Category: Family

Family related posts; generally only of interest to fellow members of the Brown Clan and relations by Marriage into this mad house.

Posted on

Gym, Wii, Beer, oh and Sorting out Lightroom

In an attempt to tick as many boxes in my categories list as possible, todays blog posting is a bit of a summary of the day.

Its been a busy day at work, and it has been a tempting time because of all the cakes that seem to be around at the moment.  Until the afternoon I had managed to resist, but then after a lunchtime trip to Nandos (yes so much for the diet, but I did have only a 1/4 chicken, rice and corn), I found on my desk a Chocolate muffin.

Thanks Bill!

After a busy afternoon doing 3PAR Admin, (doesn’t Exchange 2010 eat disk space), we went straight to the gym.  Nothing in particular, just a bit of general weight work, and 30 minutes cardio, spent between the Cross-Trainer and the Rowing Machine.

This evening has been far more fun.  A rather nice real ale, and a bit of time split between playing bowls with my lovely wife Caroline on the Wii, and sorting out her data on her external hard drives.

Her old PowerBook just had a 60GB drive so most of her data was on a mix of old hand-me-down firewire 800 drives that I no longer required.

Well with her shiny new MacBook Pro Retina, I also bought her a new 1 TB usb3 drive to hold her iTunes and Lightroom Libraries.

So between beer, the Wii and moving data around, tonight has been rather a fun night.  It was great to finally get my hands on her new MacBook Retina.  I was amazed at the speed it could backup and optimise a Lightroom V4 library.  Very impressive.

While sorting out her data I also took a few moments to look through some of the photos she has took of me, I thought you might enjoy this one, its me and Chris Bennett shooting Herons. With cameras of course not guns!

Chris with his Trusty Nikon D3s and me with a Nikon D200.

Anyway, its getting late and its time for bed.  Now that I have Adobe Lightroom on her Laptop, i’ll be finishing sorting out her data then getting Photoshop installed and trying that.

I wonder what else I can volunteer to do, anything will do as long as it involves using this joy of a machine.  The new MacBook Pro Retina with SSD and 16 Gb of RAM, fast hardly describes it!

 

Posted on

Lincolnshire Show 2012

This week has been the annual Lincolnshire Show.

The county show lasts two days.  Yesterday we had fantastic weather and the show events in the main and secondary arenas could be enjoyed to the full.

We had show jumping, heavy horses, Knights in Armour, jousting; as well as many other things to see.

Today the weather was not so good.  In fact we had heavy rain showers through the day, but it was still very enjoyable.  We’re British!  Stout boots, heavy rain jackets, and a good hat was the order of the day.

It did mean I did not manage a lot of photography, but we did have fun going round many of the indoor stands.  Many things to see as well as the usual farm animals, we visited the local Bee Association tent, and met many familiar faces.  The honey and lemonade was quite a food highlight.

As well as Bees we are also interested in keeping Chickens, so a visit to the Chicken tent was a must.  A spectacular mix of breeds, who knew you could get so many different breeds of chickens!

Of course with it being the County Show we also visited the tent of the WI (Women’s Institute), I am not sure I got all the competitions but the floral displays were very impressive.

We finished the day on a high, with the falconry display, the highlight being the Peregrine Falcon.

Posted on

Blogs – Who are they for and what is their focus

I read a number of blogs, and each one is focused on a particular subject.

Many are about photography, or about photographic gear. Others about Motorcycling, Flying and cooking.

My blog has a number of functions. Primary it’s like my diary, I look back over time and see what has happened, it’s also a record of my photographic and motorcycling trips.

I sometimes ask what do I want from my blog. Most blog readers want a targeted blog detailing and being focused on there interests.

My blog while primary about photography does drift off sometimes onto other subjects. I hope you will continue to bear with me while I sometimes blog about subjects that may be off no interest to you.

Posted on

May The 4th be with You

It’s very silly and a bit geeky but people are trying to get today know as Star Wars day, i.e. May the 4th Be With You (may the force be with you).

It’s a very bad pun, but fun.

To celebrate we’re having a night watching Star Wars Movies.

Enjoy your May The 4th, how ever you spend it.

