2013 365 31

Ah week 31, my old friend, how are you? It seems (and I've checked) that at about the same point in last year's 365 project I ran out of steam and struggled for motivation. Then shortly afterwards, things picked up again. Lesson learned. Last weeks update was a couple of days late due to apathy; this week's update is late due to having too much to do. Shouldn't complain really.

29/07/13

I've taken this photo before - that's how low my creativity is this week. It's a bird. On a bird feeder. Big deal.

30/07/13

I know the photo makes this look huge, but it's a resin cast of my youngest daughter's hand. We came across a moulding kit (dirt cheap), took it home and tried it out. It was quite interesting and a lot of fun, although not for the wee monkey who had to hold her hand in a tub full of rubbery jelly for 15 minutes to form the mould. Next job is to finely sand down the rough bits and then figure out what we're going to do with it. And what other body parts we can make casts of with the remainder of our supplies.

31/07/13

Ok, so this is bit out of focus but it represents something really exciting in my house - a dinner made using mainly ingredients from the garden and greenhouse. I am awash with the tastiest baby courgettes, shallots and garlic at the moment and these were picked and made into a rather nice pasta sauce.

1/08/13

I was reflecting about last year's 365 project earlier and recall that I spent many shots and updates on the progress of my cucumber plants. Which ultimately failed to deliver a single cucumber. This year, the courgettes have been a big success with three very study and bushy plants producing loads of fruit. The flowers are amazing and I think they are edible too, but I haven't tried one yet.

2/08/13

......mind you, if the courgettes are a success, then the tomatoes must be the biggest disappointment. There are lots of little green tomatoes but nothing that remotely looks like it's going to turn red any time soon. Given the care, attention and love I'm lavishing on them, you think they'd have the decency to hurry up.

03/08/13

The relocation of the Open House Festival to Bangor was a bit strange in my opinion but any reservations about this were kicked into touch after tonight. Local band Farriers played in the amazing setting of Bangor Abbey, accompanied by the wonderful Arco String Quarter. I'll point out that sitting on a wooden church pew for two hours was not the kindest thing I've ever subjected my bottom to, but it was worth it. The band did suggest bringing a cushion with you - I declined. I was wrong. Only took a couple of shots, the main reason being I was enjoying the band too much. That's a compliment to them - they were that good.

3/08/13

I was out wandering about Belfast this morning, primarily to try a few shots of buildings with the new fisheye lens I'd picked up. Thus far I had managed to avoid any contact with the World Police and Fire Games being held here at the moment, and which appears to have turned Belfast into the biggest annual convention for Unformed Dating known to mankind. Anyway, as I walked along the Lagan I was rudely interrupted by the final of the dragon boat race. Swiftly swapping my fisheye for a longer lens, I rattled off a few shots, f which this turned out to be the best.

2013 365-12

This week marked the official beginning of Spring. Since I was completely lost for ideas at the start of the week I thought that I should maybe take shots with a spring feel or theme. Luckily I have a few little plants starting to sprout around the house.

18/03/13

Two little tubs of tomato seedlings growing on the kitchen window. I've just thinned them out and am aiming for maybe 6-8 plants in total to go out into the greenhouse once the risk of frost has passed. Hoping I have a better crop of tomatoes than last year's disappointing performance.

 19/03/13

Outside my kitchen door is a bush which produces lovely yellow flowers. I see it every morning when I have a smoke and let the dog out. This morning was the first time that I noticed that the flowers were starting to return, and here's the proof.

20/03/13

This is a weird plant that was left behind in the house when I moved in. It does strange things, produces strange flowers and I'm just not sure what it is. I don't know where the water came from, but it seemed like a nice picture to try and take.

21/03/13

These are my pepper seedlings which have been slow to sprout but are getting there. I have some sweet peppers (above) and also some chilli seedlings; again I'm aiming for maybe 6 plants in the greenhouse come May.

22/03/13

Friday brought a rather serious dunt to my spring-like feelings. 3-4 inches of snow had fallen overnight, the school I was travelling to had been closed and I nearly went on my arse trying to get to the car. Those are my size 11 foot prints at 7.30 this morning.

23/03/13

Snow continues, effectively knocking my spring ideas on the head. Not be deterred (and still feeling kinda springy) I bought a bunch of flowers when doing some shopping and had a go at photographing them, then adding textures and patterns in post-processing. I'm happy enough with these as a first effort although I suspect there's more possibilities here that I'm not getting just yet.

24/03/13

367-50 Week 45

No mucking about here. As Marvin Gaye said, lets get it on.

17/09/12

Monday's are not good. I'm not going to go all Boomtown Rats on you here but I really don't like them. At all. Work, counselling appointment and then having to do some shopping. I was tired and worn out by the time I got to Tesco and was carelessly throwing stuff into a trolley. As a vegetarian of some years, can you spot my mistake here? Bollocks.

18/09/12

Playing about again with multiple images. No photoshop involved here at all. Several photos taken, uploaded and set as my desktop picture and then a text window placed on my hand. Straight out of the camera. As you'll guess, I had nothing photographic planned at all and ended up pulling something quick and pretty unoriginal out of my arse.

19/09/12

Finally getting a decent harvest of tomatoes from the greenhouse in September. Really should get them started a bit earlier next year! These little chaps are delicious - sweet and tasty. Very few are making in into a salad as I've been eating them like sweets. Hopefully get a few more weeks worth of fruit and a few more peppers as well. Had my first real red pepper this week.

20/09/12

Work stuff cancelled on me, leaving me looking at a pile of paperwork. As usual in such a situation, I engaged in quite a bit of task avoidance behaviour such as learning a couple of new tricks with the diablo and the lead guitar solo from Werewolves of London. This was third on the list - play with shaped aperture discs in my Lensbaby Composer. I did hearts, starts, swirls, birds etc. Liked this one best. A string of fairy lights was used to make the bokeh behind the cup, pinned to a black sheet.

21/09/12

Culture Night and decided to skip the big do in Belfast and visit the inaugural event in Holywood instead. This may have been a mistake. Although it has to be said I was really impressed with this bunch of kids who put on a free running demo outside the town library. Energetic and risky - note the guy at the back with his arm in plaster who threw a few somersaults later. These guys were from Rathgael Gym I discovered later.

22/09/12

Cycling on the Comber Greenway this afternoon with my daughter Sarah. She had brought her bike round to me a few weeks ago because it wasn't working. By that I mean that nothing on the bike was working. I stripped and repaired the brakes and then replaced the broken gear shifters and cables to get brakes and gears working again. I added bar ends to the handlebars, a waterbottle and holder and a Hello Kitty bell. Bike was now working again, all for the princely sum of around £30 and several hours work. Not bad for someone as handless and mechanically useless as myself. Today was the first real cycle we got to go on - not bad at all. Covered around 10 miles, although Sarah appears to have only two speeds when cycling - full-out sprint and stopped.

23/09/12

Sarah and I took off this morning on a trip down to Nendrum as a result of a conversation we had yesterday about Vikings. Nendrum itself was a disappointment, but the trip was enjoyable enough with Sarah coining the the term "a slim road" for the roads we were driving down. Stopped to take a few landscape-type shots and this is one. Liked the hay bales - they remind me of Autumn/harvest time.