For the past couple of years we’ve been doing Christmas portraits and this year was no different.  We had mom visiting so it was another special year, though the photos were a bit trickier to do in our tiny flat.  Still, we’re happy with the results and very happy to have been able to share the holidays with my mom (who, by the way, is a terrible cheater when playing any type of board/card/dice game.  That’s right mom, it’s on the Internet so it must be true!).

I realize now that I probably shouldn’t have posted the link to our 2010 Christmas photos.  The keen viewers out there might have realized that I’m wearing the same sweater/jumper.  I seem to only have two that are suitable and just rotate them out each year.  Look out for the return of the purple one in 2013!

Here is my lovely (London based) family for the holidays.

I didn’t want to bore you with too many photos of the same three people over and over again, so here’s some of the snacks we had that night.  I don’t know about you, but it makes me painfully hungry just looking at that photo.  I don’t know why I save mini-burgers for special occasions.  They really should be an everyday affair.

There’s a few more family style images in the gallery.

One of the things that Baba wanted to see while he was here in London was the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.  Specifically, he wanted to see the three prototype clocks that were created in order to allow people to keep time aboard ships (and thus be able to chart longitude).

It’s on the other side of London from us, so a few trains later we arrived at the Cutty Sark station and started to make our way through Greenwich Park.  It’s always a busy area with tourists and there’s quite a few good reasons.  One of which is the top of the hill makes for a great photographic spot with brilliant views of Canary Wharf dominating the skyline.

We did a few portrait shots outside and then paid the admission fee to enter the observatory.  It’s an interesting museum of sorts, with an emphasis on nautical history which doesn’t generally interest me.  There were some interesting sights to photograph though, so that always keeps me busy.

I think my favourite part of the experience was seeing the green laser that’s projected out along the meridian up close.  It’s really intense and you can see it for miles on the top of the hill.  It looks rather cool firing through Canary Wharf in the distance if you ask me.

After that, we were off to our favourite pub in London.  The Prospect of Whitby is a great old pub that always has excellent ales on tap and the food is pretty good as well.  We’re always sitting upstairs in the small room that used to house bare knuckle boxing matches (according to a plaque on one of the walls).   They also claim that the table nearest the window in this room was a personal favourite of Queen (or princess?  I don’t recall) Anne.

To be honest, they had me at ‘excellent ales’ anyway.

More images of the day in the gallery.

Danni’s father wasn’t all that keen on seeing the sights of the UK, so when he did have a request we made sure to take him where he wanted to go.  One of those places was to Stonehenge.  I’ve visited ‘the henge’ a few times in the past but it’s always a cool visit even if it doesn’t change much from year to year.

Baba forgot to bring a winter hat, so he borrowed the one I picked up in Bulgaria as a bit of a joke.  Oddly enough, it really suited him and he looked like a Chinese military dignitary visiting the UK.  Not that that got us any sort of entry discount or anything.

It was fairly chilly, windy and threatening to rain during our rather short visit.  We made the requisite lap around the columns and then hopped into our little rental car and made a dash for nearby Salisbury for lunch and a traditional English pint or two.  Ok, only one for me given that I was driving (Oh how I miss the BVI on days like this).

We found a spot called The Mill, which looked full of character on the outside but was more of a run-of-the-mill (no pun intended) Wetherspoons style pub inside.  Decent food and beer, but generally on the soulless side.  We’d taken Baba to better pubs during his visit to London, so I wasn’t too concerned that he’d paint all UK pubs with the paintbrush found here.

All in all it was a nice day out and it’s always fun to show family the sites of my current home.  There are several more photos from the day in the gallery.

Danni and I made the trip back to Canada to visit my Dad and his family for a few weeks.  Dad has been fighting cancer for a couple of years now and it’s gotten to a state now where he’s too unwell to travel, so he wouldn’t be able to make it to our wedding.  This was just a chance for him and the rest of his family to meet my fiancée before she becomes my wife.

For some reason I had quite a bit of room in my luggage so I decided to take some lighting gear and get a few family portraits done as we don’t have anything like that on my dad’s side.  This first shot if almost the whole family, less the eldest of my dad’s youngest sons Evan who was away for work unfortunately and my brothers girlfriend Holly.

If you’re interested in seeing a few more shots (clearly you’re family), you can find them in the gallery here.