plane but with more room. My teenager was there to my left watching some movie (Hunger Games maybe), I wish we had had a game of Battleships because that would have been perfect (you probably can’t play Battleships on a plane though). It was only my second time in first class, and mate, it’s hard to go back. But we only get a brief glimpse into life on the other side of the curtain, and then it’s over.

I did people-sketch at the airports, both JFK and PHX. I hate airports as you may know, and sitting around in departure lounges is slightly better than rushing about in corridors or going through security lines. I had done a lot of people sketches with that thick black pen on this trip so this was a good way to pass the time.

And finally, the last leg from Phoenix to Sacramento. It was late afternoon, nearly the evening, and we were all exhausted from the travel. I was watching Withnail and I, another classic. After watching Infinity War this was a change of scenery, but I imagined Uncle Monty and Thanos switching places, putting a new spin on his question “Are you a sponge or an infinity stone?” It was late, I was tired. I sketched to calm the old flying nerves, and slept well when we got home. I hope it’s not as long again until the next time I see New York, but I guess there’s only so much excitement I can take.

across the country, by plane and by train

April 24, 2025Leave a comment

During Spring Break, our family took a trip across the breadth of the country to Washington DC and New York. For a few years now we have been using our Spring Breaks to see more of the USA, alternating between national parks and big cities, and this year we decided to visit ‘Our Nation’s Capital’ (as they call it here) and the ‘Big Apple’ (I don’t know if you’ve heard of that but that’s what they call New York). Of course when we travel I must also sketch, what else am I going to do, watch a movie? I did that too, and read a book (Agatha Christie ‘And Then There Were None’, which I finished on the train to New York). Above, the Southwest flight we took to St. Louis. I’ve not ever been to St. Louis, but we flew right over the big Gateway Arch, which was exciting, and then stopped at the airport to listen to the very different accents while waiting for an overpriced lunch. I can’t pronounce St. Louis, I never know whether to add the ‘s’ sound at the end or not, despite hearing it and being told, when I actually come to say it, my brain forgets and I choose the wrong one. A bit like whenever I need to plug in a USB, *every*single*time* I will plug it in the wrong way round first. This is called the ‘USB Law’, or the ‘St. Louis Principle’. We flew from St. Louis to DC, but I didn’t bother drawing that short flight, and caught up on some Agatha Christie instead.

After a couple of days exploring Washington’s museums and monuments, we caught the Amtrak train from Union Station, finding ourselves cramped into large seats with no legroom, looking out of a small window as the marshy landscape whizzed by. This is an America I have not seen, the East Coast where there are lots of little states and big cities around large estuaries, very far away from our dry sunny California. I love a train, watching the landscape change and wondering what will come next. I finished reading Agatha (the butler did it; only joking) and sketched. We passed through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and then the skyscrapers started to come into view as we approached New York, my favourite city after London.

Well New York was fun, but it was time to fly back to California. Thanks to the magic of airline points wer were able to fly back in business class, which was luxury with those little compartments, massive screens, lie-flat seats (with no cushions) and metal cutlery. I sat in the compartment next to my 17 year old and watched Avengers Infinity War. I was going to watch Conclave but thought I should save that for when the Pope died, which unfortunately he did just a few days ago. A shame, I liked Pope Francis. The flight took us all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, and I was still excited by all of our wanderings about New York City. Lots of sketches to post soon.

And finally the last leg, Phoenix to Sacramento, after a couple of hours in a lounge at PHX. We had the bigger seats for this leg as well, and while I did sketch a bit I relaxed and watched another old film, Withnail and I. I’ve not seen it in years. We made it back to Davis tired and in need of a cup of tea and a long sleep, more adventures around the country. I’ll post all my sketches soon.

