A hobby of mine is photography. It is something that I wish I could do as a living , but as with writing a book , maybe one day , who knows.
I started out as most kids do 'having a go' with my parents camera , it had a lovely sound when you wound on the film and we still have that camera somewhere. I wonder if it would still work .
Then for a Birthday I got my first camera of my very own. Seeing modern cameras makes me realise how complicated it actually was for a child to use. You had to slip the end of the film into a slot and line up the little holes at the edge until it sat flat. Then you wound the film on a little bit but not too much . I used to have to get a grown up to do it for me as it was way too fiddly for me.
I took the usual holiday snaps , pictures of our dogs and pictures of the inside of the lens cap when I forgot to remove it. And therein lies one of the problems. I took these photos but it wasn't until the film was developed that I knew if any of them were any good or in fact if any of them had come out at all.
You either had to put the film into a Truprint envelope and send it off or take it into the local chemist and if you got it round there before 11:30am it went off & was back the next day. Yes a whole day before you could see your images . And then they came back with a new free film and you started all over again.
Usually quite a few pictures were only fit to go in the bin , something you don't have today , but you did have proper printed out pictures to stick in an album not just images on a memory card.
I can't remember what my next camera was but it was still a film one , just slightly easier to use , but still no amazing images , just snaps.
My first digital camera was a few years back now. My Brother had got one & amazed us with the fact that you could see the picture the second after you had taken it so of course I wanted one too ! I got exactly the same model as he had because I've learnt to let him work out how to use something and then he can tell me .
I learnt how to do quite a bit with that camera , indulging my passion for black & white photography and also learning how to edit out bits that weren't right , reducing red eyes and cropping to make the image look as good as it could.
I love taking natural photos especially at weddings , the little bridesmaid sucking her thumb , the pageboy picking his nose , that look the Father of the bride gives just as he walks his Daughter down the aisle. I much prefer those type of pictures to the set up , formal groups and when I have been to friends or family weddings I make sure I get an alternative set of pictures to give to them after the day. Those moments captured in time forever.
Digital cameras got more sophisticated , more pixels , a better zoom and so it was time to upgrade. Yet again the same one as my Brother had got , a Canon , my make of choice now. This camera was way better than my first and I discovered another thing that I loved.
Macro photography , zooming in on little details like the stamens in a flower or a newly opening bud , getting as close as you can. Sometimes so that you don't know what the whole item is , the detail makes a pattern all of its own.I love taking pictures of my cats& dogs noses , those little freckles and whisker spots close up , paws and claws too.
While I was shooting away with this 'point & shoot' camera my Uncle had got himself the next big thing , a DLSR camera , the sort of thing you see the paparazzi using , huge zoom lenses and all . Capable of zooming right into something and giving a crisp colourful image . These were way out of my price range but a few years have passed now and as with most things prices have come down and finally after saving hard I brought mine last week.
The 200 page online manual reads like double Dutch to me but I have mastered the basics so far and got some images that I am quite pleased with , especially ones of my cats & dogs. And then it starts......
The camera came with a basic lens as part of the package , but you soon realise that this is not where the spending ends. Already I have brought another zoom lens which is totally amazing , giving me detail I never thought I could get and on my Amazon wishlist is a tripod and an infra red remote as well as a bag for carrying all this around with me.
But it is something I enjoy and there are far worse things I could be doing and spending my money on.
If you are at a loose end one day & want to see some of my pictures please feel free to have a look at flickr.com/photos/petleg9/ xxx
I love history , not that stuffy history about Kings and Queens , battles and big events , but the real history of real people. People like me but from an earlier age. Living their lives , going about their everyday things but making history and memories as they go along.
There are several television programmes around on the topic but one in particular is my favourite 'Nick Knowles Original Features' on Sky Home. A show where there is a house to renovate but as well as that they look into who has lived in that house over the years , what they did , how they spent their time and how the house would have looked while the previous inhabitants were there.
It fascinates me to see how many generations of people have lived in those houses , something which the house I live in hasn't got. Our house was a 1960s build and all I know about the land previously was that it was an orchard and horses were kept nearby which explains the horseshoes that I dig up in the garden on a regular basis.The road was un-made until the early 1970s and the bottom part still is to this day.
In terms of personal history I never learnt an awful lot from my paternal Grandparents , which is a shame as they lived very near to an air base which was used by the Americans in World War II , some of which took up with local ladies and there were evacuees in the village , a few who stayed for the rest of their lives.
By the time I was old enough to appreciate these stories my Grandad was dead and my Nan couldn't remember things properly.
On my Mums side of the family my Gramps was a cracking story teller. He never talked about being a desert rat in the war though , except to say that no British summer weather could ever be as hot as being in a tank in full gear in the middle of a desert , I guess what he witnessed was just to painful for him to recall , even 60 years later.
