May The Paws Be With You :)

More and more often people are posting little icons with thier comments on flickr and most of the time they really annoy me, they clutter up the comments and make them quite hard to read but having recently been invited to join the 'Kitty Stormtroopers' group (don't laugh) I had to smile when I saw the graphic they used, it's the best one I've seen so far :)

Bless You :)

Heaven Is A Warm Bath Full Of Bubbles – Discuss.

I haven’t been able to have a bath for over four months now, and I’m really missing it! I would like to add that I do have a shower, a very nice, powerful shower, you know the sort that sandblasts you clean in the morning, but it’s not the same as being able to wallow until you look like a prune in a nice warm, bubble filled, pampering bath.

In my opinion, there is nothing quite so relaxing as a bath. Preferably with a few candles, a glass or two of wine (or if bubbly if you’re feeling extravagant) some music, the phone off the hook, the door shut and the real world well and truly banished.

So in anticipation of the fact that Matt and I are moving to a new place at the end of February which has a bath as well as a shower I was ecstatic to get a whole box full of bath time accruements from my colleagues at work for my birthday. Complete with a bottle of Moet Rosé and a rather flamboyant rubber duck since named Daphne.

I’m not going to rush it, moving in is going to be stressful enough as it is, it feels like I’ve done nothing but pack, unpack, pack again, move boxes from place to place, store furniture and wonder where on earth things are for the last six months, having moved twice in as long. So when I do eventually get around to my first bath in our new home it is going to be planned to perfection and savoured. The Champers will be chilled, the candles lit, the music on softly in the background and I am going to wallow like I have never wallowed before, and heaven help anyone, and I mean anyone who disturbs me!

I can’t wait :)

Lost Land

I like having grown up photoshop, and I'm quite proud of this for one of my first attempts at being 'arty' with it :)

Same Jeans

This weeks favourite tune :)

Clumsy Is As Clumsy Does!

Being ever so slightly clumsy and slightly accident-prone myself, and after a particularly eventful evening I decided to try a bit of Internet research on the subject. So I typed into the search box ‘what makes people clumsy?’

A surprising amount of the hits that were returned seemed to be connected to alcohol, understandable enough I guess but I feel I’m a little more specialised than most in as much as my clumsiness, when intoxicated (and I don’t need to be anywhere near drunk to do this) seems to focus on an ability to spill red wine. Never White Wine, I can hold a gallon glass of white, perch it precariously on the arm of a sofa, knock it, walk past it, kick it, you name it, it never topples – but give me a glass of red and I only need to be in the same room before it inevitably ends up covering something. The amount of wine spilt and the resulting stain seems to bear a distinct correlation to the colour of my surroundings at the time i.e. the lighter the colour ergo the more likely to stain=the higher the chance of spillage. So I was more than a little concerned when Matt and I started looking for a new place to live and the cute little furnished cottage that we really liked had two white sofas in it. As anyone who’s ever spent an evening drinking with me will tell you – it’s only a matter of time! No matter how careful I am I WILL spill red wine on one of them sooner or later. So it wasn’t the end of the world when the estate agents phoned today and told us that the Landlord has now decided that he wants to rent the place unfurnished! Phew!

We haven’t got it in the bag yet but here’s hoping, not that I’m looking forward to actually moving it feels like I’ve done nothing but put things in boxes and move them from one place to the other for the last six months, but it’ll be worth it when (if) we get there, it’s got a garden, and a garage and everything!

So back to today. We have one of those slow closing things on the toilet door at work, which has to be bolted shut at the end of the day. I went in to get a bin liner from the cupboard in there and the door started to close ever so slowly, just as I heard a customer come into the shop. In an attempt to finish the job in hand before I went to sort out the customer I pulled on the towel rail on the outside of the door to close it more quickly which promptly came off in my hand sending me flying backwards into a pile of boxes of wine stacked on the floor. Fortunately the bottles didn’t break and I think I’ve managed to stick the towel rail back into the screw holes convincingly enough that no one will ever notice it was torn from it’s fixings, and I'm sure the bruises will fade quite quickly this time! Then I came home, watched an episode of Heroes (well worth checking out) than proceeded to knock a glass of wine all over my computer desk (none on the carpet, honest Matt!) twice and all this after only three small glasses.