flying there and flying back

December 9, 2024December 9, 2024Leave a comment

A couple more in-flight sketches. At this point it’s just routine to draw these, that whole perspective practice, but for me it’s really more to do with calming my nerves in the airplane. Not so much the nerves about flying, more the anxiety of travel and of airports in particular. I hate airports probably more than anything. I mean, not more than fascism or mass murder or rampant plutocracy, but airports are pretty anxiety inducing. Once I’m on the plane, then I have to overcome the fact of being stuffed into a metal tube with a load of other people and being blasted across the planet, but I’m still in awe of the technology frankly. I’m spoilt by that one time I flew first class, from LA to Paris in 2019 like a movie star. Gotta love the points. Above are two sketches from either side of our trip to Kauai, the first was on Hawaiian Airlines out of Oakland, the second on Southwest Airlines out of Lihue. In the back of the seat on Hawaiian was a little sheet that said “hana-hou!” and on southwest there was the same but it said “hi, there”. On one, I sat on the left, on the other I sat on the right. As George Lucas might say, it’s like poetry, it rhymes.

typhoon and spitfire

July 22, 2024Leave a comment

We visited the Royal Air Force Museum in Colindale, London (RAF Hendon), a place I really like because it’s so full of historic old fighter planes, and also really close to where my mum lives, where I grew up. And yet a place I don’t go to often, even as a kid. It was always just there, over by Grahame Park. I am glad in a way though because every time I do go back, it always surprises me. Last time I was there was about five years ago when Urban Sketchers London had a sketchcrawl there, and I brought my nephew along. I love drawing the old World War Two planes. My family and I wandered through here, and I drew a couple of planes in pencil, the Hawker Typhoon (above), a small plane with some big guns, and of course, the Supermarine Spitfire (below). The Spitfire is the best, isn’t it, the most beautiful of planes. I used to call it the X-Wing of World War Two when I was a kid, but even the X-Wing isn’t this beautiful and iconic. There isn’t a better plane (and I love an F16) but to Britons, this is the plane more than any other that represents the British spirit, Battle of Britain and all that. I do love a Spitfire. It also has the best name. If there was a Transformer with the name Spitfire, it would be the most popular robot, more than Bumblebee or Jazz. Remember those little foam planes you could buy in the corner shop, for about 20p or so, they had all the old planes and you attached a little plastic propellor to the front and flew them until they crashed into a bush or under a car? You can still get those actually, I’ve seen them over here. The Spitfire was always the best one, flying against the Messerschmidts, Sopwith Camels and and the (hehe) Fokkers.

sacramento to kahului (and back)

January 9, 2024January 9, 2024Leave a comment

We flew over the Pacific to the Hawaiian island of Maui just after Christmas, for our festive tropical new year break. That was amazing. We did have to get up super early in the morning to get to the airport and catch our 7am plane, which we did (though Sacramento airport was very busy), and had dramatic skies as the sun was coming up. We flew on a Boeing 737-Max-8, blissfully unaware of the problems that the Max-9 would have a week later when part of one came off shortly after take-off. Yeah let’s not think about that scary situation. As Superman says, flying is still the safest way to travel. Easy for him to say. Still the view was beautiful. I always have to do a bit of drawing when I fly, it helps me relax. Looking out of the window I tried to capture the colours and textures of the sky in my little Fabriano Venezia book.

It’s nearly six hours from Sacramento to Kahului, the main airport on Maui. Maui is a beautiful place, though it has suffered a lot in 2023 with devastating fires, namely the terrifying disaster than befell the historic capital Lahaina. I sketched there in 2019, when we visited on New Year’s Eve. While the buildings were destroyed, the historic Banyan Tree has survived, albeit terribly damaged. We were going to stay in Wailea, where we stayed on that previous trip, on the south-western part of Maui. We flew out with Southwest, and on the way we were able to watch the Tottenham game against Brighton & Hove Albion. Should win that right? We lost 4-2, and we were 4-0 down when we landed, so there was a little bit more Norf London Language than usual on this flight. (We made up for it by beating Bournemouth a few days later, but seriously, we were ravaged by injuries and suspensions).

