the little gloster

remember i told you i was in the isle of wight the other week ?

luckily enough somebody else is editing all the photos, but i did just 

have a little look through them and picked out a few to show you.

you know... just incase you were thinking of checking out 'the island'

ok, so this is the room i stayed in.

and slept like a boss

this was my sweet balcony

where i would drink black coffee and scowl at the boats.

i used to do a lot of work for a magazine called 'wine'

( it was all about wine funnily enough )

over the years i heard lots of lectures and speeches about wine but to 

be honest i never paid any attention. only one thing stayed in my mind,

i have only one wine related tip to pass on to you ( if tip is the word ) 

one afternoon in a pub near earls court i heard a famous wine expert say something

that stayed in my memory for over 10 years, and it's this...

"when a man is tired of syrah, he is tired of life"

i asked him what the hell he was talking about and he explained that what he was 

trying to get across is that you can't go wrong with a bottle of syrah.

no idea what this wine is but i just remembered the syrah quote 

and thought i'd share it with you.

( thanks for that - ed )

moving on, here's ben sexing the lobster

( i'm told this is perfectly legal practice on the isle of wight )

and here's natalie a little while afterwards looking after the same lobster

the lobster seemed a lot less agitated by this stage

here's a closer look at him

hmmm...

this is one of my favourite shots from the little gloster

andrea pretending to be doing something with the glasses.

shot using a leica 50mm f1.4 lens on my trusty gf-1

oh, i kind of like this too

one of the many little toy boats kicking around in my room.

right... what's this ?

is it like eggs benedict but with salmon instead of ham ?

there's probably a name for it but i think it's wrong not to use ham.

and also what are those green things all about ?

no need for them to be anywhere near those nice eggs...

( ben the chef got to hear all about my food ideas over the two day shoot )

and what's this ?

grrr ! too much greenery for my liking, but i do like the way those 

little berries are balanced on top.

wrong !

i'm not eating that. 

outrageous amounts of greenery here.

( i only eat fish in it's natural battered form, when it is accompanied by it's close

friends mr chips and mr mushy peas )

i think this is gravlax

oh... it came with nice bread and stuff on the side

and some frozen shot glasses with a cold bottle of aquavit ( don't ask )

i'm not a fan of desserts but fair play to ben, this looked good.

and i do like berries

ben is top man. a great chef and a good bloke.

i think that in this shot he is thinking seriously about taking on my ideas about
cooking without vegetables... wondering if it will work...

oh, see the out of focus things on either side of ben ?








pull focus and...

it's the oldest trick in the book.


many, many thanks to ben and holly at the little gloster for looking after me.

now seriously, have a butchers at your diaries and book yourselves a little
break on the isle of wight, staying at the little gloster.

great location, beautiful rooms, excellent food.

and don't forget to say that i sent you.

www.thelittlegloster.com