Posted on

a Good Run – but a Wicked Reward

After the ill health of last year, both of us are trying hard to get fit again this year.  Tonight marked a small milestone in that we managed a good long run and a personal best for Caroline.  Not very impressive for any real runners but for none runners like us getting started again a good and well achieved milestone.

After the run to celebrate we dropped into the fish and chip shop for a treat.  Well a little now again does you no harm.  Once home we had a shower and a cold beer.

Yes I know we probably added back all the calories we had just run off, but for now we are still in training to get to the level where we can seriously run some distance, three times a week and really get the calories burnt off.

Posted on

Birthday Parties

A quiet bank holiday for us, over the course of the last couple of weeks and the next couple we have a number of family birthdays so we all had a family get-together at Angela’s (Caroline’s big sister) house.

Cake and trifle was the order of the day; a good job we had both managed plenty of running this week!

 

Posted on

Hit and Miss – Frustrating Bird Photography

Wildlife and landscape photography can be a frustrating affair.  Saturday was our last day at Whisby Nature Reserve on our Bee Keeping Course.  We have now finished all the theory and soon will start the practical sessions once the weather is better and the hive activity picks up.

After the lesson, I headed out to one of the main lakes to check out what I could find.  With spring now underway I had taken with me my longest lens and my Nikon SLR together with the big Gitzo tripod.

As you can see, nesting in the reed bed I spotted a nesting coot, and when it moved I spotted it even had eggs.  Unfortunately when it moved and showed the egg, I was not ready for it and had too slow a shutter speed set and ended up with a blurred shot.

Disappointing but those are the breaks.  For every good shot there are thousand of bad ones.  Research, planning and knowing your subject are key to improving your chances.

Hopefully I will have better look next time.

Posted on

Your Local Bee Inspector

As most of the family are by now aware, we want to start keeping Bees and Chickens.

To that end we have been attending Bee Keeping Classes every Saturday Morning held at Whisby Nature Reserve.

Well tonight we had the chance to meet up with some members of the Lincolnshire Bee Keeping Association at a talk being given by the local Bee Inspector.

If you do keep Bees its well worth introducing yourself to your local Bee Inspector and also registering your hives.

You will get advanced warning of any crop spraying and diseases in your local area. If you think you may have a problem or just need advice they don’t mind coming round and giving you the help and advice you need.  This is a free service that all Bee Keepers should make use of.

Useful Links

Posted on

a Busy Weekend – Bee’s, Macro and Motorcycling

What a busy weekend its been.  Saturday saw us again at Whisby Nature Reserve for the morning, attending our Bee Course.  We are now over halfway through and have fully enjoyed our Bee Keeping Course hosted by the Lincolnshire Bee Keeper Association.

As its a half day course and the day was so nice, I decided to spend the afternoon practicing my flower photography.  Unfortunately it was a little too windy to get any really good shots.

Sunday we jumped on the bike and spent the day exploring the North Yorkshire Moors.  All in all, we spent over six hours in the saddle, finding minor roads and fords to cross.  For lunch we had a break at the very nice but extremely busy Magpie Cafe in Whitby.

The wonderful warm sunny weather on the Sunday really brought out the Motorcyclists and the Photographers.  I took the Nikon V1 outfit with me and a freshly charged battery, but I was having far too much fun on the bike to stop much and take pictures, but I do have some lovely memories of the beautiful scenery and a number of locations to head back to with the Medium Format Camera.

Posted on

Changeable Weather

I find it hard to believe how changeable the weather has been recently.

Last Sunday was cold but bright and a great morning’s Photography was had.

The first half of this week has been dull and overcast but temperatures have been gradually rising, culminating with Thursday being one of the warmest days, a record for this time of year.  Not only that but we had bright blue skies and lovely sunshine all day long.

With the week just getting better I started to make some plans for the weekend. Possibly a long motorcycle ride to the North York Moors, with camera in hand of course for the Sunday.

Instead the weather is looking decidedly dodgy in the forecast.

We have another day at Whisby Nature Reserve on Saturday for Day 3 of our Bee Keeping Course, which we are looking forward to, so if the weather is nice we will try some more bird photography and hope for a nice Sunday.

One of the joys of living in the British Isle, the weather forecast can often be wrong.