I have a few Maui sketches to post, I wasn’t going to do a lot of sketching what with being in the ocean and the pool and playing my ukulele by the sea, but you know I can’t help myself. I’ll post those later. Below is the sketch from the flight home, this was the flight on the 737-Max-8 (I can’t remember what the plane was going out there, it wasn’t a Max-8 or 9), and they have a handy little tray that pops down where you can clamp in your phone or iPad to watch things on there, a very handy feature. It would still get sucked out if the window fell off though. I don’t think I watched much, a couple of episodes of ‘Marvel’s What If’, mostly just listened to podcasts and sketched, this time in that brown fountain pen. Buy the time we got home it was raining hard in the Sacramento valley, and a lot colder than the mid-80s of Maui. Happy New Year!

“cause I just wanna fly”

July 29, 2023July 28, 2023Leave a comment

Ok, I’ll start posting the sketches from my recent trip to England and Scotland (“Britain” as we call it, for the time being anyway). Let’s start with the bookend airplane sketches. You would think that I would be incredibly bored of drawing these views by now, and you’d be right, I am bored of drawing these views. Yet I still draw them, because when I fly I need something to relax me, and that is drawing my surroundings. I could watch some stupid film on the seat-back monitor, and get interrupted by the captain who wants to tell us very slowly that we can buy some useless duty-free rubbish from the flight attendants if we want, or maybe to not tell us about a pocket of upcoming turbulence that will make the plane suddenly plummet god-knows-how-many-hundreds-of-feet downwards towards Greenland (that happened on our flight back, and I’m still feeling it). I mostly just watch the map, to see where we are. I always download some things on my iPad to watch, mostly Get Back, but I don’t like to dive into watching something early on knowing that the flight crew will be serving us some marginally edible food an hour or so into the flight and I might miss out if I engrossed in watching my screen with headphones on. So I draw, it helps me calm my nerves a little. I do listen to a lot of podcasts while on the plane, and audiobooks. I don’t actually mind flying, I just hate the airport experience, and if we are all cramped into a plane with no space, I hate that too. The sketch above was done on the way over on my iPad, we flew via Seattle for some reason, late at night, and I think I only managed an hour of sleep at best, total, we were so cramped. On these flights, I only recline my seat a little, as to go back the whole way is not very considerate to those seated behind you, who then cannot move much. Still when we landed we were excited about getting to London, seeing family again.

This second sketch is on the flight back (we were flying through LAX this time), when we were similarly squeezed in, and I was feeling pretty sick. About ten minutes into the flight, the young fellow in the seat in front decided that he needed to recline his seat the entire way. Not only did this give me zero room to be able to lean forward and get things from under my seat – physically impossible, and I’m of average height – but also made it impossible to see the seat-back screen which does not adjust any more, and impossible to put anything on my tray taller than a small plastic cup (not my bottle, certainly not my iPad), and if I wanted to read my magazine I would have to hold it close to my face (which let’s face it I have to do anyway these days, my eyesight is so bad). His girlfriend in the seta next to him only reclined half the way and my son (who is now almost as tall as me) had no problem. So I politely asked the guy if he would mind not reclining the whole way, but may just 50%? Nope, he didn’t want to do that. This was ten minutes out of Heathrow, we hadn’t eaten yet and the lights were definitely not turned off for sleepy-time mode. “It’s just I have no room if you put your seat back the whole way.” “You can put your seat back too,” he said. “But I don’t need to; it disrupts the person sat behind me, and it still doesn’t give me any more room to lean forward to get things from under the seat.” “It’s the same for everyone,” he said, refusing to budge or acknowledge my point, adding “the person in front of me has their seat back,” which I could see was not in fact true. “Mate this ain’t a game of dominoes,” I said. “It’s not ‘the same for everyone’ because people generally respect the other people around them. I’m not saying don’t recline at all, but just halfway.” It was like the guy was on my lap. I’m not actually sure why they make the seats in these economy areas recline as much as they do, using seats from a time when there was much more legroom. Airlines have tried to squeeze passengers more and more in recent years, no wonder there is so much air-rage. On other economy flights they either don’t recline at all or just a little. Either way, be respectful innit. I feel like flight attendants should announce at the start of the flight that passengers should be considerate of their fellow cattle, their fellow battery hens. As I tried to move to get my bag, I’m sure my legs must have knocked the seat in front a few times, which I try not to do but dude, really. Eventually though, he relented, and moved his seat forward a bit more, with some quiet grumbling, and in a way that was very much like he was deciding that he was more comfortable further forward, nothing to do with me. So I had a bit more room to breathe, which was good because I was still sick, and very much losing my voice. I started a sketch early on this flight, and you can see that we were still only over Scotland by the time his seat went forward again, and I could put my lukewarm Pepsi Max on the seat (British airports – it might be nice if you occasionally refrigerated your cold drinks, thanks very much). I might have had eleven hours of that. I drew this in my little Fabriano Venezia sketchbook. We eventually got to LAX after what felt like a series of Andor (slow and painful and full of boring characters, and still not actually at our destination when the whole thing was over), and flew on to Sacramento after a long walk along not that busy road with the very narrow sidewalk that runs a ring through the middle of the airport. I will say though the immigration guy when I landed in LA was very friendly. We landed at Sacramento and got one of the worst Ubers ever, a smelly car driven by this stoner dude drinking a Big Gulp who played awful music and kept telling me about his trip to London in like 1999 and how he never saw any green space at all, “London has like no parks” (even after this journey I’m like, mate you clearly weren’t in London if you saw no parks or trees). I could still barely hear after the planes had messed up my ears, and I just wanted to see the cats, get to my bedroom, fall asleep. But even as we went up our pathway dragging our suitcases and sweating in the shock of the Davis heat, I could barely hear the Uber driver calling me from his car, and I was nearly in the house when I noticed him. What did he want, had we left something? No, apparently we hadn’t closed the door the whole way getting out of the car, in my exhaustion from that horribly long journey I hadn’t noticed. Rather than just get out and close it himself and drive on, he just sat there drinking his Big Gulp and waiting for me to come back, and open and close the door again more firmly, which I did. Honestly, I really just wanted to not be around people for a good while.

