New Camera Course

 

So have made a tentative start on the above training having registered for free some time before Christmas. Built around the Canon EOS DSLRs some parts are pretty basic, but hey it's free and helps to keep me occupied over my Chrimbo break - especially as I can't exactly get out much right now.

Hoping to pick up a few gems along the way and may well pay for a year subscription to the follow on course. Not least because they do a whole module on flash photography - something I'd like to be better at and more confident with using external/wireless flash. Got a DVD on the subject from when the EOS shop was having a sale on their training DVDs and have watched parts of it already. It still sometimes seems like a black art even with my new fangled AI flash which I treated myself to last winter.

It also helps to plug the gap left behind by the fact that as most of us now work from home we are unable to hold our monthly camera club meets at work. We've had the odd social Zoom call but that isn't the same, especially as we'd had a new drip controller to play with early last year and I'm guessing it has been mothballed back into it's box for the foreseeable. The most we achieved last year was a brief session playing with the pixel stick and catching up with our best images taken in the previous year! Gonna miss that this January - although suspect many will have found it hard to keep their photographic hands on given the subjects they like to shoot. Although there were the odd social distanced model shoots going on and some travel during the middle part of the year. Even with my penchant of shooting table-top subjects and records of my walks around where I live and the changing of the seasons as my walks stretched well into the year, I have struggled at times to keep the mojo flowing. My usual haunts were either closed or involved using public transport, something I wasn't too enamoured with doing until things settled briefly in the summer months and I certainly don't want to be bussing anywhere right now 😨

So sitting at the laptop, in the warm and dry with a cup of coffee to hand isn't a bad way to still enjoy some photography!

Christmas Day

 

So this is my fav photo from a somewhat subdued Christmas Day due to the restrictions put upon us at lastminute.com by an infuriating BoJo. Because I'm in a support bubble with my daughter and son-in-law, it thankfully meant that we could still spend the day together, something I was extremely grateful for. But it still left a gap where other members of our families should have been 😥

We had a lush dinner, cooked mainly by James I think and then settled down to watch Annie open her myriad of presents. She likes to rip pieces off the paper and drop them on the floor before reaching for the next piece! Because she enjoys this more than what's actually inside the wrapping paper it didn't take her long to blitz through the pile 🤣 She has enough doggie treats down to last a seriously good portion of next year and of course some new toys!

We had a late pudding and then took Annie out for a walk around the Langley Park site, it's much bigger than I'd anticipated, lots of houses there now as the build nears completion. It was an uber chilly night but good to see people's festive lights on, some houses having put on awesome displays.

Home by 19:30 as James and Julia were going to do a family Zoom call with James's famalam, again it made me sad that I'd been allowed to meet up with them and other people hadn't. Whilst I am more than grateful for the support bubbles, they have helped to keep me sane, I still feel as though it's all so unfair and kinda makes me feel as though I am doing something wrong even though I'm not 😥

Prison Walks & Printers!

 

So today has been taken up with setting up yet another new printer after mine suddenly died yesterday. Some error suggesting it needed to be returned for repair. Yeah right because I'm gonna pay out to send the bloody thing somewhere! So managed to find something suitable and available for delivery today from the local Currys. Another Canon because generally they are much less fussy about compatible inks, this time it's a TS8351, still an all-in-one Wi-Fi machine and also prints on CDs not that I have reason to do too many of those these days - less so now that my new laptop no longer has an optical drive either ;-) Easy peasey to set up following an online set of instructions, even the connection to my router was dealt with by the installation process :-)

So having got the printer up and running again and printed out the Christmas TV guide which is what I'd tried to print yesterday when it fell over, thought I would make the most of the drier weather and head out for some much needed fresh air. Being cooped up because of the rain and this tier 4 rubbish means that fresh air is something distinctly lacking some days and so took myself off for a slightly longer circuitous route. Used the trusty mobile to snap a few pics along the way and fed these into Adobe Spark to create the collage. Mainly because the collage feature in Google Photos has no control over it. Usually I do this on the phone but as I was already on the laptop I thought I'd try and do it on there instead. Pretty sure I stumbled across something recently offering collages but can't for the life of me remember what it was. Might have to go a hunting!