I looked on Wikipedia and apparently clumsiness is caused by neurological problems and thankfully I don’t seem to suffer from any of the other symptoms associated with them when not drinking red wine so I can only come to the conclusion that red wine just turns whatever part of my brain that controls coordination, often with devastating effects on upholstery, (and my head, I still have a lump from a particularly unfortunate incident involving red wine, falling over and a pint glass, filled with water at Christmas)into a pile of mush.

Though it pains me to say it, it would appear that the only cure is a life devoid of red wine. Oh what the hell – what’s a carpet or two between friends anyway.

UPDATE

We got the Cottage, whoopee more moving, more packing, more lugging boxes around and then forever trying to remember which box things are in. Moving Day 26th Feb. I can't wait :)

Ok Go

Great vid, I quite like the song as well.

What If...

Made me smile :)

New Toys

I did very well this Christmas, Santa bought me lots of new toys including some extra memory for my poor old Mac which means I can use the full version of photoshop now instead of having to stick to Photoshop Elements. Now all I need to do is work out how it all works and what I want to do with it but I'm looking forward to learning.

We had a few friends round last night for a post Christmas/New Year catch up and a few glasses of wine were consumed so today was a bit of a slow day as far as anything constructive went. I spent most of the day playing with photoshop. It's still a bit of a mystery to me but I did learn one trick, making abstract circles from my pictures which turned some of the ones I'd filed away into something slightly more interesting. It's not difficult (here's how to do it if you want to give it a go). Now all I need to do is work out what all the buttons do on my camera and I might be able to take some decent photographs this year! :)

Robot Santas Spotted In Odiham?

I spotted these in the window of the local Ford Garage and couldn't help but think that they bore a little bit of a resemblance to the Robot Santas that appeared in both this years and last years Doctor Who Christmas specials (with a bit of imagination!)


(Real Robot Santa pics taken from Doctor Who Online)

Almost Back to Reality

Well that's it for now, the holidays are almost over and it's time to get back to the reality of work, although Matt and I managed to hold off for one more day. I did a few hours work this evening but we had a pretty lazy day.

There was a brief expedition to try to find something to take some pics of but inspiration and subject matter was a little lacking so instead we just had a quick walk along the Basingstoke Canal to clear the cobwebs and then a quick drink in the George and Lobster at Church Crookham (New Year - new pub!)

After the excesses of Christmas and New Year celebrations it was quite nice to have a sober evening and it's off to bed early tonight with slippers and cocoa (well cocoa anyway, some rather nice Spanish Drinking chocolate that Santa bought me) ready to face the shock of the alarm tomorrow.

New Year

As another new year starts the obvious question that everyone seems to ask is 'have you made any new years resolutions? The answer - No!

I hate the idea of resolutions. You start of by making a list of all the things you want to do/change about yourself then when you haven't achieved them by the end if the first week in January you give up and get nothing done - or maybe that's just me?

Personally I was glad to see the end of 2006 and even though 2007 started with a king sized hangover I find myself feeling more positive about the future than I have for a long time. There are still loose ends to be tied up from the business that we were forced to put into liquidation in October of 2006 and no doubt plenty of obstacles to overcome along the way but I hope to be able to start afresh with an online shop and balloon decorating business early in 2007.

Add a few obvious aims to my list for the year like stopping smoking, losing some weight, getting fitter etc. I also want to learn more about photography (and what all the buttons on my camera do!), write more, learn more about websites, wine and running a business. The list goes on and I hope that this year will be full of new things and self improvement, but most of all I hope that this year is a much happier one not just for me but for all of my friends as well.

Happy New Year.

Happy Christmas :)

Beware Of Cheap Imitations.

