Time out....

Not that I'm complaining because we love our social life & time spent with family & friends but we are always so flat out busy doing things with the people we love that we never seem to find time to catch up on things we need to do around the home.  Aside from housework & car cleaning which is easily set aside & around listing our lives on eBay, I have been totally neglecting my course work in favour of visiting family, friends, having weekends away, taking lovely long walks, going for nice meals & drinking in back gardens all in the sunshine & before I even knew it another month had passed when I hadn't even taken a look at my course work, although on the plus side the last month has seen my camera go into overdrive with all the places we have visited, including Portugal, but that's a whole separate blog story once i finally finish editing all 1,100 photos *gasp*

So today we decided to take some time out & play catch up & what a total success.  I have now completed Unit 4 - Mastering shutter speeds & Unit 5 - Cracking composition.

Unit 4 has taught me all about shutter speeds & the length of time they open up to allow light to hit the sensor adjusting how light or dark the photo ends up, whether the subject is frozen in time or moving & whether the background is sharp or blurry.  It was actually a lot to take in & a bit overwhelming all the facts and figures it was throwing at me about aperture & ISO settings but i must have taken it all in because i passed the test at the end & have been given my next assignment.

Unit 5 really caught my attention.  The first unit to teach me not just how to master the camera & the settings itself but advice on how to compose the perfect shot.  Horizontal, vertical, diagonal & forced perspective angles.  This unit has really got me eager to get back outside & capture some more photos with all the new methods I have been taught today.

So on the subject of photo angles & to brighten up this blog post a little, I'm going to leave you with a teaser photo from our holiday to Portugal.  Everybody meet Monte our monkey.

Becky Time

7 months overdue a visit, we finally got to squeeze in some Becky time a couple of weekends ago.  Becky is my school days friend, we go waaaaaaay back & so do all our memories together, so its always great to have some Becksta time, reminisce & have a catch up & whenever we are together its like we've never been apart, just how friendships should be.  This time was no different & the trio of us spent the weekend chilling, gas bagging, eating quality munch, dog walking & sunbathing in a paddling pool.  It's a hard life hehe.  Here are a couple of the photos i captured on our visit to Becky mansions.

 

 

 

 

 

London baby!

Back in June Steve & I took a little trip into London for a quick visit to Guys hospital so we decided to spent the rest of the day as tourists.  We spun round the London Eye, braved the London Dungeons, walked the beautiful South Bank together, watched the street entertainers & done a spot of people watching whilst having lunch in a lovely pub on the side of the Thames, it was a lovely day spent together in our great city & the perfect excuse to practice with the camera, here are some of the photos from our day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family fun weekend

My parents came to stay this weekend, unfortunatley due to our current living situation it doesnt happen as often as we would like it to so when it does we try & make the most of having them here & I think we can safely say we achieved that this weekend, we didnt stop.

We met them in Ware on Friday afternoon for Steve to do his zorbing experience which they got him for Christmas.  When we arrived we we're totally amazed by the gorgeous landscape surrounding the golf & adventure centre, you could do all sorts there, zorbing, segway racing, archery, fishing, lazer clay pigeon shooting, high tops adventure & axe throwing but for Friday it was all about the zorbing.

 

 

After sending Steve down the hill with 'someone' inside screaming like a girl we took a walk around the gorgeous surroundings, poked our heads inside the wedding venue that was in use that day and had a lovely pimms in the sunshine together overlooking the view.  The perfect start to a great weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday we took a little ride to Maldon to have a walk around the shops and the river & had lunch in our favourite waterside pub & on Sunday we took a walk around Witham & had a yummy carvery at one of our local pubs.  It has been a great weekend spent with great company & I'm going to leave this blog post with a photo i know is going to get me into heaps of trouble hehe.......

 

 

As you can see........Our joint family tree is full of nuts!

 

We love you
xx

Going back to my youth....

The sun came out for us last weekend & we decided to head to the East coast for the day with Sam, Mark & the kids & go back in time to our childhood holidays spent by the seaside eating chip shop chips on the beach with a wooden fork & our family favourite pastime - crabbing!

We visited somewhere I have never been before, but apparently I'm the only person who hasn't because the little town of Warberswick, Suffolk was buzzing with people and the yelps of joy from children with a line full of crabs but too scared to get them off.  oh the memories.

We had a successful time crabbing, 41 crabs in total plus a special appearance from stealth crab Houdini who kept on escaping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After crabbing we drove to Aldeburgh for what was hyped to be 'the greatest chips I'd ever taste' he he I'm going to get an ear bashing for typing that......I did however highly rate the free side portion of batter bits, so the 40 minute queue was worth it.  If only that queue was made up of running machines, we could have all burnt off what we were about to devour!

 

After lunch on the beach we headed to Leiston where we took the beach & cliff walk along the coast to Thorpeness & back & visited the noddy houses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great day out & lovely to spend time with the Weatherleys xx

Oliver time

Oliver is quite possibly my most photographed subject.  I sometimes wonder if he recognises me without a camera or phone in front of my face capturing his every move.  It's his own fault for being so adorable.  He sends my broody levels sky high with every visit and yesterday was no exception.  Especially when he played dress up!

Thank you Oliver for helping me improve my portrait photos.  Your a little cutie beauty! xx

Helping Daddy in the garden

Rocking the panama hat

 

Time to go cruising like Mummy & Daddy used to....

 

Quick costume change.....

 

Harrison's Holy Communion

It was Harrison's Holy Communion a couple of weeks ago & I couldn't resist the opportunity to take some photos of his special day all suited and booted & looking like butter wouldn't melt he he.

It was a great afternoon at my very first Holy Communion celebration & was lovely to spend time with all 4 generations of Steve's family.

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations on your first Holy Communion Harrison xx