…how to use my flash, and I felt bad for forgetting his head yesterday.

…come free in a box of teabags.

… my blog’s turned into ‘weather watch’ or something, what’s that all about?

I think it’s ‘cos I just don’t have an awful lot to say at the moment… and people always talk about the weather in those polite little conversations that mean incredibly little.

I think I’m just trying to keep my hand in… I desperately don’t want to let this blog lie empty again for another month, it’s not a good feeling and I’m sure most of you know from your own blogging experiences how easy it is to let it all slide.

I’m so silly though, ‘cos I make blogging sound like a chore when it’s an absolute delight. Well… when I feel like I have something to say - be it for my readers or just for myself… plus I hate when I get all pity party, so if I’m in a grump… I’m even less likely to update.

Anyway, I wonder if you delightful lot would mind terribly helping a girl out? It’s a risk… ‘cos if no-one replies then I’m worried I’d be quite happy to let my camera bag take root in the corner of the room until it stops getting dark at 3.30 in the afternoon and begins to get warm again.

Please choose a location to force me into some kind of action…

1 of them I’ve been to lots of times with my p&s and I’ve always found it a little ‘blah’ photographically.
1 of them could totally bore me within 5 seconds of getting out the car.
1 of them is tourist central, and it’s hard for me to think outside of the box whenever I go there.

But which one speaks to you? Which one would you go to if you were me?

Winchester

Ocean Village

Royal Victoria Country Park

None of those pictures above are mine, so clicking them links back to their original locations.

The other thing to take into account is that I’ve fallen out with my 17-50mm (gonna send it back for some tweaking soon), so unless I get desperate, I’ve only got the 135mm to work with on a cropped sensor… I’m thinking there’s gonna be lots of detail shots and not a lot of context!

First location to get 3 votes wins and I’ll lever my arse out of this chair and find a use for that scarf I bought off eBay back when Winter seemed like a lifetime away.

Love from me xxx

p.s. If there’s anyone out there like me in need of a kick up the backside some gentle encouragement to go out and shoot for themselves, don’t talk to me… I’ll just encourage you to eat chocolate fingers and watch America’s/Australia’s/Britain’s/Kazakhstan’s (seriously it exists) Next Top Model. I’ll drag you down with me - bwuahaha.

meh, quality wasn’t this bad before youtube got their dirty little mitts on it. You can just about make out the chapel from this post if you squint a bit.

Anyway, looksee… the sun does shine in the UK…

…occasionally.

I’ll fill you in on all the uninteresting things that have been occurring as and when I can be arsed, which might mean that it never happens knowing my ‘heroes’-like ability to procrastinate.

Although I will say that we finally got our bedroom finished!

Well, when I say finished… of course I don’t really mean finished. We don’t have any blinds or a lampshade, or bedside tables or table lamps. But we do have 1 green wall, 3 pale sandstone-y coloured walls, freshly white glossed woodwork, a new carpet, new ultra bouncy underlay and beautiful crisp white bedding.

I sometimes wonder if it’s healthy to be so in love with your bed. Any semi-feasible excuse and you’ll find me lounging on it, sleeping on it or watching TV on it.

I wouldn’t mind so much, but it’s not even THAT comfortable. We bought it when we first met 7 years ago… so now it’s pretty tired (especially as it was a super cheapo one). Nevertheless, I hate to be away from it… there’s nothing quite like moulding back into the familiar dips after being separated for even a short while.

Oh, and if I were to win even a smallish amount of money… first thing I would buy? One of those super-king size orthopaedic ultra firm ones with a lovely thick softy mattress topper and beautiful Irish linen.

As that’s not gonna happen anytime soon… tell me about your favourite place to lay your head… do you like it hard? soft? firm but yielding? or just super squishy? *and don’t think I can’t see some of you smirking over there*

…………..

Oh, and here’s our new carpet:

Please excuse the ridiculously low ap throughout the pictures… the sun has completely refused to show it’s face for ages, so despite our room having lovely big windows, it’s like a soddin’ dungeon in there.

I am here, but I’ve got some shitty stuff going on at the moment - nothing major… just lots of little rubbish things that are getting in the way of my usual web presence or ability to pick up my camera. I’m working through it and I wish I could give all of you who have left a comment to me regarding my absence a great big hug.

I’m too scared to look at my bloglines as last time it was showing over 900 unread entries. I’m gonna get back into the swing of things… I AM, I AM, I AM (repeat to self 10 times a day)… but I just wanted to show some gratitude to my friends on here who are very much not forgotten, I’ve just kinda lost my way a little.

