January 31st

1pm: Katz's Delicatessen is a fixture on the Lower East Side on the corner of Houston & Ludlow. 100+ years old & looking pretty much the same inside that it must have done in the Sixties/Seventies. Once inside it's a mosh pit of shouting, scurrying staff and bemused punters - myself included - trying to work out the ordering system. Katz's is famous for it's pastrami on rye and that is what I ordered - you get a taster from your sandwich maker at the counter before he assembles the most monstrous sandwich you will ever see - I had mine fully loaded with mustard & pickles, but I could only eat a half of it & needed no further sustenance for the rest of the day. The food? Well it was OK - not mind blowingly good, but the pastrami was fresh & tasty, the rye bread so-so, the pickles distinctly average and the ambiance - amazing!

January 30th

11pm: The utterly beguiling Meg Baird at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. Meg is the lead singer of top-notch wyrd-folk group Espers & I could not believe my luck that she was playing a solo set in Brooklyn that coincided with the Saturday night I had to myself in town. The venue itself, an old jam factory converted into a minimalist art gallery and concert space was a beautiful setting & the surprisingly sparse audience - probably no more than 50 people - was perfect. Meg finger-picked her way through her repertoire of old English folk tunes & Gothic Americana - a memorable evening, a dash of culture.

January 29th

4pm: The big freeze continued all day, I had time to my self now to wander the streets of the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village & NoLita. This typical streetscape has to around Bleecker & 7th - although the shops & restaurants have modern facades, the fire escapes and old doors/windows can place you in an old 50's Film Noir thriller without too much imagination.

January 28th

6pm: Freezing, bone-chilling cold in New York today - the wind whipping in from the river & lowering the mercury to 15 below. We had walked around Battery Park after passing briskly through Ground Zero - hardly able to comprehend what had gone on there a decade or so ago. Nicky & I got engaged on top of the South Tower of the World Trade Centre in November 1999 on a similarly freezing day - I can recall clearly how your sende of direction in New York was always anchored by your relation to those towers.

January 27th

11pm: Times Square, New York - another desperation shot after a full on busy day with work colleagues & clients. We ended up in a restaurant just round the corner from our hotel & this was shot as we stumbled back. Times Square is truly, truly horrible but people are drawn to it like moths to a bulb. Everywhere gawping tourists take crappy pictures (much like the one above), whilst hustlers of every description attempt to part them from their cash with shitty comedy shows, bus tours, CD's and god knows what. Awful chain restaurants draw them in for brown, deep fried food & ghastly drinks - what an unmitigatingly fetid hole this place is, in an otherwise magnificent city.

January 26th

11pm: Desperation strikes! Stuck in a miserable hotel near the airport in Toronto, a whole day passed with no photo opportunities, I resort to a quick snapshot of the place. Possibly the dullest photo of the year so far, I can only apologise. The flight over from Calgary was miserable, my flight strangely cancelled so squeezed onto a packed 4 hour flight in the middle seat - not fun.

January 25th

4pm: Admiring the view; Tabby & Charlie checking out the view from our lounge on a cold, wintry afternoon.

January 24th

3pm: There is not a lot of life around at the moment, no plants, no insects, few birds & only the hardiest wildlife. The nights are freezing, the days short & Spring months away in this part of the world. Last year's Shepherdia canadensis the only reminder of warmer days!!

January 23rd

2pm: A full day at Norquay skiing in the morning with Tabby prior to her lesson & then just messing about with Charlie in the snow. A beautiful sunny day that culmiated, on Tabby's insistence, in a visit to The Drake for an apres-ski pub dinner - perfect!

January 22nd

4pm: A colder, foggy day in the valley today- the thick mist taking an age to dissipate in the morning before rolling in again at dusk. I captured the golden glow of the setting sun on the northern side of the valley, the evocatively named Squaws Tit peak visible on the left. This was taken around 5pm as I was on my way for a couple of laps at the Nordic Centre, the wind chill around -15C.....

January 21st

6.30pm: Post dinner rest, a rare moment of quiet & calm after C & T finished their dinner this evening, Charlie still wearing most of it. Moments before the usual leaping off the sofa game, moments after a huge fight ending in tears and a subsequent swift departure for the combatants - bath and bed bound!!

January 20th

3.30pm: The Olympic Flame comes to Canmore enroute to Vancouver. Great excitement in town as a bunch of people ran around carrying a torch before some dull speeches & guff about changing the world - good family fun & a lovely atmosphere that matched the warm, sunny weather  ... BUT.... it was more about the Coca Cola sponsorship than anything else, loads of free coke on offer & everything emblazened with their logo. Charlie came back saying he wanted some more Coca-Cola, job done for those guys :-(

January 19th

 

4.15pm: With Mount Lady MacDonald towering in the background, Canmore's resident Elk herd take a breather from a hard day's munching grass & avoiding getting eaten &/or run over. The Bow River twists it's way slowly through the scene, the brown grass a testimony to the warmth & the general lack of snow in these parts recently.