We used to go & visit him every Tuesday afternoon & he would tell us about old Southend , how his old Mum nearly got hit by a bomb as she was going to meet him when he was working on the buses , she was just a bit late setting out & so luckily avoided it.
His Mum , my Great Grandma , sounded like a brilliant lady , a proper woman & Mother . She was okay with you but if you messed with her family , that was it , she had it in for you from then on . No one gave her family hassle and that was that.
One story I loved was about when Gramps returned from the war and was going to marry my Nan. His Mum went to the manager of the local Odeon cinema , which in those days had a function room . He told her that they didn't do wedding breakfasts , her response was " My lad has just come back from war, you do now " and so my Gramps & Nan were the first couple to have their wedding breakfast at Southend Odeon Cinema.
I really think I would have got on well with her !!
There were so many other stories , too numerous to mention but it gave me a good insight on what Southend was like before it turned into phone and coffee shops all the way down the High Street , something the kids of today will never know , and also what my own family were like too.
That's the problem with History , unless it is a huge event chances are it will get forgotten over time as the older generation die out . Those little things that make our lives will be lost forever and I really think that's a shame. xxx
My Gramps 1922 - 2002
Firstly can I say that when it comes to home improvements I live with a family of procrastinators . Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow , next week , next month .... get the picture?
But the time has come and seemingly most of the house now needs decorating and it's time to grab the paint charts by the scruff of the neck ( okay , mixed metaphors ).
So I set about my own room on Saturday and by Sunday evening it was done , new curtains , painted walls , glossed woodwork , cushions made from old curtains and just the flooring to buy. Flooring bought on Tuesday , laid that evening , hoovered , all done & dusted.
Then to the bathroom, I spent 3 hours washing down the floor to ceiling tiles thoroughly , scrubbed the floor & bleached stuff that could be bleached. And was going to paint the ceiling today , but oh no , here come the procrastinators :
" You can't do it now , it won't be dry enough when I have my shower" AARRRGGGHHH !!
But if I try to do it in the morning the bathroom is still damp for morning showers !!
So guess when I am doing it , after everyone else has gone to bed. No chance of them having showers then !! Yes I am very , very stubborn.
After that only the kitchen , lounge and hallway to do this year ......
The hallway is usually the only place that Dad actually helps decorate because he has devised this wooden planks plus ladders , plus imminent danger system for painting the stairwell which nobody else dares to try out.
But as he is now over 70 he has conceded that hiring a scaffolding platform would be a good idea so it means that I can actually do it !!
I don't mind doing home and garden improvements at all and I have tried a few different things. I've designed a pond area and laid paving , the paving several times as Mum likes to redesign the garden quite often , general digging out of trees with big shovels , pick axes and saws as well as bricklaying and various things with a drill.
Inside I can hang wallpaper , paint , lay flooring , basic woodwork and Ikea flat pack furniture building (the mere word Ikea makes Dad go faint & sick !). The only things I won't attempt are electrics (but , yes I can wire a plug & change a fuse) , gas or water as I quite like being alive.
I have used hedge trimmers , sanders , drills , loppers , and have got my own stash of screwdrivers & pliers. Beware if you lose one of my screwdrivers , I won't be happy. And no , they are not girly pink tools ! It actually annoys me that manufacturers think that women need their tools to be pink in order for them to be used , possibly other colours are too garish for our delicate eyes !
I also love going round diy places. The smell of new cut wood is one of my favourites and I do like surprising the male assistants by actually knowing some of what I am talking about !! I wear an old t-shirt & tracksuit trousers with the bum half hanging out of them for decorating or my pyjamas. The t-shirt has been washed many times but still bears the residue of all the paint colours that we have had in the house for about 10 years and yes I have been to the diy places wearing this stylish combo (no not the pyjamas , I'm not totally mad !).
So when you are all tucked up in your beds tonight I will be balanced on some steps giving the bathroom ceiling a coat of white emulsion and the doors a splash of gloss , this girl certainly knows how to live !! xxx
First of all a warning , this blog post will probably be the most controversial I have ever written.
I will probably lose followers on Twitter , family members will shun me and 7 year old boys will laugh at me in the street .
Are you ready ? Don't say you I didn't warn you.
I don't understand Doctor Who.
Noooo , come back , please let me explain , I've tried, honestly, so for the few of you that are left , here we go.
When I was younger I did watch Doctor Who , Saturday tea time , the Peter Davidson , Colin Baker era, and I think that I did understand it. Basically the good guy (Doctor) and his 'glamerous' assistant (who usually wore bright clothes and silly hair , used to fight the bad guys (Cybermen & Daleks are all I remember).He had a dog at one point as well , K9 . I think he usually managed to save the world and the universe in every episode and rescued any other person who needed rescuing ( you can see it made an impact on me !!)