New Christmas Lights

 

So here's a quick collage of the new lights that Mr Amazon delivered yesterday. Getting fed up feeding my snowman and disco ball batteries so opted for some main versions. Well not the snowman, couldn't get anything like that so opted for this awesome blue & white LED bonsai tree. Very pleased with it, it is very bright and looks amazeballs against the new multi-coloured net of lights. The disco ball is currently in the studio as I have run out of sockets on the little bedroom, but it helps to light up that end of the landing. Very impressed with this device also, not quite tried out the music option, think it's supposed to "dance" with the music, but the auto is still pretty funky :-)

Treats for Annie!

 So been busy making paper treat cones for my gawgus grandfurbaby Annie. Didn't realise quite how tricky they can be to make and whilst normally the sweet ones would be done using ready made cellophane bags, a) I don't have any and b) Annie will be able to smell the treats much better from a paper cone ;-)

So made a couple and filled them with various treats and also made a couple of treat boxes for her to play with, filled with treats so we may have to ration them out. Used a couple of empty tissue boxes with some paper over the hold to keep the treats in and then wrapped in Christmas paper. A few judicious pin holes to help the scent escape, not that she's likely to need help!

The other bigger pressie is a new Kong and a large box of treats, along with what I bought to stock up from Amazon she's got enough to last FOR AGES at this rate!

It's been "such fun" prepping these for her this year, we've had a whole year's notice this year rather than the week and a bit we had last year when we heard Julia & James had been successful in rehoming her.

Screwed Over by BoJo

 

So, this is my take on the latest crap coming out from No10 because Boris has once again set us up for a fall by doing "mass testing" in the Medway Towns and now they've found more people with the virus (oh there's a surprise, test more = find more) they've seen fit to cancel Christmas and bung us in a Tier 4 category WTF. So he's morphed into Scrooge & The Grinch literally overnight despite bleating earlier that to cancel Christmas would be "inhuman". Guess he didn't feel too bad about doing EXACTLY that in the end though - tosser!

So this is my Photoshop offering on what he can do with his Tier 4, I won't be dictated to by some hypocritical, lying little prick. Now that's not to say that I won't be sensible, I always am, I've been stuck working from home since fucking March with no return to the office on the foreseeable horizon and I'm careful to just take a walk outside. I shop online and only see my support bubble. So in essence I'm doing the right things - BUT BECAUSE I WANT TO and not because some bloody idiot politician is telling me I should.

Just wish they would pull their collective heads out of Sage's arse and get this vaccine administered amongst the public rather than the inevitable chosen few. Because if they think we're gonna accept 2021 as a continuation of the shite they've dumped us into this year then they can seriously think again 🤬

Santa Run

 Here's a quick pic I took off the Estate FB page because I'd anticipated the Santa Run being done the following day, 20th, and it arrived early because of the impending Tier 4 restrictions.

Got to hand it to these guys 'n' gals they pull out the stops every year to bring some festive cheer around the estate, usually delivering dropped off gifts to the kids. Sadly this year they weren't allowed to do that but they still came around in the atrocious rain to brighten our evening and mark the start of the Christmas Festivities. And it wouldn't be Christmas without them. Donated a tenner into their bucket on a stick and also donated online through the JustGiving page. Hopefully these funds will help to keep these things going for next year and many more to come. They had already missed out on the fundraising from the Fireworks evening. 

WELL DONE 25TH SCOUTS GROUP FOR CHEERING US UP ON WHAT IS GOING TO BE A WEIRD CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR!!

