The paint escape

Last Thursday evening I got graded for my next karate belt - I'm now a blue belt, 5th kyu. Next belt will be hard to get with a kata (sequence of 10-20 different moves) I'm crap at, Bassai Dai. After this, there's red then brown (split into 3 separate gradings) then black! Back home, we booked our Friday (23rd June) day tickets for the Wireless festival. The line-up for that day is Massive Attack, Flaming Lips, Pharrell and DJ Shadow. Not that bothered about Pharrell but seing Shadow play is extremely rare. Bit gutted with the timing of the Coachella festival announcement. For Kerry, seeing Madonna has been a life-long dream and for both of us, Daft Punk making an appearance anywhere is like Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed appearing on Stars in their Eyes as Bros. Other acts making the entry, travel and hotel costs justified in my opinion are Franz Ferdinand, Depeche Mode, Juan Maclean (DFA), Derrick Carter, Joey Beltram, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Scissor Sisters, Jazzanova, Giles Peterson and Coldcut.

Friday was a whirlwind of decision to get the afternoon off and rent some scaffolding for our stairs to paint the ceiling and out-of-reach wall areas. When it came to Saturday, Kerry went out to sort the carpet fitting whilst I struggled to set up the scaffolding. A mixture of skills were needed including contortionism, gymnastic and limbo dancing. With all the home-improvement spending the cash, we resorted to watching Planet of the Apes on Ch4 which was quite dull.

Sunday was an escape to the countryside. Usually when we drive into the New Forest we end up in a crap pub because we couldn't find anywhere idylic. This time we headed towards Bournemouth on the back road then I spotted what look like a spithead near Lymington on the map which almost reaches the Isle of Wight. What a result. Narrow lanes brought us out to a marshy estuary with the Wight isle looming large and the famous Needles in full sight. The spithead was a banked walk towards Hurst Castle with a view of Bournemouth in the west, the refinery looking north and Bill Oddie wet dream wildlife everywhere next to moored boats. It took about 20 minutes to walk to the castle which looked like a WW2 ruin only to find a museum. At £4 entry it looked a little boring to justify and Kerry was hankering for her cream tea she'd spotted on the journey so we resorted to getting the bus-boat back to the other side. After driving past Lymington we stopped at the Hobler pub which was fitted out like a cool London bar with log fire. The menu looked great, the clientelle slighty yuppie-fied and was only let down by the Craaaaig David CD playing in the background. Service was ok and food after a couple of send backs was good.