So then they decided to bring it back with Christopher Eccleston and (oh dear) Billie Piper , I watched a few until the one set in the old theatre with Dickens , which quite frankly scared me too much. ( wuss , yes I know).
And since then my viewing of the Doctor have been limited to the Christmas episode ( a bit of a tradition in our house like eating your own body weight in Quality Street & singing along to Slade) , the Katherine Jenkins one was good and the one with the forest , but this years one , really what was that about??
There were scary snowmen and the new 'companion'(not called an assistant anymore apparently) was a Nanny and was that it ?? Oh & everything can be fixed with a screwdriver (that's called diy in my world).
Okay , so the new series , I thought I'd give that a go , it was set in modern day London and was about uploading and downloading information . So far so good ! The companion was a Nanny (again) and there was a little girl with half a satellite dish for a head taking all her intelligence to give to someone else. And Celia Imrie was in it but yet again , that's about as much as I grasped , so I'm sorry but my brief relationship with the world of the Doctor is once again over.
And 'Torchwood' ?? I thought Captain Jack was in 'Pirates Of The Carribean' , sorry !!! xxx
" If I vanished from Twitter for a month , what would you think / do ? " , was what I asked my followers (sounds like a cult)yesterday.
I had a response from the grand total of 5 people , I can only presume that the other 207 were so traumatised by the prospect of me going awol that they felt unable to tweet ?
Thankfully the 5 people would miss me , send out the sniffer dogs & kick my butt so I think that's a good thing !!
Also an interesting point was that 4 out of those 5 people do have an alternative means to contact me if I did happen to vanish from Twitter , either through Facebook , email or phone.
The one person who wouldn't be able to contact me is one of my favourite Tweeters and it actually made me quite sad that if he disappeared also from my timeline then I would have absolutely no way of knowing if he was okay and I don't think that any of our mutual friends would have any contact for him either . I would miss his little green face !!
I have 'alternative' means of contact for about 45 or 50 of my Twitter friends and if I haven't heard from any of them for a while I do enquire if they are okay but any one of the others could disappear completely and I would never ever know what happened to them.
I have met some of my Twitter friends in 'real life' and hope to meet more of them in the future and the ones I have met so far have turned out to be just a nice as I thought they would be , but even if I haven't met some of you , I really hope that we will be friends for a long time to come.
We share news , gossip and so many aspects of our lives with these people on a day to day basis but never get close to some of them and I think that's quite a shame so if you are planning on going off my timeline , please can you tell me first so I don't worry about you . xxx
So this blog started primarily for me to ramble about things that I like , I've done cake and I am saving snow until it feels more seasonal (maybe August?), haven't cuddled any Labrador puppies recently so that leaves baths to blog about !
It's just a bath , I hear you say , somewhere to get clean , but to me it's always been more than that.
About 75% of these blog posts have been thought up while I was wallowing in the bath , it is a place where I do most of my good thinking. It's also the place where I relax and yes of course I do get clean as a bonus .
If I am ever ill with a sickness bug , the first thing I want to do when I am feeling able to stand up without vomiting is get into a nice warm bubble bath , wash away all of the bug and yucky feeling , wash my hair and feel so much better and only once have I got out of the bath & thrown up again . It's almost like a miracle cure !!
I'm not one of those ladies who has to have the candles & wine while I bath . I once tried lighting the bathroom with candles and nearly cut a vein shaving my legs in the dim light. I guess you are just supposed to lay back & relax instead of scrubbing & shaving aren't you ?
I do love reading in the bath & if I have the house to myself and nothing else at all to do I will run a nice hot bath with Badedas bath foam , get a cup of tea and a good book and wallow until the water goes cold, pages of the book slightly crinkly in the steamy air and a huge towel on the radiator warming nicely. My idea of total bliss!!
It sadly doesn't happen as often as I would like as with the one bathroom in the house I have to do the rounds checking that nobody needs to use the toilet before I start my bath as there is nothing worse than trying to relax while someone is banging on the door , crossing their legs , needing a wee.
I do sometimes have an ultra quick bath , literally time to shave my pits and my bits , swill down and rinse my hair , then out & off but that's not my idea of fun.
That's the reason that I am not a fan of showers. They are okay to wash your hair & really nice for a quick swill in the heat of the summer but nothing at all beats a good bath.
And before you ask , my bath isn't ultra fancy , no bubble jets or double width facilities here , no pop up tv screen or surround sound system pumping out tunes. Just a normal white bath , white tiles , tranquil & clean.
I don't always use fancy bubble bath either, although a lush bath bomb , a drop of Fenjal or Badedas is always nice , I'm more likely to use whatever is on offer in Tesco !!
So there you go , you now know where I think up these mad ramblings , oh & why my books always have slightly crinkly pages . xxx