I can be a bit of a sucker for things that 'appear' to be free but as a friend of mine said recently "If things appear to be too good to be true then they probably are. The worst example of this that I've come across recently was the purchase of a very cheap sandisk memory card from e-bay.

It appeared to be fine at first everything seemed to work and there was no reason to question whether it was genuine or not, that is until we put it into a different camera! the holes at the bottom of the card are slightly larger than the holes in a genuine card, and not as accurately positioned consequently when we swapped it from one Canon to the other it bent the pins in the card slot and broke the camera. It went from bad to worse when, oblivious to the reason the camera had stopped working, we put the memory card back into another Canon and it did the same thing to that as well! Fortunately Matt's 350D appears to be ok for the moment, despite losing a pin that fell out after using the fake card however my 300D didn't come out of it so well and is now in for repair with a bill of £140 to face - Happy Christmas!

There's a great article here all about the fake cards and how to spot them so if you use sandisk CF cards be very very careful where you buy them from, it may cost a little more but it's worth making sure you've got the genuine article.

Extra Information

Although the sandisk sale has now ended the person we bought the card from is a regular seller on ebay so think twice about buying from wand3r3r19

Sonny :)

As featured on MyCatHatesYou.com

Past It's Best?

Jim the Halloween Pumpkin is starting to look a little worse for wear now. I know I should have thrown him out ages ago but I've got quite attached to him, and besides if someone had eaten your insides, filled your head with candles then used you as a prop for photographing sparklers you probably wouldn't look so hot either. :)


Mmmmm? I wonder how long it will take for him to turn into a complete pile of mush? Maybe I should just leave him where he is for a little bit longer and see :)

Fame?

Imortalised forever in the style of Andy Warhol and featuring on Cat-A-Log, is there no end to this cats talent? could he become the most famous cat on flickr?

Bees!

Despite a really, really wet, miserable Friday the weekend turned out to be really nice again. the uncharacteristically warm weather for this time of year seems to be showing no sign of stopping. Although understandably it's pretty cold in the evenings (possibly something to do with the sun going down?) the days are still mostly bright and filled with that really annoying low autumn sun that gets in the way of both driving and photography! I can't get my head round the fact that my sunglasses are still out in November!

I resisted the urge to stay in, to watch the England V South Africa Rugby match on Saturday and gave in to a drive/walk locally to play with cameras and find a nice country pub. Despite all good intentions and a bit of an aimless drive we ended up back at The Chequers in Well, which is rapidly becoming a bit of a fave at weekends. It's a really nice, friendly. relaxed pub with great food, both bar snacks and a full blown restaurant if you want it and we seem to be ending up there a lot. We drifted upon it by accident a few weeks back and despite a very surreal conversation with a local man about the virtues of rolling your own cigarettes and just how many different types of rolling 'backy there is we've been back a few times now.

When it came time to leave I was surprised to find a Bee had settled on the sunroof of our car, convinced (although since corrected) that Bees hibernate in winter. Apparently they just cluster together to keep warm, taking turns to be on the cold outside, either way I'm sure this one shouldn't have still been buzzing round a pub garden! I'm not sure this was a very well Bee, it seemed very docile. So much so that I could get up quite close for a pic (Dear Santa, if I'm good can I have a macro lens please?). I like the effect of the reflection in the roof and shall continue my quest for the perfect bee pic next summer.

Interestingness!

flickr says I'm interesting, so I must be :P

Remembrance Day

Today was Remembrance Day and across the country wreaths were laid and ceremonies held to remember the people that lost their lives in wars throughout history. With the main focus on World War 1 and World War 11.

Odiham held a traditional ceremony with wreaths laid by RAF Odiham, The Royal British Legion, The Fire Brigade, The Parish Council, the Odiham Society, Guides and Scouts followed by a March along the High Street

Remembrance Day is held on November 11th to recognise the end of World War 1 on that day in 1918. The tradition of observing two minutes silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month marked the time that the armistice came into effect in Britain and the two minutes represent the two World Wars, prior to 1945 only one minutes silence was observed.