Well we got our wish because next day we all got progressively sick, and so we tested and sure enough, Covid had finally got us. So we stayed home all week, not seeing anyone, ordering food in, and tried to recover from our vacation. July 4th fireworks came and went, I nearly joined the cats hiding under the sofa. But even if the air travel itself was stressful (and that includes flying from Inverness into Luton, my least favourite airport, and the post-midnight Uber ride from there back to London), our trip overall was fun, and we saw some amazing places, many of which I sketched. So I’ll post all those next. Despite all of this travel fun, I actually can’t wait to go and visit somewhere else. But as I’ve said before, it’s always nice to finally get back home, even if it’s to 100+ degree weather.

chicago, chicago

May 2, 2023Leave a comment

Guess what we did in our Spring Break? That’s right, we went to the amazing city of Chicago, my first ever trip there (my wife had been a couple of decades or so ago). I’ve wanted to see Chicago for ages, I know quite a few urban sketchers up that way, though this being a fairly brief trip I didn’t have a lot of time to see if there were any sketching events. Still, I sketched wherever I could. Being mostly on the go and on the way elsewhere, many were ‘draw outline, finish later’, such as the one below. But I had to draw some hydrants of course, and on the first morning, still full to the brim from my first experience of Chicago Deep Dish Pizza the night before, I got up for a walk in the cold along the river (in the shadow of that massive tower with “TRUMP” on the side of it, that gets in the way of every photo) (despite that name, architecturally quite an interesting design though), and found some hydrants to sketch. Chicago, “that toddlin’ town” as Tony Bennett sang, is a pretty tall city. Our first bit of exploring took us on a walk down to the “Bean” as it’s called by locals, or “Cloud Gate” as it’s actually called, that big shiny sculpture that reflects and bends its surroundings, as drawn by every single urban sketcher that has been to Chicago ever. It was pretty cold, and it started to snow while I stood there. So I just drew the outline, and the people in front, and left all those windows for later on, because I’m not nuts. Although it took me several goes to draw all those windows, because I just kept getting bored. And yes, I counted them as I went along, I think I got them all. Don’t bother checking. I was really interested in the reflection though, all those people that looked like ants. If they were ants, they would be making a single-file line up the street to the Nutella Cafe, because as we discovered recently, determined ants do love Nutella and will do what they can to get in there (we have to keep our jar of Nutella in a bigger airtight jar now). We moved along and explored that side of town a bit more, discovered an interesting bookshop in the Fine Arts Building that specialized in music books (I bought a cool little book on Belle and Sebastian), and then walked past the start of the old Route 66 into the downtown Loop area, before having lunch at the Berghoff, which might be the oldest restaurant in Chicago. The snow was coming down in light flurries.

