cymru am byth

the other week i went to god's own country for a few days.

when i arrived at my accommodation i was given some of this.

bora brith i think it's called.

it was game on.

a rare welsh word containing two vowels.

mrs w's sock game was on point all weekend.

check out these bad boys.

i went for a walk on the saturday and decided to wear a small sheep on my head.

i also decided to clamber around the trees... a bit like a welsh predator.

breakfast was decent. i made a mr breakfast face and thought about my friend 'credit'

and how his nanny wouldn't approve.

not that my friend 'credit' has a nanny... i mean the nanny he hired for his little kiddie.

not that she's there any more anyway.

what i mean is, she didn't approve of me messing with my food.

maybe that's why he got rid of her ?

er... anyway...

the toast game with the breakfast was outstanding

just toast it.

the language of heaven.

or as al murray calls it... "code"

a poster i thought about buying in a shop somewhere...

maybe hay-on-wye.

it was an original film poster from the 1950's and also the title of a sitcom

about three designers that i was once thinking about writing.

a barmaid in hay-on-wye gave me some very unsatisfactory head.

on a lighter note, the shadow looks a bit like a horse showing off his biceps.

( do horses even have biceps ? )

a pretty racist / slanderous / financially inaccurate monument in chepstow.

oh.

welsh cakes being made at a little market stall in brecon.

i tried flirting with the ladies on the welsh cake stall.

the young girl seemed a bit shy but the nan found me very amusing.

cymru am byth

tuesday's post ( leave it )

some bogus phone pics i have kicking around

1

this is where i parked my jam jar in camden a few weeks ago when i was visiting la niña.

i just looked up and saw the above scene.

2

a place i'll be working at in october

( long story )

3

can you guess where this is ?

4

a shop selling globetrotter luggage and fox umbrellas

two of england's oldest companies...

yes, it's in aoyama.

tokyo.

5

talking of fox umbrellas ( and i will be talking about them a lot in the near future )

they had this lovely display card in the store.

i do like foxes.

6

the painters have returned to whitfield towers.

everything has had to be taken off the walls.

still, it gave me a chance to dust off my bearbricks 

( not a euphanism )

7

and finally... a new n7 t-shirt.

just the one.

it was a test to see if an orange logo looks good on a grey tee.

i don't think it does.

spoke

oi oi !

present day me wearing an n7 t-shirt instead of chipie.

this is on the roof at whitfield towers.

so... i've discovered a new coffee joint really close to the towers.

it's called spoke.

on one of the walls they have some pieces of wooden packaging

and a piece of mdf 

( onto which somebody put an n7 sticker )

here's a pic from when i went there with a friend last week.

two flat whites and two slices of lemon drizzle cake.

i was with  friend honestly... it wasn't all for me.

a few days later and the n7 sticker was still in place.

which made me very happy ( as you can see )

oh and my t-shirt

was this one.

a riccardo tisci x nike effort.

one last thing about spoke

they do this incredible frozen yoghurt stuff.

i opt for forest fruit flavour and ask for a side portion of red berries.

oh and a flat white of course.

sadly, though spoke is only a few roads from whitfield towers,

it's in n19, not n7.

throwback

oh my.

me back in the day. maybe 1993.

gosh ! 

whatever happened to chipie ?

#whitfieldphotochallenge

for those of you who use instagram i've thrown out a little 

challenge this week.

you can do it any time i guess, but i really want you to take a photo when you see my photo.

what you have to do is just keep your phone exactly where it is.

switch on the camera and take a photo.

post it on instagram or send it to me by direct message and use the hashtag #whitfieldphotochallenge

at the end of the week i will send an n7 t-shirt to my favourite photo.

here are some that i've done this week.

this was on sunday morning and shows my phone's view from where i was sitting in bed.

on monday

i was in a coffee shop checking instagram then i switched on my camera and this is what it saw.

my empty coffee cup and some scrunched up napkins

on tuesday

see, this is a worse photo, but i like it a lot.

i was on the top deck of a bus, switched on my camera and it saw

the orange charger i was holding underneath it, sadly (or maybe not )

too close to the lens.

the blue bit is the front of the bus and the yellow thing is a handle

on wednesday

i was also on the top deck of a bus. same seat and same number bus in fact.

this time i had my phone leaning against the window.

the bus driver stopped here to get out and move the cones, so i switched on

my camera while the bus wasn't moving and this is what it saw.

anyway, you get the gist.

three days left to enter and maybe win a limited edition n7 tee.

iphone friday

i know, i know... it's been all phone pics recently,

but that's going to change pretty soon.

here's a photo i took of a poster mrs w brought back with her from a trip to the

victoria and albert museum the other week.

i like this very much indeed.

i'm aware that sometimes i'm not a very courteous driver so i have taken great inspiration from this old poster and it's going to be my new year resolution ( starting from now )

to be a gentleman while i'm driving.

maybe i'll even take my hat off when old chaps cross in front of me.

maybe.

mrs w also brought this poster back.

i don't have a dog any more but i like this illustration very much.

i like the idea of having a dog, you know, a little one.

one that i could dress up in a t-shirt and maybe get him to wear a little baseball cap.

or maybe one of those lampshade things even though he wouldn't need it.

no... perhaps i shouldn't have a dog.

a few weeks ago i bought a new umbrella.

at the time, it was the only one of it's kind in the country.

i saw the material and they made it up for me on the spot.

( i was on a shoot at an umbrella factory by the way )

a few days later

i was keeping an eye on the sock situation on a 17 bus when this wretch

came and sat next to me.

a while later, in liberty i spotted this mighty fine fabric

and grabbed a couple of metres of it.

in january this fabric will be transformed.

around about 16th / 17th january i reckon.

don't forget to remind me to show you.

more catching up

more iphone nonsense as i play catch up

a few photos of myself and robocat a few weeks ago.

i think i showed you some proper pics from this day but these as you can see are phone versions.

i downloaded a self-timer app for my phone a few weeks ago and it rattles off a 

few frames so you're more or less guaranteed to get a good pic.

what i mean is, a pic where you're not blinking.

when i first saw this frame i thought i was getting a bit fresh or something.

but no... that's not my hand around her waist.

no. my hand was in her back pocket !

what ?

turning my back on the young lady. how very rude of me.

poor thing. i don't think she really ever got the hang of me forever wanting to take
photos of myself.

and bless her, trying out a few different looks while i stay the same in every single frame.










a couple of weeks after the photos, robocat went for a little holiday to portugal.
when she came back she texted me to say she'd brought me a gift back from lisbon.

a few days later she came over to the towers and gave me this...

a catapult with a fox carved into it.

perfect !