The poppy's significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy emblem was chosen because of the poppies that bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their red colour an appropriate symbol for the bloodshed of trench warfare. Last year over 5000 veterans, servicemen and women and their families were helped by the support of the poppy appeal every month but there are still many more out there in need.

There was a record turnout for the ceremony in Odiham today, maybe not that surprising given the current terrorism threat and the present war situation and in conjunction with the Royal British Legion this was the second year that Odiham marked the start of the two minutes silence with the firing of maroons and a short ceremony at the War Memorial.

Elvis!

News Flash! Elvis is alive and well and performing, for one night only, in Ewshot in Surrey.

Oops!

Who's been a naughty girl then? One of Hampshire's finest took offence to the fact that wearing my seatbelt seemed to have slipped my mind on the way back from seeing Borat at the cinema - oops!

I wasn't too concerned, apart from the possibility of a fine for not wearing my belt I knew I hadn't done anything else wrong. He asked me to blow into the breathaliser and that was all clear, checked my driving licence on the police database, no problems there, but when it came to the insurance the car came back as uninsured - and it's definitely insured! Although he was concerned that he couldn't find a record of the insurance he let me go with nothing but a telling off and an order to produce my documents within seven days. The only problem I've got now is catching our local Police Station actually open. We only have one policeman in the village so tracking him down is not an easy task, still I've got a week, I should be able to find him by then.


UPDATE!

Found him, showed him my documents and I'm now officially off the hook! :)

Waiting!

Today has been a bored day! One of those listless, don't know what I want to do, can't be bothered with the things I know I should do, generally fed up sort of days!

In an attempt to snap out of my gloomy mood I decided to go for a wander with my camera. Even that was a little half hearted, I couldn't be bothered to drive anywhere so I ended up roaming the same old places in Odiham, and believe me when I say it's not a big place so there's only so much to see.

I decided to see if I could capture any of the Autumn colours that there are around at the moment, especially as it seemed like we'd almost skipped Autumn this year. The weather seemed to suddenly go from summer to winter, t-shirts and sunshine one moment and then dark evenings and winter coats the next.

As is so often the case, I soon got sidetracked from my original quest and spotted a flock of birds on the church roof. I'm not sure what sort of birds they are but they're always there. They sit there for ages then fly off and circle around landing occasionally in a tree or a field then returning to their perch on the roof.

The falling leaves and Autumn colours that I expected to see seemed very sparse, I was surprised at just how green everything still is but I managed to capture a few of the changing colours none the less and the walk and a dose of fresh air helped clear my head and lift my mood ready for a few hours of late afternoon/early evening work.

Remember Remember...

The fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I love fireworks and always make the effort to try to get to a see a display if at all possible. I was even more determined this year as I have a new toy to play with - a Canon 300D, although I've obviously still got a lot to learn about using it, I still didn't get any really good pictures of the fireworks. Despite the fact that I spent nearly all of the half hour display looking through the viewfinder of the camera fireing of a barrage of 369 shots and with my back bent at a very unnatural angle. Did I pay for that over the next few days in back pain or what! Note to self - get a tripod - soon.

Halloween

This years effort at pumpkin carving!



And in the nature of the sudden realisation by councils across the UK that recycling is a good thing and therefore should now be enforced at every opportunity. To the point where Hart Council has now introduced a well meant but utterly confusing list of what can and therefore must be recycled the rest of the pumpkin was expertly recycled by Matt who turned it into a very tasty Pumpkin and Chicken Stew.

It's been a strange Halloween for me this year I had to put my business into liquidation on Monday, due to reasons (mainly) beyond my control so instead of selling Halloween balloons and general tat to the residents of Odiham from my little gift shop I was doing the graveyard (if you'll pardon the pun) shift at the local Wine Rack.

I was also deprived of my usual partner in crime for Trick or Treating by virtue of the fact that she's moved to Lancashire. And lets face it, without a child to drag along with you knocking on strangers doors dressed as a Vampire and asking for sweeties seems a little desperate!