I mentioned that we had eaten Deep Dish Pizza, proper Chicago style, the night before, and we would still be full from that for the next several days. The place we had it was as Chicago as it gets, Pizzeria Uno, about a block from our hotel. It’s called the “Birthplace of Deep Dish Pizza”, pizza-in-the-pan, invented by the owner Ike Sewell, and that really took off. The sign said that this was the first pizzeria in North America. I always believe what I read in restaurants, but this was a pretty cool old place. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from Deep Dsh, I thought it might be something like a very thick pizza dough, or maybe like stuffed crust pizza you get at Pizza Hut. I couldn’t be wider of the mark. You know when Americans say “Pizza Pie”, well this is more like an actual pie. The crust is thick and goes right up the metal side of the pan it comes in, and it is filled with so much cheese, tomato and veggies that it was more like a savory trifle than what I think of as a pizza. I am glad we asked what size to get beforehand, they actually recommended my wife and I share a small, while my son got a personal size. We didn’t finish our small, it was so deep! The boneless chicken wings were pretty nice as an appetizer, and I had a couple of super tasty local beers called “Deep Dish Daddy”. A little further up the street is Pizzeria Due, the second location of this popular pizzeria, and around the corner from that is Su Casa, a Tex-Mex restaurant opened by Sewell a little later. We ate there on our last night in Chicago, when we had the tornado. That’s not the name of a dish or a drink, it was an actual tornado. We were sat in there eating enchiladas and drinking a margarita, when suddenly everyone’s phones in the restaurant went off at once, there was a large tornado hitting the region soon with destructive winds of about 90 miles per hour, so everyone needs to get safe. We went back to the hotel, not in any rush, but by the time we got upstairs and watched the news, boy was it stormy outside. There were a few tornadoes that passed by the area just to the south of Chicago, passing into Indiana, and one hot a suburb of Chicago taking the rook off of a concert hall and killing one person inside, injuring several more. It didn’t last too long, but it was pretty strange weather. On that day, the temperature was about 25-30 degrees warmer than the previous day, so something was up. Chicago weather, man, you’re at the Great Lakes, you’re in the Midwest.

But back to Day One. It was very cold, and when the snow stopped and the sun started coming out, it got colder still. Way colder in fact. We spent a bit of time walking about the amazing Chicago downtown, admiring all the grand Gotham City architecture, before having lunch at The Berghoff, which is “Chicago’s Oldest Restaurant” (I will honestly believe anything a sign in a restaurant tells me), and was opened in 1898 by German Herman Berghoff, selling beers for a nickel, with a free side sandwich. The Berghoff is known for its very German fare, which is what appealed to me, as we love the schnitzels and the spaetzle. Especially the spaetzle, my wife’s grandma from Bavaria used to make that, delicious. After Prohibition, The Berghoff was the first bar to get a liquor license (thanks for the info, restaurant website!), so it was fun to spend a bit more time in another historic bit of Chicago. I sketched from across the street after we ate, while my son and wife went back to the hotel to rest and warm up. In the afternoon, we took the architectural boat tour, a must for Chicago visitors. It was so cold, but at least we had clear blue skies to see all the ridiculously tall buildings. Chicago built them very, very tall. The biggest is Sears Tower – sorry, Willis Tower, but don’t worry about calling it the wrong thing, Chicago people call it what they want. It used to be the tallest building in the world. I folded my arms and looked up at it and said, “What you talkin’ about, Willis?”, because I am a dad in his forties and that is what we do. We nearly went up it but the wait was a bit long so we thought sod it. It’s very, very tall though. It was like standing next to Barad-Dur.