Love you all.

I’ve always been envious of people who can keep up with having lots and lots of acquaintances, I imagine it would be great to be able to pick and choose which friend to make plans with and fill up a calender with a different friend for each day of the week. As for me, I’m either not gregarious enough or maybe just incapable of multi-tasking.

To this end, I have one friend (other than my husband, but he doesn’t count). Vicky has been my friend since school, I guess since about 1994.

We’re couldn’t really be more different.

She loves camping and the outdoors life. I’d rather pluck my eyebrows with a pair of pliers.
She works as a carer in an old people’s home… I tried that job once and lasted 2 days.
She doesn’t really ‘get on’ with technology… I’d literally shrivel up without 24hr intravenous access to broadband.
She’s got a string of cub scouts that look up to her… If it were me, I’d take the cub scouts out into the woods and leave them there.

Despite all these differences, we seem to find a common ground most of the time, but there’s one thing about her that really chaps my ass.

I’ve simply never known anyone over the age of 25 with more beautiful skin. Oh, the bitch tans fantastically too.

No portraiture, no cloning, no healing, no nothing. I’m rethinking this whole ‘friend’ thing now.

One of my images has been selected as one of the ‘final ten’ in the ‘exploratory post processing’ category in Jesh de Rox’s recent contest, and I’m beyond smiley about it.

I’m also really embarrassed to see it up there with what are 9 other infinitely better images and a big part of me wishes I could take it back, does that make sense? I am really proud that it got selected… and not trying to be ‘modest’ or anything silly like that… I’m just embarrased after looking at how GOOD the other images are.

I was bored the night before last, and while I was stalking all the blogs that I love to stalk, I noticed the contest was still running, and instead of doing my usual scanning of posts just to get to the pictures, I read it word for word. If I’m honest, I didn’t know what ‘experiential’ meant and was curious to find a definition.

Anyway, I thought I’d enter my recent image of the crow in the field (the ‘hello darkness my old friend’ one) for the 1st category and as an afterthought really I had a quick peek through my flickr to see if I could find 2 more that might kinda fit the 2nd and 3rd categories. I thought, hey… no-one has to see them bar a small panel of judges, it’s not like I’m walking down the high-street sans clothing right?

I just checked my ‘bloglines’ about an hour ago… and there, right at the very bottom of all the finalists was this:

So now I feel like I’m walking down the high-street naked apart from a pair of clown shoes.

Anyway, if you got that far… I’m going to go and hide under my duvet ’till it’s on the second page of his blog and no-one can witness my foolish late-night bravado, I might peek one eye out a couple of times, but mostly I’m just gonna close them tight.

If you’re not a regular reader… check out Jesh’s blog… it’s limitlessly inspirational.

I feel truly honoured to be sharing a spot over there with lots of phenomenal photographers, share the love, go see them all and vote for your favourites.

…was a really lovely day.

Happy Anniversary to the man who tells shockingly bad jokes, pushes away storm clouds with a smile and made me believe that I was worth being loved.

Always remember, shut the door.

xox

… so I’m pleased Paul’s doing it.

He’s decorating Nan’s old bedroom and we’re moving in ‘cos it’s got MUCH bigger windows than our dungeon.

I am making lots of tea and bringing him cakes and stuff though.

I think the deal is that he’d rather just get on and do it on his own instead of me being up there ‘helping’ whilst complaining every 3 minutes that I got some sugar soap/paint/white spirit/dust on me.

I did pick the paint colours… although I’m already doubting my sense of style. But shhhh… we won’t say anything until it’s done alright? I don’t want to start a mutiny up there.

The second picture is a better representation of the colour than the first (at least on my monitor). I’m hoping the grey comes out all nice and soft, whispery-looking as opposed to battleship grey-looking. I’m also expecting muted stuff from the green… I don’t want it to look like I have a mould problem. The green will go on the wall the bed is against and the grey everywhere else. My main concern is that the green is a touch too dark… but I’ll deal with that problem if it arises.

We’re getting a new carpet too… I want something with a really deep pile…. a bit like this:

Is it a bit bathroom ruggy? tell me, I can take it!

and I want it in a mushroomy kinda colour… mid brown but tonally more grey than red… does that make sense?

This is the kinda colour:

So… blog participation time…. honestly - I need your guidance… what do you think? Better you tell me that the only taste I have is in my mouth before I spend more money and wind up sleeping in a room that looks like it was designed by Dame Edna Everage.