More Covid-19 Signage

Saw these rhymes posted on the school gates on my walk around this morning having had to venture out to the chemist for my prescription. As much as I hate all this Covid-19 signage everywhere I quite liked the humour behind these, well I found them funny anyway, and so as I have an ongoing album on Facebook with examples of this type of thing in it I thought I'd best snap these for prosperity. Because although it really doesn't feel like it right now, there will come a time when this crap is long gone, or we'll have learnt how to deal with it sensibly (and by that I mean the GOVERNMENT) and we'll look back on this and wonder how we needed to do this in order to get a grip on what amounts to a flu virus... A day when the GOVERNMENT stop trying to scare the crap out of everybody so they "do as they are told". I wouldn't mind if they also followed the "rules" but they don't. As per usual it's one rule for the rich and another for the poor. They fiddle the data on a daily basis to try and frighten people into coercion. I can't wait for the day when we'll ditch the face masks and 2m social distancing bollocks where you do a daily dance up and down the street trying to avoid everyone else who then don't even bother to acknowledge that you have given them space. A day where we can visit who we like when we like for as long as we like and actually HUG our friends and family. So much that we took for granted before the GOVERNMENT started panicking about something that for 99% of people isn't a problem.

I read a Norwegian folk story on FB the other day, posted by a friend, about the Black Death, in the form of an old woman called Pesta. Now the Black Death was indeed a deadly pandemic, wiping out 60% of the population, decimating whole towns and villages, where people literally died within three days of contracting it. Covid-19 IS NOT like that, not even vaguely close to being like that. So WHY are we being led to believe that this is a DEADLY virus?!!?? Yes its a problem for a small percentage of people, yes some people have died from it and of course that is tragic, but this is not killing even 1% of the total population. Big difference. Maybe our GOVERNMENT need to learn some statistics and dump the SAGE scientists for some of those who actually know what they are talking about. And there have been loads of scientists who have come forward to voice their concerns. Are they taken notice of? No because the GOVERNMENT don't want to be told they have been fobbed off by a load of crap information. And whilst they are at it maybe they should start putting some money back into the NHS instead of keep bleeding it dry because when all is said and done that's what this boils down to. An NHS that cannot cope because every bloody GOVERNMENT we ever have pinches the money from them and keeps them functioning on scraps and leftovers. Instead of putting people on furlough they should have ploughed that money back into the NHS, built more hospitals. Because they are always building new homes but no one builds more hospitals or GP surgeries.

She's Coming Home - Anniversary

 

So today, a year ago around lunchtime, Julia and James got the news they had both been waiting for - being told that they had been successful in their efforts to rehome Annie. A beautiful GSD/Goldie cross ex-Guide Dog they had boarded previously in the year and had reluctantly given up in September for her to be matched to her forever owner. As it transpired Annie wasn't very good at being a guide dog and so after much forcing on the guide dog charities part and a lot of angst on Annie's part (and indeed ours) they finally reached the decision to withdraw her and Julia and James got the nod to make an application to rehome her. And indeed we did want to get her back. Trying to explain why you want to rehome her, how much you can offer her and how much you understand her needs on some iddy-diddy form is very difficult and it went through countless iterations and reworks before finally being submitted. So much rested on these few sheets of paper. We had all undergone a total rollercoaster of emotions over Annie and not getting her back wasn't an option we wanted to even think about. She had already become so much a part of the family that none of us could think about a life without her in it. So when the call came in and Julia subsequently rang me, her first words, in amongst the sobbing, were "OMG Mum she's coming home". Annie was the best Christmas present we could all have had last year and even though this year has been tough for all of us on so many levels, it's not been anywhere near as bad as the prospect of facing life without Annie.

On the 20th December she was officially signed over to Julia and James and has been living in the doggie lap of luxury every since at Chez Bailey 😍 This photo is of her ready to join Julia on her work's Zoom call to have a pre-Christmas get together.

