Friday

On one of the first cool-enough-to-sit-outside-on-the-verandah evenings this year, who'll join us for drinks?

Art and the City

Last weekend I spent a lovely part of Saturday at the Bayou City Art Festival - it's a yearly event here, billed as 'one of the top three art festivals in America' (which, as Dave says, you know means 'the third best') and something I would have been interested in anyway, but as I got free tickets through work I was doubly interested!

My lovely friend Anna picked me up, and we went in to the festival together - it was the first actually-cool weekend so far this year; somewhat overcast for picture-taking but extremely pleasant for walking around downtown.


The festival was held in the closed-off streets of a couple of city blocks, as well as some park space - there were loads of stalls; it was all much larger than I'd envisioned. There was so much to see! Lots of great art and photography, as you'd expect, but also textiles, jewellery, strange sculptures, wooden items... it was very interesting and lots of fun.


Dave and I bought a print - even though the exhibitors came from all over the country, our single purchase coincidentally came from someone relatively local - Jay Long, from Austin, TX.



Afterward, Dave and I went for a coffee in a hipster-cafe, Agora (I am not remotely hipster and Dave not a lot more so than me, but it's still fun to visit such places from time to time)


before going home to hang out with Matt and Rebecca. Cool weather, art, coffee, and lots of lovely friends - not far off the perfect sort of day!

September Sunset

After many many weeks of heat and humidity, it's finally starting to cool down... it happened about this time last year too; I remember that after we got power back after Hurricane Ike, we only ran the air-conditioning for maybe a week longer, and then started opening windows again. It's getting cooler in the mornings now - we've had a couple of breakfasts out on the patio - and also in the evenings; it's actually pleasant to sit outside at restaurants and in parks and gardens.

The little video below shows a classic Texas sunset - also classic Houston, as the storm clouds were massing up darkly behind us (much darker than the clip shows; the camera has adjusted the light levels up) while the sky ahead was rosy and warm.