'Not-in-the-Mood-for-Cute' Kitty

It has been said by some (quite a few actually) that I take far too many photos.

Many of them are of my cat Ron. She puts up with the camera being pointed in her general direction with good grace and even manages to pose for me when she has a mind to.

But sometimes she really is NOT in the mood...

Well, we are all entitled to an off day every now and again!

I still love you, Ron, cute or otherwise! x

Blog Togs - Back to Basics

I picked up a lovely book the other week -  Digital Photography Step by Step by Tom Ang
I have been meaning to get something like this ever since I bought my new camera last summer. Suddenly I have all these settings to play with but I really don't have a clue what it all means so have stuck with the auto settings, relied quite heavily on editing software and hoped for the best.  To be fair I think I have had some pretty good results so far but I know my camera can do so much better. I know I can do so much better!

My new best friend...

Well I did it! I got my new camera!!

After a bit of begging to get some Folksy sales and some calling in of favours I manged to get the money together to not only replace my poor, dear departed camera but quite significantly upgrade it!
So my new best friend is a Fujifilm Finepix S2950HD, factory re-conditioned and thus a fair bit cheaper than Argos price (gotta love eBay).

Now the reason I was in such a hurry to get this camera is that I have been invited to a fab event on Friday that absolutely demands top notch pictures so I have 2 days to get to know how it all works and how to get the best out of all the settings...

So not silent Sunday

I am not in a good mood. As I related in my last post, in amongst all the crappiness that was last week my camera died. It was nothing big or particularly special but it did all I wanted it to do and some. It had some fab little features that really made a difference to my captures. Now it's gone and I really miss it.
Have been having a look around at different options to replace it with and have run up against a brick wall.

It's called my Other Half.

This week has not been a good week...

It began on Saturday when our much anticipated Summer Fun Day at the Shambles Retail Village in Newent was almost literally washed away by torrential rain!  The Little Man, of course, loved it and spent half an hour running around like a loon, jumping in puddles, standing under the awning of our gazebo and waiting for the cascades of water to splash down on him as it got to heavy for the fabric roof to support. I would have taken pictures so you could share his joy but I was too busy trying to rescue all my stock from the elements (dried lavender pillows and books - neither like getting wet!)

On Sunday I went with the MIL and SIL to the Tewkesbury Medieval Fayre. This amazing event we attend every year (I have blogged about it before, here) but this year the boys stayed at home so we took advantage of the opportunity to shop. I had planned a whole blog about it, artisans and craftspeople using traditional methods and skills to create items of beauty to cherish... My camera however had other ideas. Today was the day my trusty little pocket Yashica joined the great 'Tripod in the Sky' and decided it would open up no more... *sobs - I have NO camera! How will I manage with NO camera?*

Monday was a busy day. I got a lot done and treated myself to a nice Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni meal from local supermarket...
At approx 4am Tuesday morning I threw my guts up. And then again at about 7am...

Have you ever had food poisoning? If you haven't, pray you never do. If you have I sympathise entirely but it's probably not something we will discuss over drinks...
The last three days have taught me several things:

• Parenthood really is the hardest job in the world - I don't care how demanding your job is, if you get sick leave you don't know how lucky you are!
• Three year olds understand more than we give them credit for - LM at 5.30am on Wednesday morning 'Are you still poorly Mummy?' 'yes, baby' 'Ok. I'll go and do some colouring then.'
• Three year olds are also better at entertaining themselves than they lead us to believe...
• My OH is great at coming home from work and getting the LM off to bed AND bringing home things like Lucozade but crap at feeding himself and getting himself out of bed in the morning*
• OH really doesn't do washing up.**
• Lucozade is marvellous stuff - and you can get it in Cherry flavour now!
• I will probably be giving Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni a very wide berth from now on...

So 4 days with little more than a piece of dry toast and half a dozen bottles of Lucozade for sustenance and I am feeling tired, listless and a lot lighter (just over half a stone to be exact - there IS a silver lining!) but my stomach is no longer churning. I am feeling hungry again this morning, although the memory of what happened last time I ate anything lingers. I don't think I'm up for a three course Sunday lunch just yet...

*To be fair I already knew this
**and this...

I know it's here...somewhere...

I have a problem. I am not the world's tidiest person. I'm a lot better than I used to be - my mum doesn't shudder when walking through my front door anymore - but that is due to the fact that a: I am actually at home a lot more these days so I have TIME to tidy and b: I have a toddler and if I want to keep anything whole and usable I need to put it away before he tries to eat it. Or bury it in the garden.
To make matters worse I also have a memory like a sieve (I have a theory about that, but I'll save that for another time).

I lose my phone on a regular basis - it usually turns up down the side of the sofa although on one occasion I found it in the watering can in the garden... (Riley....?!). The OH suggested that I give it a designated spot on the book shelf so I know where to find it at all times, which is fine, until someones phones me or sends me a text and I take the phone into the kitchen, whilst I am making tea, and then the LM needs some attention and I put it down wherever I am etc etc...You see what's happening here?

Anyway my latest loss is quite a biggie. I have managed to lose a small piece of plastic about the size of a credit card that holds my camera's li-ion battery in the charger. It popped out when I fetched the battery to put it back in my camera the other day and I put it down, to sort said battery/camera, with the intention of popping it back in the charger when I was done. But the phone rang. Riley spilt water all over the kitchen floor, the post arrived, the load of washing in the machine finished so I hung it on the line... I completely forgot about that little bit of plastic. And now I can't find it!

It's here somewhere - I know it is. It really can't have gone far. I have to find it; the li-ion batteries last well but not THAT well and we have an Easter Egg Hunt to chronicle, a couple of new shops at the Old Shambles Village that need photographing and one of our biggest local events - The Coleford Carnival of Transport on Easter Monday.

The OH often tells me to slow down, do one job at a time, finish it before moving on to the next and then maybe things like this wouldn't happen. I wish it were that easy...