So instead we had a chilled out Halloween, drank a bit of wine (Red - of course), listened to all the clichéd Halloween songs that Radio Paradise could churn out and ate delicious pumpkin stew.

Happy Halloween

:)

Time On My Hands

At the risk of starting to sound like a total flickr bore (note to self – blog about something else soon!) I thought I’d have a go at actually getting everything on the list for the October Flickr Scavenger Hunt.

I like October, not least of all because Halloween falls at the end of it which is always a bit of fun, and in the heady world of retail it’s always been one of my favourite seasonal days.

This years going to be very different though, for reasons that I won’t go into (yet) my little shop on the High Street is currently closed, and unfortunately it looks like it’s going to have to stay that way. All I’m going to say are three words – Inland, Revenue and Accountant! So, over the past week or so I’ve found myself with a little more time on my hands than normal – and I am going out of my mind with boredom! I’ve got a second job, which helps to keep me sane, pay the bills and keep the wine flowing but I’m still going crazy, so time to spend a little time enjoying my hobbies methinks!

So in honour of Halloween the October list has a horror movie style, with the additional challenge of trying to submit all entries in black and white/high contrast as an homage to all the corny horror movies that have been made (manipulation permitted)

So without further ado, the list please…

1. Scream
2. A Murder Of Crows
3. Haunted House
4. Hell Hound
5. Spirits
6. Now, She Should/Could Be The Bride Of Frankenstein
7. Vamp(ire?)
8. Black Cat
9. Cemetery, At Night
10. A Grotesque
11. Scarab
12. Organ
13. Unlucky 13
14. Rosemary's Baby
15. Scarecrow
16. Full Moon
17. Skull
18. Fog Or Mist
19. Bat(s)
20. Evil Eye

My mission is to…

(a) Get a photograph of all 20 things
(b) Not to use too many photo’s that I’ve already posted to flickr (although there’s bound to be at least a couple of oldies in there)
(c) Go for quality not speed and come up with twenty interesting shots (well I can but try)


My weapons of choice for the month will be a slightly dated, but interesting Olympus C-2020Z and if I’m lucky a Canon 300D. I’m off to start hunting.

Wish me luck :)

October 2006

September 2006

Fame at Last?

As anyone who reads my blog has probably guessed by now I’m a bit of a flickr addict and I defy anyone who likes to take photographs or get a bit creative with images not to get hooked on it. Apart from being a fun way to show off your skills (?) with a camera it’s a great community and a brilliant way to make some new, like minded, friends and once you start to get feedback and comments from other people about your photographs you can’t help but want to both take and post more and more.

Occasionally, if you’re lucky other people want to use your photographs, an opportunity for your 15 minutes of fame. For instance my housemate Alison has now been approached twice and asked for permission to use her pics, once for a Christian groups e-card and another for a video for a Church Sermon about farming. (Quite ironic really as she's hardly a regular churchgoer!)

I was really chuffed when a flickr user approached me recently from Hawaii who is working on a guide book about the surviving ships-of-the-line and battleships and want to use some pictures that I took of HMS Warrior and HMS Victory in his book. Of course I said yes and hopefully I’ll get a copy of the guide so I can show off (I can feel my head swelling now!)

With the advent of the digital age and Photoshop there’s a chance for people to get even more creative with images. I was really impressed with a couple of manipulations by flickr fans to a photograph that I took one bored afternoon of some Halloween toys we had in our shop. They were plastic eyeballs, suspended in a ball filled with liquid that lit up when you moved them. There are three different coloured LED lights in it so the colours change every time it moves, I took loads of pics and posted the one that I liked most on flickr they were then manipulated by two different flickr users Oyvind Solstad and flickrwegian/Sweet Lisa Jay so one simple photo turned into two more fantastic images.

There’s also the chance to play with some toys designed for flickr by John Watson aka fd. They’re really simple to use and give those of us who aren’t so skilled at Photoshop a chance to try out any artistic flair we may have, or just to have a bit of fun with photos. So what are you waiting for – go get your camera and have some fun.

August 2006