A Bavarian Farmhouse

At the drowned campsite of La Rochelle. Camera Teddy's very first proper adventure was the typical near-penniless trip around France. After consulting the rough guide we ended up on the fantastic Isle de Re which is just off the coast of La Rochelle. One morning, very early an Atlantic rainstorm surged ashore and pounded the campsite for about an hour or two. I simply reached outside to pull all the stuff into the tent, zipped it up and went back to sleep. Our French neighbours in the next tent couldn't believe were still dry. It's designed for Scotland I told them proudly. Nae chance of getting wet. The entire campsite was drowned. No exceptions apart from us. Notice all the wet clothes hanging on the fence. Camera Teddy is visible just, in my shirt pocket.

Camera Teddy This is big close up for fans of Teddy Bears or more likely it is his compulsory ID photograph as demanded by all German institutions. Camera Teddy used to have some sort of attachment which held him to my T90 strap, but once I quit photojournalism he ended up sitting on top of my pc monitor. Course it was inevitable that one day, Einstein would get hold of him and chew his ear off before I sprang to the rescue. He now sits on top of the television and has a substantial collection of dvds. The last exotic place he visited was Florence in Italy where he subjected us to a re-enactment of the scene from Hannibal in the shadow of the dome.

Here we are now, entertain us. At the Copa Earlier today, I was talking about the remarkable amount of food in a standard American portion and just to demonstrate that there is substance to this tale of drinking and hedonism in Miami, here is a snap of me (far left) with some of the show, Chris, the director, with Cheryl, Mark and Ruth, some of the dancers. This is us at Anthony, the Production assistant's party. I remember coming home from this at about 4:00 am to find Cheryl and a different Chris making burgers in the kitchen.

Camera Teddy at the Four Ambassadors pool in Miami. My daughter went on the proverbial school trip to Edinburgh Zoo and when she came home she gave me this teddy bear, in fact she hung him on my camera strap and christened him Camera Teddy. Camera Teddy has been all over the World and here we see him lounging around at the pool in the Four A's in Brickle, in Miami. The Four A's was a condominium and hotel then, but now I think it is a complete condo with all the hotel part gone. The Restaurant, Porcaos is still there I think, but I guess the Copa Club is not. Notice in the background, my Life's A Beach towel. My daughter has this towel, she confessed to me recently and I am very tempted to visit Scotland just to get my towel. Well, Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy and all that.

What the hell am I doing drinking in Miami? Miami City is the kind of place where most residents don't get up until about 2pm. Well the residents involved in the entertainments industry anyway. Life was just one long round of drinking until 3am or going to a nightclub until 5am and sleeping until the afternoon. To get a tan, you really had to force yourself out to the pool at about 11 am, cos it would rain around 2pm. I used to love that Nirvana T-Shirt. Our Damo got me a new one for my birthday about three years ago, but I went and left it in Scotland. This was one of those weekends where Anthony called us and asked us if we wanted to go to the liquor store with him. Just sounds too American to resist. So we bought this 2 litre bottle of Smirnoff Black Label Vodka - but not to drink tonight! No, we'll keep it for later on this week. Yeah!