I’ll post the other Chicago sketches another day. The last one here was the first one of the trip, sketched in my little red Stillman and Birn book, the obligatory in-travel sketch of the airplane. We flew from Sacramento to Chicago Midway. Nuff said.

A Day at the D-Day Beaches

January 17, 2023January 16, 2023Leave a comment

One of the other main reasons for wanting to visit Normandy was to see and explore Les Plages de Débarquement, the Normandy Landing Beaches. My son had been learning about D-Day at school since a couple of years before and had been fascinated by this period of history, and had been reading lots of of books and watching the films and footage. Early in the pandemic we all watched Band of Brothers (which was amazing, but very graphic) so we all started learning a bit more. Of course we all grew up knowing the story, and D-Day was celebrated in the UK every year on June 6th almost more than VE Day. In 1066 the Normans sailed across the Channel (no mean feat by the way, it’s a treacherous body of water) to subjugate England; in 1944 their descendants made the return trip to liberate not only Normandy, or France, but Europe and the free world from the Nazis. One of the great moments in world history, bought with a great many lives. It was an on-off rainy day when we went, and we started out at Utah Beach, one of the more prominent of the landing sites, and one of the most successful. This was led by the Americans, and along with Omaha Beach this will always be a little piece of America in northern France. We arrived and walked out to the wide expanse of the beach itself, and it’s good that it was a more overcast day than we’d had. There was a statue of some soldiers disembarking from a Higgins Boat landing craft (I sketched above, with the Museum in the background. The Museum at Utah Beach itself (https://utah-beach.com/en/) was really fascinating and well worth a visit. I sketched the large warbird “Dinah Might”, a B-26 Marauder, in the expansive hangar. I do love those old war planes.

Outside, I drew the Sherman Tank guarding the entrance. I didn’t have long to draw this so I did mostly just the outline and a few details and drew the rest on the plan coming home. So many details in those treads, they really were mighty little machines. I didn’t do any more sketching on our tour of the sites, due to time, but we still packed in a few more places on our way back to Bayeux.

We drove through towns we knew from the history documentaries, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Carentan, Grandcamp-Maisy, imagining what it was like during that horrifying time. We can’t imagine it. We went on to La Pointe du Hoc, a high point jutting into the sea on the other side of the river mouth to Utah Beach, full of German bunkers and artillery that saw a famous battle on D-Day, a victory for the Allies led by the US Army Rangers. We went on to Omaha Beach, a name that brings a bit of a chill. The other main US landing point, Omaha looks like a beautiful place today, but saw some of the most terrifying fighting of the landings with thousands of soldiers killed. Nearby was our next destination, the American Cemetery, at Colville-sur-Mer. This was incredibly moving, I knew it would be but to be there among all those pristine graves, all those names of all those young soldiers, stretching out for what feels like miles, it was overwhelming. 9,388 people are buried there, of which 307 are unknown. The bugle from a memorial service echoed over the stones, and the rain switched on and off. We moved on to Gold Beach, at Arromanches-les-Bains, which was the main landing point of the British forces, spent a bit of time around Arromanches itself, and went up onto the cliffs to see some of the memorial spots. You could still see the artifical harbour installed by the British troops on D-Day to faciliate the landings. We had an ice cream and looked out over the channel.

We started toward Juno Beach, the main Canadian forces landing point, but the day was getting late so we headed back to Bayeux, which was very close by. That was a day of seeing some of our most important history spots, for sure. We left Normandy the next day for Paris, but we left wanting more, there is a lot more to see and learn about in this part of the world, and it feels like it’s all our history.

