Alan Burkitt-Gray

Bilbao, August 2010

2010-08-11T19:11:00.004Z

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 9 August 2010: Anish Kapoor's cannon fires another bucket of wax at the wall.

Brunel's Thames Tunnel

2010-03-13T21:42:00.003Z

The Thames Tunnel was open to pedestrians today, but from tomorrow it's a railway again, for driver training in time for the re-opening of the East London Line, now part of the London Overground, in April.

More pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/alanburkittgray/BrunelSThamesTunnel#

Happy Christmas from the Burkitt-Grays

2009-12-22T15:08:00.003Z

A very happy Christmas and all best wishes for 2010.

Photograph and fairy's ears by Mary

Taking the Christmas tree home, backwards

2009-12-06T16:25:00.000Z

Cyclops pumpkin

2009-10-31T17:47:00.002Z

Lucy's Cyclops pumpkin

Walking along Hadrian's Wall

2009-07-26T19:57:00.005Z

Lucy, Joan and Alan have just finished walking along Hadrian's Wall, from the western end at Bowness-on-Solway (first picture) to Wallsend on the Tyne, 80 Roman miles away (last picture)

Mary in Hong Kong

2009-07-05T10:44:00.002Z

... but on a webcam conversation with the family at home.

Mary goes diving

2009-06-10T22:24:00.005Z

Just in from the Philippines, this picture of Mary diving. She's with Coral Cay Conservation until late June, then heading to Tokyo to meet a friend and travelling through Japan and China before coming home on the train.

Picture credit: Chris Petchey, from Facebook http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=257796&id=681965544&ref=nf#/profile.php?id=681965544

... and here's another, from the same source:

and a third:

Joan at St Christopher's

2009-04-11T18:53:00.002Z

The Bishop of Woolwich has licensed Joan as a chaplain at St Christopher's Hospice, Sydenham in south-east London.

Rocket launch in Baikonur

2009-04-05T10:27:00.005Z

Just back from a wonderful trip to the Russian cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to see the launch of a Eutelsat telecommunications satellite, W2A, on a Russian Proton rocket on 3 April 2009.

While there we -- one British journalist (me) and three French, plus customers and executives of the satellite company from around Europe -- went on a tour of the vast cosmodrome, about the size of the Netherlands, and saw the pad from which Yuri Gagarin was blasted off in 1961 and the space museum, including the Soviet space shuttle, which made one unmanned flight before the project was abandoned in the 1980s.

Here's a camel just outside Baikonur town. I've posted more pictures from Baikonur at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/alanburkittgray/BaikonurCosmodrome34April2009?feat=directlink

Snow at last

2009-02-01T23:24:00.002Z

Snow in Foxes Dale this evening

Foggy London

2009-01-08T21:54:00.002Z

London tonight: St Paul's Cathedral just visible through the fog from the Millennium Bridge

Happy Christmas

2008-12-25T16:53:00.004Z

Have a look at Joan's new watercolour website, joanburkittgray.com

The website was a Christmas present from Mary and Paul and has lots of Joan's watercolours.

Happy Christmas from the B-G family

2008-12-20T14:21:00.002Z

Here's our Christmas card, from a watercolour by Joan:

Happy Christmas from us all

Fireworks in the field

2008-11-10T00:03:00.002Z

Lucy, Mary and Alan lighting the family fireworks in the field at the back of our house

Interview on CNN

2008-09-12T20:19:00.004Z

Here's a recording of an interview I did a few days ago for CNN's nightly business programme, talking to Charles Hodson about the new boss of telecoms equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent: http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/Videos/Alcatel-Lucent.html

It's been loaded onto the site of Global Telecoms Business, the magazine I edit. For the magazine's website, go to http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com

Happy birthday Paul

2008-09-11T22:53:00.002Z

Paul is 21 on 11 September 2008

Kennet & Avon Canal holiday

2008-07-26T18:59:00.011Z

The family around narrowboat Caen Hill returning to the hirebase at Aldermaston, Berkshire, yesterday morning -- after a week-long trip along the Kennet & Avon Canal, as far as Devizes and back.

Happy Christmas from the Burkitt-Grays

2007-12-24T10:49:00.000Z

See the entries below for some of the things we've done in 2007.

Christmas tree 2007

2007-12-20T08:37:00.000Z

The wonderful annual ritual of buying our Christmas tree from the flower shop in Blackheath village, taking it home and then decorating it. This year we did it on Sunday 16 December.

Mary juggling with lemons

2007-12-02T20:28:00.000Z

Can she keep three lemons in the air for a full minute and a half?

Blackheath fireworks 2007

2007-11-07T23:47:00.000Z

Blackheath, where we live in south-east London, is home to a huge annual firework display, on the Saturday closest to 5 November. This year's was on 3 November.

Biscuit tasting

2007-11-07T21:47:00.000Z

Mary and friends taste biscuits for their unofficial school magazine, The Coat Rack

The BGs walk the Samaria Gorge

2007-08-30T20:10:00.000Z

Lucy, Mary and Alan walk the Samaria Gorge in Crete on 13 August 2007. This is a spectacularly beautiful gorge, 13 kilometres long, which starts high in the Lefká óri (White Mountains) and runs south, down to about 3 kilometres from the Sea of Libya at Aghía Rouméli, from where we got a boat to Hóra Sfakíon, and then a coach back to our hotel on the north coast.

The walk starts with a rocky staircase, dropping 350 metres into the gorge. Towards the end you pass through the so-called Iron Gates, a passage only 3 metres wide through cliffs 500 metres high.

Midday bell in Venice

2007-04-20T14:08:00.000Z

The whole family spent a few days in Venice in early April, having travelled by train from London via Paris. On Wednesday 11 April we were at the top of the campanile in Piazza San Marco when the bell started to ring for noon -- and continued for a full two minutes. The bell is just outside the door of the lift to the belfry -- and a few centimetres above the visitors' heads.

Baby orangutan in Paris

2007-04-20T14:06:00.000Z

This is the baby orangutan in the Menagerie at the Jardin des Plants in Paris, filmed on 9 April 2007 during a brief visit while we were changing trains -- between the Eurostar from London to Paris and the sleeper from Paris to Venice.

Chinchillas head for the petshop

2007-03-04T16:48:00.000Z

The offspring of Mary and Paul's two breeding pairs of chinchillas are big enough to go to the petshop to get new owners. Lucy and Mary collect them from their cages and put them in a pet box to take them away.

3GSM Barcelona

2007-02-20T19:03:00.000Z

The vast 3GSM mobile telecoms exhibition and conference in Barcelona, which took place last week.

Fireworks in Barcelona

2007-02-20T08:18:00.000Z

This was a firework display in S Jaume square in Barcelona on Sunday 11 February