Creative Blog Award

Lovely DJ Kirkby gave me an award a week or so ago. I didn’t get around to displaying it; so here it is. In return I must list seven things that I love and pass the award onto seven creative bloggers that I admire.

So, seven things, huh? I am going to exclude people from my list otherwise it would be a list of seven people or groups of people which mightn’t be very interesting. Should I exclude tea? And books? You all know I love them… Maybe, maybe… here’s an idea: my criteria shall be things I haven’t already told you I love…

So, drumroll please, in no particular order…

1. Cats
2. Custard Creams
3. The Sea
4. Gin
5. Sunday lunch esp Roast Lamb and mint sauce
6. Photoshop
7. Lavender

Now I am supposed to pass the award on to seven creative bloggers that I admire but because I can’t do anything I’m told to do… There are five blogs that I go to… usually as a lurker… for the quality of their photos. I go and sigh a lot and wish I could take pics half as good. *Sigh* I don't know if any of them really 'do' blog awards, but at least they'll know I appreciate them even if I don't make comments on their sites.

The first site is Kingsdowner. I found this blog when I was looking for visuals of the Kent countryside for research for my novel. I might have grown up in the countryside but I’m a bit of a thicky when it comes to plants and creatures. Kingsdowner is an expert. I’ve never commented there because I’m so in awe.

The second site is Nomadic Tendencies. I think Ange found me first and I spotted her on my stat details… She’s an Aussie living in Thailand; she posts a picture a day on a Thai theme. Ange has a lovely eye for composition and a first rate eye for colour.

The third choice, some of you may already know, Uphilldowndale. I can’t remember how I found this blog. She lives in a truly gorgeous part of England and her photos are spectacular. Do go and have a look.

Fourthly, Yesbut’s pictures I found when googling ‘nude in a scarf’ for this post. The picture was so much better than mine: *sigh* I have made an assumption that Yesbut is female but I could be wrong. Update: Oh deary, deary me. I am wrong; Yesbut is a man, a most manly male man. Big apologies Yesbut. Tee hee: you were most gracious about your sex change, and I DO live in Thailand...

Finally, and fifth, is our Spiral Jen at Inspiral Daze. Living not far from where my book is set, her pictures are mostly of the natural environment: pulled right out at a landscape or right up close to the zoomed in landscape of a flower or leaf.

Man lands on the Moon

I missed a job off my list of things to do yesterday. I'd eased myself into denial and determined that I could stay there until I got another email nagging asking for the thing I had to find and telling me that Wed was the deadline.

I had to find a picture of me in 1969.

I’d like to tell you that the my tendency towards OCD means that my photographs are organised into boxed categories including Childhood, University, Before Children, After Children and Bangkok. Sadly, while my compulsive behaviour means I have to have all the light switches facing the same way, and I have push my Thyroxine out of the foil in the right pattern, my photographic memories are thrown higgledy piggledy into a large trunk.

Still, having given my self permission to slump on the writing front, I identified today as the day to go through my photographs. So this morning I set up: labelled up some containers with the above categories. I took my IPod through to listen to podcasts, and opened the box.

Oh it was horrible. It’s a lovely job if you have all the time in the world; you can sit leafing through the memories you’ve made. However, if you have to find a certain picture by the close of today, amongst 47,212 other photos… it’s not so nice. Still, about two hours in I found it:


Now… what I’m wondering is that if I’m under half way through the box… have I got to carry on and finish sorting the photos?

Friday Photo on Saturday

I've seen a meme going around that I wanted to do but I misunderstood.

It said you had to choose the fourth photo from your fourth folder and post it. Despite the fact that I have made a complete adaptation to digital photography, I thought this meant the physical folders of our photos.

Well, I couldn't do that. None of the thirty years of non digital photos have ever made it into folders. This is how I keep them:



So how was I going to choose the fourth photo from my fourth folder? Perhaps it could be a lucky dip: close your eyes stick your hand in and retrieve any packet of photos... The task of categorizing these and filling albums of the best ones has been on To Do list for twenty four years. Of course I imagine, now that I'm writing, this job is never, ever going to get done.




Finally, I saw it around a bit more and worked out it was them there computer folders! So I decided to steal it. And here it is:




It's come from my (digital) folder called 'Desktops/Backgrounds.' It's one of an obsessive series I make on textures/patterns/arty images that catch my eye. It's a tortoise shell - it was attached to its owner when I took it!