Flat packed coffee

Trialling better coffee for when we get back to travelling for work again. Flat packed, pour in boiling water and it becomes the portable brewer.Reasonably good tasting too - much better than most hotel in-room coffee options.

Breathtaking architecture of Madrid airport .

Six Nations Rugby at Twickenham

Six Nations

Thanks to some good fortune with the Wallingford RFC ballot, Jack and I got to go and watch England v Ireland at Twickenham today.
Transport was remarkably good too, with all trains appearing just as we needed them, and we even had seats on every journey!.
The atmosphere from the moment we left the train station was amazing... from being with thousands of people walking down closed roads,... to the 82,000 attendance singing the anthems.... to the roar when the 2 england tries were in the corner right in front of us.... and the sound of thousand of voices singing Sweet Chariot.

Haikus 

Coffee by Ben:
Begin each day as
if it was on purpose but
don’t forget coffee.

Dogs by Zoe:
They are lovable,
unbelievably cute and
are adorable 

Ewelme watercress beds

New Adventures 2020

Back in 2013, NAConf was one of the first web design conferences I attended, and it blew me away with some amazing talks, but also have an opportunity to get to know some of the interesting and lovely people in the industry.
2020 was my 3rd time attending, and once again lots of thought provoking, eye opening talks, and from a social aspects it was like a reunion of old friends too.

Bikes, Boats, Scooters and Cable cars (nearly)

With this area of the world leading the way in many innovations and new business approaches I got to try some new and old approaches to travel.
I used Uber Rides (in conjunction with Jump bikes) to find one of the electric bikes randomly parked around the city. This was great fun as I went from bridge to bridge getting a little of the beaten track and covering way more ground that my usual walking.
Then I took the ferry over to Alcatraz, did the tour and decided to head up to Coit tower, for this I decided to try a short term rental of an Uber electric scooter, which was fun, nut couldn’t cope with going up or down the steep hills. That trip ended up at the Cable Car Museum, which was interesting and also had a sense of irony. I had planned to take the Cable car back to Union Square, but as I could clearly see in the museum (which houses the actual running mechanisms), the Powell cable wasn’t running... so in the end I strolled back to Union sq and my hotel.

SF sunset

Golden Gate Sunset

Storyus in 2020

Wood type workshop at the Bodleian Library 

NEC for Motorcycle Live 2019

Motorcycle Live was a huge event, across 3 of the massive halls at the NEC, and its last day happened to coincide with my birthday, so Jack and I headed over. The Moto Cirque was the stand out item, with us watching the whole show twice - seeing the FMX riders do some incredible tricks within such a relatively small space was awesome- they were getting so close to the ceiling, with such precision 

The only walkable section of Hadrian’s Wall (circa 120AD)

The extremes of The Roman Empire 

Between Homestead Fort on the Scottish border, and Masada in Israel, in the last 9 months I have visited these two ancient Roman sites. With both sites dating from almost 2000 years ago, and nearly 3000 miles apart it’s quite incredible to contemplate the breadth of the Roman Empire.

Charles River Museum

In 1813 the first 'modern factory' designed by Lowell and Moody kick-started the American Industrial Revolution.
Located beside the Charles River, it's power was harnessed through dams and water-wheels to start the evolution of high-tech engineering and production processes. 
Latterly the Waltham Watch Co. was also based on this site (1854-1950) - the first high precision manufacturing on a grand scale.
The museum now on this site also has a Linotype machine - see : https://storyus.life/+seymours/linotype

The Linotype 

Described by Edison as the 8th wonder of the world, I was fortunate enough to see 2 of these pivotal machines at The Charles River Museum while visiting Boston for work.

It was a hot metal typesetting system that literally used molten metal into lines on type for the printing process.  Linotype became one of the mainstay methods to set type, especially small-size body text, for newspapers, magazines, and posters from the late 19th century to the 1970s and 1980s

More details on the factory site : https://storyus.life/+seymours/charles-river-museum

Sunborn Hotel

British Museum 

On my way to meetings nearby, I was able to take a 15 minute detour through the British Museum.
stunning architecture, and with time for just one exhibit, I luckily changed upon The Rosetta Stone - one of my favourite historic artefacts, which I haven’t seen for perhaps 15-20 years.

Motorsports heaven!

As well as visiting a number of race tracks including Le Mans, Monzo, Magny Cora, Spa and the Nurburgring, we also visited museums of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Red Bull and Mercedes, but the stand out experience was the tour of the Pagani factory. Utterly inspiring, and a shining example of what can be created when you couple amazing design and engineering but without compromise.

The fruits of our labours.

On the way back from my saturday morning swimming lessons I spotted loads of blackberries growing by the side of the road. It was a sunny morning, so we stopped and picked a carrier bag full. When we were back home Mum and I put them in a big pan, added loads of sugar, and then spent ages with them bubbling away. I don't like jam with bits in, so once it was at the right temperature we sivved it and put it into jars. Even when it was cooled it was still a little runny so I tried adding some to whipped cream, and it made it taste amazing - Dad said I've invented blackberry infused cream (he loved it too)

Sunsets have always meant a lot to us as a family, but this one was...

A Moment from Emma : Eurotrip 2018

Stand Up Paddleboarding on Lake Brienz, Switzerland.

A Moment from Jack (11) : Eurotrip 2018

Krimmler falls: It was like a wall of sound and the fine spray meant that we were soaking wet without realising it.

Rapfen Alm - a slice of heaven.