January 18th

6.45pm: Monday night is indoor football night, two hours of high intensity aerobic exercise at altitude chasing the world's bounciest ball around the Middle School Gym. The standard is pretty good, as is the mix of nationalities - plenty of Brits but a fair smattering of Canadians, Mexicans, Hungarians, French, Jamaicans & our indomitable Irish leader!!

January 17th

5pm: Canmore Nordic Centre on the way to a quick cross-country ski, not really the perfect time in a near deserted, forested wilderness surrounded area. Twilight is the time they say that cougar's are most active & given our neighbour made the headlines in the paper this week by bumping into a big cat just down the road, I was a little bit sensitive to every rustle in the bushes.

January 16th

1.30am: You Say Party! We Say Die! at The Canmore Ho. Playing to a large boisterous crowd at about 1.30am - we love The Ho - it's a good music venue, graced over the years by many of Canada's best bands. YSPWSD are a fine group out of Abbotsford, BC. They have made a name for themselves here & in the UK & the set they played tonight was pretty sharp. I need a new camera though for this project though, my little Canon powershot isn't doing this task full justice & I can't lug the big SLR everywhere - time for an upgrade I think.

January 15th

4pm: About 4pm this afternoon the snow started falling, heavily.

January 14th

Heading home, an unusual route took us right over downtown Calgary, happily basking in the warmth of a chinook. A lot of the snow had melted in the 4 days I was away. The Bow River is clearly visible, if somewhat frozen - to the north of the downtown core. Princess Park Island in the centre of the river a fantastic setting for the Calgary Folk Festival in July which will draw huge crowds, (& us), to see some top names perform.

January 13th

Victoria, BC - the provincial government building in the capital of British Columbia. We had taken the 5pm ferry over from the mainland & headed down to the waterfront in Victoria to take a look at this grand old building. Victoria is more British than most of Britain these days, they enjoy a mild maritime climate & snow is a rarity. Nice place, maybe a touch too twee for my liking.

January 12th

Room with a view. The view from my downtown Vancouver hotel room, on a wet Tuesday night. I think it was about 10pm & we had just finished a long days work, 14 hours or more - not a moment to take a picture all day so in desperation I concocted this shot. BC Place in the foreground with it's distinctive inflated roof, a Winter Olympics venue in a few weeks time. The Science World globe glows in the background.

January 11th

Leaving Calgary on a Westjet Boeing 737 - 4 days work in Vancouver & Victoria ahead of me. This is shortly after an early morning take-off as the plane climbs out of Calgary, heading westwards towards The Rockies. The sprawling southern Calgary suburbs below..........

January 10th

A fantastic day of snowboarding at Lake Louise, Jenne (pictured), Shane, Lisa & Brent joined us & we proceeded to shred every square inch of the hill in super-fast slick snow. Warm conditions, great company & apres ski at the Juniper - what more can you ask for!!

January 9th

Self portrait - halfway up the Mystic Chairlift at Norquay, an insanely warm day on a hill I haven't ski-ed in 3 years. Tabby started her ski lessons today, I had plenty of time to explore the slopes. Doing it all again tomorrow!

January 8th

My Kindle - an admittedly geeky electronic book, but it is so handy & easy to use. Currently plowing my way through Trotsky by Bertrand Patenaude - an account of the final few years of Trotsky's life before he got that fatal icepick embedded in his noggin......

January 7th

The unmistakeable Mount Yamnuska, peaks out at 7400ft & is the first real mountain as you head west into the Rockies. It's located just before the village of Exshaw. I snapped this view from Hioghway 1 on my way into Calgary this morning, as the sun was rising & casting a golden glow on the sheer walls of the mountain, the surrounding forests & slopes still in the cold shadows.

January 6th

A bitterly cold (-25C or thereabouts) but beautifully sunny day in Canmore. Here we see Cascade Mountain in the background, the Rundle Range on the left, The main road is the Trans Canada Highway which links Canmore with the town of Banff. It was so cold that I didn't have a lot of time to compose & think about the picture, hence the unsightly cables stretching across the picture!!

January 5th

Trans-Canada bleakness - a truck thunders down the East - West highway at Scott Lake Hill as the sun struggles to break through the snow clouds.

January 4th

Acoustic 12 string which I am slowly learning to play; plans were to photograph our weekly indoor football session - but only 6 people turned up & it didn't really happen. Trying to find something interesting to shoot today was a challenge as it was the first day back at work - so with just a little time left I turned to my trusty guitars.