Christmas Lights

 

Took this on my way back home from an evening out shooting the lights around the Estate with the new M50. This is actually the Mother of the Bride photo of moi taken by Julia's official wedding photographer back in August 2016 and which hangs in the hallway. This is shooting through the hall window with the net lights forming a frame.

Had a good evening wandering around taking photos of the myriad of festive lights that have gone up around where I live. In fact I've recently done a second round tackling the streets I didn't get around to walking the first time. Took a few little video clips too of some of the displays where there was sufficient movement. Created a couple of slideshows and uploaded them to FB and shared with the Estate group. 

Taking photos of the lights is something I do most years weather permitting. Although I skipped it last year due to getting to visit Bedgebury and Kew Christmas Light displays. Both were awesome in their own way but think for me Bedgebury was the most enjoyable not only because of the more old-fashioned Christmas songs, like Bing Crosby's White Christmas, but because we went early enough to beat the crowds. My Kew visit was 18th Dec and by then it was heaving. Plus it was more laser light shows which were good but too modern for me. Maybe next year I'll get to re-visit...

My Christmas Tree

 So here's the tree in all it's glory, still really pleased with it's bushiness and built-in LED lights, it was a very good buy a few years ago to replace an aging fibre optic tree.

The usual silver star at the top and Mum's memory heart along with a star showing Willow & Grace, two other Guide Dogs boarded by Julia and James before Annie came along. Last year I made them a bauble with a photo of Ron in it to remember him by as he was off to his forever home just as they were rehoming Annie. Can't believe she'll have been here for a whole year come 20th Dec :-)

The decorations are all red/white, some made of wood, knitted, padded fabric and the odd decorated bauble plus coloured bells. I gave up on shiny baubles and tinsel a few years back although still have that in my vast stash, because never say never! A few old baubles that belonged to my Mum adorn the mirror where I'm sitting writing this, love these old style Christmas decs - they are very hard to come by now and very expensive to buy on eBay - I know I've looked ;-) But I guess they wouldn't be the same as having some of the decs around that we used to hang on the tree all those years ago when she decorated the house for Christmas.Well when I say we, I mean her, the tree was her thing and I cannot remember anyone else being "allowed" to do it :-) It's still my favourite time of year, or one of them, I like Halloween too, but always prefer to get past her anniversary before the decs go up. Again it's just one of my stipulations.

Christmas Decorating

 So, did the Christmas decs early this year, broke with the tradition of 12 days before because let's face it after the crap year we've had we could all do with a little early festive cheer! So started on my off Friday and pretty much got it all done in a day - aching back aside! This is a quick collage of a few bits from the porch and my Dockyard wreath hanging on the inside of the inner door again this year whilst the red rag one hangs on the other side, tied to the door knocker. Also the wind-up lit village on the hallway windowsill accompanied by one of the Avon light up penguins I bought a few years ago.

Really pleased with the decs and especially my tree, keep returning to the red/rustic/soft decorations for the tree and strictly no tinsel. Looks good despite killing my back trying to put the thing together ;-)

Lots of climbing on/off the folding steps because on my own I can't tell if something is hanging straight or central, the downside of living alone is no little helper!

Advent Calendars

This year's advent calendars up on the lounge door ready for tomorrow. The usual metal magnetic one which I bought a few years ago in Homebase and which has ended up being pretty handy. And a cardboard one purchased from Clinton Cards on a rare visit to Bluewater during this bloody pandemic. A trip I made with Julia and which was reasonably pleasant despite having to mask up like Lone Bloody Ranger!

The cardboard calendar has proved to be pretty awesome, very pleased with the quality of the pictures behind the windows. Call me old fashioned but I really love these calendars over the chocolate variety which have no pictures at all. But some of the calendars have totally un-Christmassey pictures too which is crap. So very impressed with not only the calendar itself but at just £3 it was a bargain compared to one I bought some years ago from eBay for almost a tenner 😱

The from picture is a lovely town scene of the Salvation Army Band playing carols. Will definitely look for calendars in Clinton Cards again next Christmas!