Sorry that updates have been so sporadic this week. Things have been really busy.

My second trip to Bognor went off without a hitch. Ken and Margaret picked me up at the train station at around 10 on Tuesday morning, and we pretty much went straight to Portsmouth from there (aside from a quick stop at their house to drop off the bouquet of flowers I brought for Margaret). Well, the town they took me to wasn't ACTUALLY Portsmouth, but I forget what the name was. We actually took a BOAT across this small channel/canal/body of water into Portsmouth. Basically, they wanted to take me to see the HMS Victory, which is the ship that Nelson was on when the English won the Battle of Trafalgar. I'll admit that my knowledge of English history isn't the sharpest, but it's safe to say that this is a pretty big deal to the British. In fact, a few weeks ago was the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, and I guess there was some sort of huge celebration in Portsmouth at the time. Anyway, I pretty much just wandered around the ship and took pictures for about an hour or so while Ken and Margaret sat outside with their grandson, Luke, who tagged along with us for the day. I know it might sound like this was a boring day, but I really enjoyed myself. I guess I just get a kick out of stuff like that.

We got back to the Wedd's house by mid-afternoon, and pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging around the house. After another wonderful homemade dinner, I finally sat Ken and Margaret down in their small dining room for my interview session. I told them that I wanted them to talk about what growing up in London was like, and sort of trace out their feelings about how things have changed in the city over the years. My hope was to get them going on one of their long-winded political rants, which I thought would be good for my documentary, but that never really happened. In fact, the more I think about it, I think what I got was even better. There's not much to it... I mean, they pretty much just showed me once again what a sweet, cute, loving couple they really are, and even though it isn't really what I expected to get for my film, I think I'll be able to squeak out 5-10 minutes of usable footage out of the 80 minutes or so of footage I was able to get. I'm so glad that I went back though. I think my interview with them will give my short film more focus now, and will just generally make the whole project a lot better with a more consistent theme.

So, enough rambling about my film. Wednesday morning Margaret made another wonderful breakfast, and we had a really good spaghetti lunch at around noon before they took me to the train station at 1. They had a funeral to attend in the afternoon, and I wanted to get home to see my girl, so it actually worked out pretty well that my second trip to Bognor was so short. My train arrived at Victoria Station just before 3 in the afternoon, and I made it to Stefy's pretty quickly. Miss Spiro had quite the surprise waiting for me. She had gone with some girls back to the Piccadilly Theater at the crack of dawn this morning to score tickets to ANOTHER showing of "Guys and Dolls" for us. The big difference this time though was that she managed to get FRONT ROW seats!

So yeah, fast forward to later in the evening, and the show was absolutely amazing. I mean, we obviously loved it before, but it was SO much better being so close to everything. It's funny how much you really miss when you're STANDING... at the BACK of the theater. The show was just so cool sitting so close. Of course, I had all of the songs stuck in my head for about 48 hours afterwards, but it was worth it.

Thursday was a pretty low key day. Stef and I went to Hyde Park, and ended up walking through Kensington Gardens there for a couple hours. We eventually wound up at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. It was basically this big circular cement structure with flowing water. I know it doesn't sound that exciting from that description, but it was actually pretty cool. The weather was so beautiful that day, and the water was so nice and cold, so we sat out and stuck our feet in the water for a while and soaked up some sun. Ahhh, it's a rough life. Friday was another scenic day, just at a different park. We went to the London Zoo at Regent's Park, and wandered around there for several hours. The weather was a bit cloudier today and quite a bit cooler, but we had a really good time at the zoo.

Well, I guess that's it for now. It's been a pretty low key couple of days, but Stef and I have been having a lot of fun. I just finished a new picture series, which you can see here. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Stefy and I went to go see Kevin Spacey's first performance in his current run of The Philadelphia Story at The Old Vic theater here in London tonight. It was REALLY cool to see him perform live, and Stef and I both enjoyed the show a lot. I think we had some trouble following the story at times, since neither of us has ever seen the film version before, but it was a fantastic performance, to say the least. Man, you just gotta love the London theater. This was my sixth show of the trip, and Stef's TENTH! It almost certainly won't be our last either. The West End puts Broadway to shame!

I'm leaving for Bognor Regis bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm hoping to make the 8:06 train out of London Victoria tomorrow, and arrive in Bognor shortly before 10 a.m. Ken and Margaret want to take me to see the "Victory" tomorrow, which is this huge battleship in the harbor near Portsmouth. Forgive me for being an idiot and having no clue what this ship's historical significance is, but if you ask me about it later on tomorrow evening, I'm sure I'll be able to tell you all about it. Hopefully my interview with the Wedds goes well, and I am able to control the conversation well enough to get them to talk about the things I want to use for my film, but there's just no telling with those two. Either one of them could talk my ear off for hours on end, but all I'm hoping for is 10-15 minutes of good stuff. I'll be crossing my fingers.

Well, that's it for now. I should be back in London by the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday. Until then...

Well, the highlight from Sunday was finally going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Perhaps 'highlight' is too strong a word. It was certainly the biggest event of our day, but Stef and I were both a little underwhelmed by the new Tim Burton version. I don't know if the movie just couldn't overcome our nostalgia for the original, or if Johnny Depp just totally blew it as Willy Wonka, or if the story was too weak... or all of the above. But it's safe to say that both of us were pretty BLAH about the whole thing as we walked out of the theater.

We walked around for a bit after the movie, and grabbed some stuff at Marks and Spencer for lunch/dinner tonight, and then headed over to Stef's dorm since she had a bunch of school work to do. While she was busy writing papers and whatnot, I spent some time doing some poking around online to get some more ideas for my film project. I also managed to finally hammer out a tentative schedule for the fall semester while I was sitting here. My current class load is 14 credits, but that actually might be a bit much, since my advisor told me to take take fewer credits this semester so I can have some free time to take care of grad school applications. I'm going to leave it as-is for now though and mull some things over, and then hopefully get it squared away for sure by the end of this week.

I called Ken and Margaret and made plans for my second visit to see them this week. I'm going to leave EARLY on Tuesday morning from Victoria Station, get to Bognor Regis between 10 and 11, and then we're going to take a tour of some boat or something that they really want me to see. Later in the evening on Tuesday night, I'll hopefully be able to sit Ken and Margaret down and get plenty of footage of them talking about various things for use in my documentary. I'm crossing my fingers that everything turns out the way I want it to. If everything goes as planned, I should be getting back on a train for London in the early afternoon on Wednesday, and should be back in the city by 3 p.m. or so.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I hope everyone has a good Monday!