Bee – Testing the Macro Lens

April, we celebrated a few birthdays, including Caroline’s, we had a nice meal out at the local pub to celebrate, very good food as always.

Richard did some more studio photography and also took every opportunity to test out Caroline’s birthday present, a Nikkor 105mm micro lens, and we also went for a day out on the bike over the Easter holidays, but otherwise a quite month.

Comic Relief

As is our tradition at work, comic relief day is the day which we all make fools of ourselves. Or at least most of us do. I do not, my excuse is that someone has to take the photographs!

February Snow and a Wedding

And the Snow started!

Snow. Yep we finally got lots of snow. A little late for Christmas. The down side of this was no biking. I hate having to take the car to work. We had it bad for about a week, one of the days it took us nearly three hours to get work! Now thats a 30 minute ride normally on the bike!

Last month it was Sofia’s birthday but this month saw us celebrating Ethan’s birthday. We also had a wedding to attend. Once again I was called open to be official photographer.

Thanks for entrusting us. I think you will be more then pleased with the results.

The middle of the month saw Caroline entering hospital for an operation. It went well but she was not pleased to hear that see now has to take six weeks off work!

The end of the month I had a fashion shoot with Stephanie at a local studio. Roll on next month, I have a big studio shoot planned in Worksop.

Photography and Walking in Whitby

January started as January’s always do with us. Holiday time. We prefer to work over Christmas and New Year, its generally quite and makes a nice change from the usual stress of work

Last year we headed to Southwold, this year we decided to stop in Whitby at the loverly White Linen Guest House. Because it was there least busy time we got a discount of the room rate and once we arrived we also got a free room upgrade, Nice!

A part from a holiday the other reason was to take a lot of photographs. Its a very beautiful area and I always come away with lots of great shots.

As always when were in North Yorkshire we always take the opportunity to go walking. This time we took the coast route which gave us some great views of the Abbey.

While the temperature was bitterly cold, we were met each morning with clear blue sky.

After a days hiking or photography we ended the day in cafe, eating hot soup and drinking hot fresh coffee.

Dragging around lots of camera’s and lens is hard work, and on a poor day, when you get home cold and exhausted with no results it can be demoralising. Luckily at the end of each day I found I had captured some great results.

When it comes to photography I am a big believer in planning and pre-visualisation, but after one of our walks I had some great luck with the moon rising over Whitby Abbey at just the right point. I wish I could tell you it was all planned but no, it was just pure luck!

I think you will agree as a photography trip it was a great success and I achieved some memorable images.

As always the holiday was far to short. Once back it was into the old routine of work. We had one last treat in the month, a trip to the cinema, to watch Underworld 3.

Colds and Christmas

Colds!

Everyone at work has been coming down with colds this month, and it was not long before Caroline did to. She soldered on, and only had the one day off. Then of course the following weekend Richard came down with it and had to have a couple of days of. Man flu is always far worse.

Christmas day was a quite affair, and was our first Christmas together alone. Boxing Day was a big family get together and we got to meet Robert and Anita’s new addition to their family, Tilly the Dog!

Monday found us back at work until New Years day, we had lots to finish off on the project front.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All!

Children in Need – £3000 raised

This month started with some disappointment for Caroline. A scrappy quilt course which had been booked for many months was cancelled the week before it was to go ahead.

A trip to the cinema was our treat the following week. The new James Bond film was a must see, and very good too. We finished off the evening with a donna kebab and a pint. A very rare treat for us.

This month was also BBC Children in Need, as usually we took the opportunity to have a dress down day in the office and the girls in the Business Services Department persuaded ‘Postie Pete’ to have a full body wax and head shave. All told we raised over £3000 for charity, not bad at all. Scary for poor Pete but not as scary as what people did a few years ago.

Miss HBS

Hard Work, a visit to a Windmill – and a Wedding

More hard work, but we also grabbed the odd day off. A visit to working Windmill and we bought some traditional flour to bake with.

I also shot another wedding this month, always a nervous event for the photographer and Bride and Groom, but I managed to get some good results. Congratulations to Pasqi and Allison, thanks for trusting me as your Photographer.

Photo Holiday in Southwold

September was another holiday for us. Work had been very intense recently, and would continue to be so with me having to delivery a major project under very tight deadlines. But the holiday had been booked some time in advance so with much work to do, to get myself in the position to take a week off, when the holiday came round I was more then ready for a rest.

We had a week in Southwold, Suffolk one of our favourite seaside destinations. Days of rest and just wondering round the local shops. A day walking across the marshes taking lots of photographs, and of course lots of the local food and beer. Southwold is the home of Adnams beer!

It was a lovely holiday and too much food and drink was consumed, as was confirmed by the weighing scale at the gym.

a Wedding and Project Work

This month saw a move at work. Instead of working in our Network Operations Centre, I was moved to the IT Projects division, to head up a major internal project as the head IT Infrastructure Engineer. Well there go my weekends for the next month or two.

The highlight of the month was an invite to Tris and Nicila’s wedding.

Farkels for the Bike, School Visit, and Father’s Day

June started with us buying presents for the new bike, first a radiator grill to pretty her up. Then some cylinder head protectors. We also treated ourselves to a new bluetooth intercom system. Its always nice to chat to each other when your on a long journey.

This month was also father’s day, the day before saw us all at Alison and Declan’s house. A family get together and also a trip to Ethan’s school for the school fate. Hannah even got to horse ride. It was so much fun she got to do it twice!

Father’s day saw us all back at Caroline farther’s. Richard had to work Sunday morning looking after one of our works data centres as the power company was shutting down the power for the morning but he joined us in the afternoon for the family get together.