Bhutan exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

This is a Bhutanese Monk creating a mandala with an incredibly steady hand (and mind) at the Folklife festival going on right now on the Mall in DC. If you're nearby, I highly recommend it!

"$28.99 - All you can eat crab and corn, 2 hr time limit, while supplies last"

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Just living the dream.. what can I say? ;)

Toast @ MayFair 2008

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Here's a still taken from a DVD of our performance on 15th May. Am currently taking refuge from the sweltering Falls Church heat (34C and rising..). I'll never complain about the mild English weather again.. well, maybe just a little.. every now and then! ;)

Friday Night Late at the V&A museum

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Making hay (or taking pictures) while the sun shines!

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Well if you blinked you missed it! Sunshine was a scarce and precious commodity this weekend, whether you were in the South of France as I was, or the South of England. It might as well have been Scotland as far as I concerned! The wind was certainly as fierce and the rain just as innovative.. i.e. you never knew from which angle it would attack you next! So I made the best of Saturday afternoon (before the drenching began!) to take some pictures of Michael's lovely garden in Ceret. As you can see, the lavender at least is thriving thanks to the weather..

Now I'm back in the UK, starting to put together plans for my upcoming trip to the US. Exams are over so I also have time at last to start planning for the next hurdle, which will be to pass my Biochemistry resit at the end of the summer. Let the struggle begin! M xx

Another Wiltshire scene..

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Well, after another lovely weekend visiting Granny (where Mum rushed around cooking and looking after us all while I hunched over my textbooks trying to absorb zillions of details about symptoms and their significance!), exam week has finally started. I had the written exam for Clinical Diagnosis yesterday and I have the practical component on Thurs with the written Pathology exam on Friday. I then dash straight to Stansted airport for another weekend jaunt in Ceret - hurray!

PS The gig was amazing, though we will probably find out when we get our DVD that we were less perfect than we felt, but hey! No one could have taken the smiles off our faces that night - we rocked - end of story! :)

Life is just a bowl of cherries

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

It's cherry season down in Ceret and I got through more than my fair share last weekend as I was blitzing through my Pathology assignment :) Now that's all behind me, I am looking at a week of intense revision before my exams kick off on 19th.. Oh and my merry band of bankers actually has its first gig next Thursday, a charity benefit concert at Cafe de Paris, London. Should be fun! I am singing 'One'. Enjoy the sunshine! M xx

Le Canigou and I

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

I'm back from another sun-soaked weekend in SW France and feeling much better for it! I had my second cold since Easter last week and I did not appreciate feeling all shivery and miserable :( Bring on the summer here in the UK! M xx

PS Exams coming up the week of 19th May, but before then I get to enjoy some musical relief in the form of two very different charity gigs:

The first, this Saturday, is Mozart Requiem at St. Paul's church, Covent Garden.

The second is a gig with my merry band of bankers on 15th May at Cafe de Paris, London W1

Should be fun! :)

Hiking in the Pyrenees!

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Just back from a wonderful stressbusting week's holiday at a friend's converted 17thC Mill in a small village in Ariege. I cannot recommend this part of France enough! M

PS If you click on the photo it should take you to more holiday pics, mostly of mountains and dramatic light in the valleys.

January passes by in a blur..

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Despite my best intentions, I never quite seem to get my act together for the month of January. It always seems to just get 'tacked' on as an afterthought after the madness of Christmas! And the fact that my exams fell in the second week of the month this time just compounded this seasonal trend. Well they are done and dusted now and I am delighted to say that I am about to head off on holiday in Ceret, South of France for some much needed R&R before the next semester kicks off on 4th Feb :) More when I get back! All the best, M xx

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and wrapped up 2007 without any last minute travel or alcohol-related mishaps! I spent a wonderfully chilled and civilised evening with friends in Marylebone drinking bubbly and generally putting the world to rights! On my way back to Waterloo this morning I decided to walk along Oxford Street, knowing it would probably be the only time in the year when it was quiet enough to do so! The hordes of stressed-out shoppers that usually crowd the pavements here, even out of the Christmas season, are enough to drive anyone over the edge.. and I certainly avoid it at all costs!

Of course there was SOME commerce going on. Starbucks, true to form, was open from 9am, and although I was grateful to be able to pick up a soya chai tea latte to break my fast, I felt desperately sorry for the puffy-eyed baristas who just about managed a weak smile as they served me. No doubt they were more in need of a coffee than their customers! The commerce-free theme continued even as I descended into the tube at Oxford Circus, only to find that the Bakerloo line platform was completely bare of advertising posters, something I'm not sure I have ever seen before! Of course, by now the city of London will be humming again, but it was nice to catch a brief glimpse of her, just once, all sleepy and blurry-eyed before she had a chance to wake up :)

Happy New Year!! M xx


Oxford Circus tube on New Year's Day: No advertising posters..??


Two dogs waiting for their owners outside Wellies Restaurant, Chichester last Sunday