Our Anniversary Weekend

It’s been a nice weekend and I would like to start by thanking those who remembered and sent congratulations and celebratory messages to Richard and I for our anniversary. It is madness to think that it has been five years since we tied the knot. I honestly don’t know where the time has gone!

Due to the chaos and the hours I have been working lately I took Friday off but it didn’t manifest into the break I was hoping for. That said I managed to get quite a bit done including purchasing a new iPhone 4S!

I was toying with the idea and for a while agonised whether I would keep my iPhone 4 as I didn’t see there to be any problem with it. I decided in the end that I have worked so damn hard lately that I should and could treat myself – so I did.

I was originally intending on leaving Orange (crap signal at the new house and on the commute) and moving to 02. Sadly I have encountered a couple of surly 02 staff this week when asked if they had an iPhone 4S’s in stock. Richard suggested Vodafone (whom I originally dismissed as there handset price was slightly more) and I gave them a go.

The Vodafone store in Colchester could not have been more helpful and to top it off they had the 32Gb white model which I was coveting.

Now you may have seen some of Siri’s responses online but I wanted to share just this one with you as it made me chuckle. There are loads online to view though so I suggest you Google it. That or get an iPhone 4S – especially to ask Siri what to do when you need to dump a body!

Apple has come up trumps again and the Siri interface is as straightforward as you would expect from Apple, the memory bump really makes the phone and lot quicker, the signal is always on (and I don’t just think that’s cause I dumped Orange and the camera etc are brilliant.). Regardless of all the comments about me being an Apple fan boy this is one clever little device.

During Friday I managed to use some will power and not head home immediately. Instead I stuck with my plan and headed to Firstsite.

Firstsite is a fantastic new arts centre which is part of the regeneration of Colchester and is a world class gallery. It partners with the Tate galleries which means it’s full of works from Al Wei Wei, Andy Warhol etc that wouldn’t normally make it to provincial exhibitions.

I was lucky enough to obtain a Golden Ticket to the launch but couldn’t attend as we were in Plymouth at the time.

The light and airy interior of Firstsite

The space is very light, they have managed to put in windows and natural light in as many places as possible – I am not sure whether it’s bigger or smaller than I thought it would be but it does feel like it’s the right size venue.

Of course there has been some local noise about such a thing and the typical over budget costs but this was born of a time when the country had money and if the likes of Liverpool, Hull and St Ives can have world class art venues then why not Essex or Colchester?

Of course I am a tiny bit biased as I now have two world class art galleries on my door step – Tate Modern across the road from the office and Firstsite at home 🙂

After a browse around Firstsite and a shopping trip to Sainsburys I headed home, sorted the house and cooked an anniversary meal for Richard and I. I cooked what has become an anniversary staple for us and we both throughly enjoyed the meal. In fact we turned in early as we were both absolutely stuffed!

Saturday actually followed a very similar routine to Friday. Principally (I believe), because Richard knew I didn’t feel that rested on Friday!

We went into town early and after some further deliberation Richard bit the bullet and went to Vodafone and signed up for an iPhone 4S – Saturday afternoon was spent with multiple conversations with Siri!

As I had recommended Firstsite we took a stroll over to the gallery in the morning where we enjoyed a coffee and a cake in Musa, the restaurant/cafe at Firstsite. It is as airy and as bright as the rest of the gallery and an excellent spot to take a load off and enjoy the panoramic view of Colchester.

On the walk back through town I took a number of snaps for Colchester24 – a public experiment to capture the town over a period of 24 hours. This is a document that already exists with the last one taking place in 1986 – it’d be great to know that one of my photographs may be included in their historical archive.

We chilled for a while in the afternoon with the help of Love Film before heading out our front door and on a country walk from the Meadow opposite the house. I switched on my GPS tracker and in 50 minutes we had managed approximately 3 miles of open countryside and public footpaths before ending up back at the house. It really is lovely to have this on our doorstep and with the October weather being so nice it’s great to be able to take advantage of it while we can.