afternoon at the arms

September 8, 2022September 7, 2022Leave a comment

The last sketches from my first trip back to Europe this summer. I’d be back in a month and a bit, with the family, for more London and France. On the Friday, following a Thursday of staying in Burnt Oak and then working remotely in the evening (I say evening, I didn’t actually stop until almost 4am…that’s late even on California time, but there was a deadline), I went to Hampstead and met up with my friend Roshan. We walked about the village and over the Heath, it was a nice day and the views across London were amazing. I really miss London, and this is what I miss. We stopped off at a couple of places to have a cold drink and a sit down, these forty-something-year-old legs need resting more often, and ended up at a pub we’d never been to before, the Southampton Arms, down Parliament Hill / Tufnell Park. It’s a small place, with great music and a good choice of beers. This is the sort of place to spend a warm afternoon. I had to draw it, to catch a bit of the light and the mood. I used to live not too far from this part of London, up in the Highgate area, before moving to America. I often daydream of whether we would still live around there had we stayed in London; it’s so expensive to live there, and we could never earn enough with the sort of jobs we were doing, but you never know. I’ll always be a Londoner, but we will probably never live there again; I guess I’m Californian now. Still it’s nice to visit and see friends and family, while we can. I went back home for dinner with my mum, and that evening also met up with another friend James down in the Angel for an overdue catch-up (and lots of Beatles chat).

I flew back on the 12th, on the day when the COVID testing requirement to re-enter the States was officially dropped (I still had to do a proctored video test the day before, but by the time I had to enter my results into the system there was no need). We had a small family gathering the evening before at my mum’s, which ended in a lot of singing and dancing in the back yard, many Irish songs. I found it hard to sleep through the night though, as there was a big punch-up in the street between some of my mum’s Romanian neighbours, and I mean it was a proper fist fight between three blokes, you could hear the ‘thwack!’ and ‘pow!’ noises as the blows landed, even over the loud exclamations of a woman right below my window. It went on for quite some time, I wanted to tell them to take it down the park please, but given how loud we were playing the Wolfe Tones just a few hours before I couldn’t really tell them to pipe down. So I just kept my window closed and thought well, at least this will be a story. Usually I’m kept awake in Burnt Oak by the sound of foxes fighting in the bins and bushes, those things are loud. I made my plane in good time though, and I had an odd seat, in that there was no seat in front of me, giving me loads of lovely legroom. Also no screen to watch, but then I was going to be watching that Sex Pistols show on my iPad anyway, and listening to more Beatles podcasts. The guy next to me was a bit jealous of my legroom I think. He was chatty and kept trying to have a conversation with me at first, but beyond a few pleasantries I wasn’t really interested in listening to this guy for ten hours so put the headphones on and started drawing, because I just can’t stop drawing can I.

hawaiian rain

January 19, 2022January 19, 2022Leave a comment

The day after Christmas we took another short trip away to Hawaii. It was the second time we’d been there in 2021, amazingly, as we decided to take advantage of a good deal and a window between variant surges. My Mum was visiting us from England and had never been to Hawaii, so it was a nice treat for her, a special trip. Hawaii is really, really far away from Burnt Oak, certainly the furthest I’ve ever been away from home. My wife’s mother came too. We stayed in Waikiki, we had a nice sunny first day, but the other days were a bit more changeable – that tropical climate bringing a bit of rain here and there, and we did get a massive downpour on the last day. But it was beautiful, it was Hawaii, I had my Hula Pie at Duke’s, splashed about in the ocean, explored the other side of the island, and played the ukulele a lot – I really have ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ down now. I did go stand-up paddle-boarding again, but this time in the actual ocean itself rather than the lagoon like last time, when I thought I was good at it. This time, I fell into the water a lot. There wasn’t much stand-up in the stand-up paddleboarding. I kept getting heckled by the fish. I didn’t do that much drawing, but I did sketch the scene on the plane over (yet another), and also by the Ala Wai Canal in the early evening, getting rained on.

I did draw a couple of panoramas in my sketchbook, the next one being on the beach at Lanikai. I did splash about in the ocean for a bit, but mostly sat playing the ukulele or drawing. This was a beautiful beach, quite popular, not very big. The clouds rolled in and out, giving us a few sprinkles.

Finally, the view from our hotel room at the Sheraton. That was a really nice hotel. We didn’t get a view of the ocean this time, but a lot of Waikiki skyline. For this one I drew the outlines of all the buildings while the rain poured down, but I drew the rest of the details on the plane home.