23/365 Last reflections

Yesterday was a very GOOD day.

1) Tom (second son) rang to tell me he has a job, starts on 1st June, its the one he really wanted, so I am delighted for him. He's been off since 1st October last year when he took voluntary redundancy caused by the economic downturn, he's had a good rest and is now raring to go. Good luck to you Tom, xx
2) Dave (builder) popped round yesterday evening with the "windows and doors" man to have a measure up for the outbuilding - which, because of its shape, will henceforth be referred to as The Trapezium. He (Dave) reckons he may be able to start work on it as early as the middle of next week, wooo hooo.
3) Heather (cat lady) from whom we got Cassie, popped round to see us and to check on Cassie's progress. I'm not sure of Heather's official role, but I know she works alongside the RSPCA and helps with cat rescue, she is involved with the Bath Cats and Dogs home, as well as Kats and Kits of Devizes, and is a wonderful lady whose whole life seems to revolve around rescuing cats.
4) It was such a nice evening and TV was pretty rubbish, so Rog and I strolled out down to town and spent a pleasant hour in The Lamb, a real good old-fashioned pub.

And here is my very final posting of reflections, please click on the picture to see an enlarged version.




Tomorrow is our 22nd Wedding Anniversary and we are off to the seaside for the day.

22/365 More reflections

As I mentioned yesterday, these are some shots from a field trip last year, April 2009, to Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath. I am hoping my photography skills have improved slightly since then, but I just love reflections in water anyway. Enjoy.

21/365 Reflections

This week my photography course has reached the subject that I am in dire need of getting my head round, it's where I'm stepping out of my comfort zone, and have to move the control away from Auto.
We've to start thinking about Fstops and shutter speeds. I've read it through and done a few practice shots and I think I'm slowly but surely starting to understand it. I've done one of my end-of-week assignment shots of a dripping tap, which has come out better than I could have hoped.

Another option for the assignment was to shoot highly reflective materials. I couldn't actually find anything that fitted the bill, but I liked the idea of reflections anyway, so I took myself out early this morning and took these shots, which show home in a completely different light.






Last year I did a short course at Wiltshire College in Trowbridge, it was called "Digital Photography for Dummies", (at least thats what I think it was called) and one week we had a field trip to Bradford-on-Avon, where I took lots of shots of reflections in the river, come back tomorrow and I'll show you some of them.

20/365 The garden

This is our second summer in this house, but because we are soon to have builders in to renovate the outbuilding we haven't really done very much to improve the small uncared for wilderness that we bought when we moved here, apart from digging out a small temporary vegetable plot, which you can read all about here.
The previous owners were both full-time workers, and really didn't do much at all except to keep the grass cut - they didn't even bang down the molehills, so the grass is VERY uneven. There is a border just outside the dining room window, from which we have cleared quite a few leggy shrubby things, and left just a couple of hydrangeas, and I have sprinkled the whole thing with annual seeds, so hoping for a bit of colour later in the summer.
There is also a border along one fence in which there are more leggy shrubby things, most of which will have to go sooner or later, but there are a few nice things struggling in amongst the rubbish, so here they are.

19/365 Feeling poorly

I promised myself a 365 of postings with photos, but today I am not feeling too good, so this will have to do for now, hope to be back on course tomorrow.

18/365 I won

Blogging early today, as we have a busy weekend ahead of us.
Well, I cant remember the last time I won anything in a competition, it must have been many years ago, so what a lovely surprise to find out I had won a competition to Name the Dog, on the Felt Fairy's blog.



And this is what I received in the post yesterday, thank you so much Annie. I had named the dog Barney, after a dear old retired greyhound we used to have many years ago, but now I think I shall have to rename "him".



So, in honour of the lovely lady who made her, she is now named Annie, and is being saved for my first granddaughter - if I ever get one!!

Also yesterday while strolling down Quakers Walk I saw this lovely old log



A log for a blog about a dog. Happy Weekend everyone.

17/365 The day job

I haven't really mentioned much about the day job, I suppose because its such fun it doesn't really feel like "work". I am a self-employed Phoenix Trader. Phoenix Trading is a direct selling company making a truly gorgeous range of greetings cards, gift-wrap, postcards and various other stationery products, and my "job" is to sell these lovely items to my friends, family, neighbours and others. I am not a natural salesperson, but that doesn't really matter because most of the time the cards just sell themselves (they are really good quality and at £1.20 a card or 10 for £10.00 superb value for money) - almost everyone who sees them wants to buy.
Working with Phoenix is great because they offer so much help and support along with the iresistable product range and there are no monthly sales targets, you can sell as much or as little as you choose. This is how I am able to just put the whole thing on the back burner for 10 weeks while I do my course.
There are 5 new product releases each year, and the latest was on 1st May, here is the brochure with all the latest designs which I am about to send out to all my customers.





and here are just a very few of the 60 odd latest cards in the flesh




Aren't they lovely? I particularly like the peacock.
Please have a look at the Phoenix website by clicking here, where you can see the entire range consisting of some approx 500 different designs of cards along with lots of other exciting stationery items. If you think you would like a job like mine then please ask for further details in the comments section, and if you think you might like to buy some cards then please go to my website by clicking here.

One of the best bits about this job is the complete flexibility it offers, I can work when and where I choose, I can do evening parties, weekend fairs, coffee mornings, whatever, and there is great potential for fundraising, I myself have donated over £50 to the Wiltshire Air Ambulance Appeal, just by doing a couple of sales in the foyer of the Devizes Leisure Centre featured a couple of days ago, and last autumn I did a Christmas Shopping Day at Coral Cove where the organisers raised over £200 for Children in Need.
What a lovely job I have.