GardenFest of Lights, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, Richmond

The tasteful end of tacky in the ever-immaculate Lewis Ginter Gardens. The best bits were the quiet backwaters where the insane colour combinations and overwhelming gleam of LEDs dissipated. However the spirit of the crowds was amicable, the night balmy and the sandpit was magical in the dark. There really is no National Trust styling this side of the pond, but a touch of 40s Disney never fails to cheer the soul.

GardenFest of Lights

Sandbridge, Virginia Beach

Is there much more to say than Sunday 27th November on the beach and warm... well if you add in the school of dolphins just beyond the shore and our first snake warning sign in the lagoon rushes, it gets even more exotic. However even down at this low-rise end of Virginia Beach the character homes are lost amidst the wave of prefab blandness. The lagoon bar, Baja, was a chilled spot and our lunchtime happy-hour Bloody Mary's made for a fun pit stop. Home in time for tea, though five hours on the road in total is a little far for a day trip.

Sandbridge Island Restaurant and Raw Bar

Lamplighter Roasting Co, 116 S. Addison St. Richmond, VA

Our new favourite coffee haunt is Lamplighter. It smells amazing, their decaf tastes great, the toasted bagels are fantastic and there's plenty of out-door seating. It's near and soon we'll be able to cycle. Until then a five minute walk to contentedness... and a friendly, youthful vibe.

Lamplighter Roasting Co

Virginia Fine Art Museum, Boulevard, Richmond

The local gallery is a tad swanky. Super-sized in recent times by Rick Mather architects, though the real touch of genius is the car-park roof-turned gardens. Cascades and long strips of water and then wide, wide lawns made for rolling, as well as the odd sculpture create a peaceful spot amidst the city streets.

Indoors it's all very white and monied, with gifted works and spaces galore and with poster slogans like, 'Hang here - it's your art!' it's hard not too feel a little queazy. Of course, add demented children into the mix and things actually get quite tense. However Zu Bing's tabacco project stopped them in their tracks, with a gigantic tiger's pelt made out of thousands of cigarettes that changed from orange and white to tabacco-brown and white, as you moved. Tristin Lowe's soft felt whale made me smile and with the appearance of an Andy Warhol brillo box, I was finally on famliar ground.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

8 1/2, Strawberry Street, Richmond

A small and focussed Italian deli offering sundries such as puy lentils and panettone, great take-out pizza and spectacularly curt service. No chit-chat.


Take-us-as-you-find-us: no web site.

https://foursquare.com/v/8-12/4adf1b78f964a5209f7721e3

Autumn leaves, everywhere, VA.

Leaves, leaves, leaves. What to do with leaves?

Rake them, sweep them, blow them.
Into the road, into the trash, under the carpet.

Falling in them seems the best option... if you're not bothered by who's going to bite you!

Belle Isle, Richmond

Indians, Captain John Smith, a Civil War prison and twentieth century fish industry have all spent time on Belle Isle but most recently and most famously James Spader was there with his daughter. We walked across the suspension foot bridge and leapt across the rocks (with due care). A great riverside spot with head-clearing fresh air.

Belle Isle

Hair Theater, N Robinson Street, Richmond

The first shearing on foreign soil and in such style. J sat solemnly throughout, whilst M chattered. Bobs were created -- shorter and more sculpted than every previously achieved. Complimentary cookies and coffee were on offer and lollies for kids (not salicylate suitable - J wept), and a salon decor of relaxed, shabby chic made for a pleasant evening, safely out of the drizzling rain.

Hair Theater

Fall on Floyd, Richmond VA

Warm days and blue skies but very cold nights in houses not designed for insulation. However if you look up you get shots like these and below the streets are covered in dry, scrunchy leaves.

Coppola's Deli, S Colonial Avenue, Richmond

This is the new comfort food. Forget the tuna melt - the house special is a Cheese Steak sub with 100% beef steak, grilled onions, hot & sweet peppers, covered with provolone cheese, mustard and ketchup (I refrain from this element) on a freshly baked roll. More child friendly is a shared turkey and tomato roll with an organic "Adam and Eve" apple juice box. The staff are a delightful mix of the old-hand Italian and the kind-student variety.

Coppola's Deli

Studio 231, New Museum, Bowery, New York

Forget the joylessness of Carsten Höller's New Museum offering and step next door for the mad delights of Spartacus Chetwynd's current installation. With heroes like Jabba the Hut and a passion for the sublime, 'Home Made Tasers' is a hodgepodge of fun. Wheeled on an office chair between mini sets revealing the increasingly barmy tales of man's evolution - Creationists and Darwinists beware this is somewhere between Scientology and Planet of the Apes - our child was given the slightly less racy version of our lives to this point which ended with the wildly shocking PP3-powered tazer sparks and the charm of a french man dressed in a green-veined frock.

Spartacus Chetwynd

The Highline, New York

Prairie planting in style - a walkway above the city streets on railway tracks now bedecked with wooden slatted sun loungers, a toe-dipping water sheet, wafting auburn-leafed trees, purple Michaelmas daisies amidst the long grasses and just so much more more... stunningly simple detailing and concrete that has never looked so good. A 70's hotel that one moves beneath that feels like the set of a sci-fi movie and the essential naked man post-shower in a window. Just beneath us the Chelsea Market and all that is great about American food - from Amy's Bread to insane cup cakes and then the lovely gluten-free burgers and beers of Friedmans.

The Highline

Friedmans

Ground Zero, Manhattan

Dedicated to those who survived September 11th 2001 - a shiny Jeff Koons.

Dedicated to those who died at Ground Zero - two deep pools in the footprints of the twin Towers, by Walker and Arad.