Cold bright and steely eyed

I wish I'd had something to capture the way the sky looked this morning, on my right as I crossed Tower bridge the sky was a grey as steel, angry looking but clear-I could see all the way down to the BT tower. And on the left there was a continuation of the steely sky with a cut straight through it, complete across the skyline, showing brilliant blue and blazing sun. As it's October the sun won't be warm but seeing it breaking through and usurping the clouds is still nice. Looking towards the grey side had some hidden treasures too, the HMS Belfast was lit up as it it were in a west end musical, the sun shining off the glossy surfaces making it stand out and leaving me with an expectation that it was about to burst into song. There was a solitary swan swimming around the traitors gate, shining bright white in the virgin sun light, probably picking the bones of ancient victims of the Tower. OK, it probably wasn't but I wanted something grusome in this post, it's all going a bit too well.

My new friend

There were a few mistakes, a few light things to do and a bit of indecision that wasn't all mine for a change.


Phew, what a weekend it was.



Friday I went out with a friend of mine from the pub that I work in, we drunk Ale from Sussex and chatted. It's nice to get to know new people and Jon is one of the people that I'm genuinely interested in, rather than someone that I'm forced into knowing and have to tolerate (certain colleagues, friends of friends or friends of family members). The only real problem here is that the only time I've spent with him has been when I'm serving behind the bar or when we're both on the 'correct' side of the bar and then we get shitfaced. We both seem to enjoy the really strong pale ales so drunkardness sneaks up on us. And Jon does a disappearing act after a left hand milk stout. It's one of the things I like about him as I've been known to just leave once I've had enough-I'm not big on goodbyes when I'm drunk, they usually lead to sloppy kisses and the classic "You know you're my best friend, hic" or " I really love you man!" And it seems that even when I'm beyond remembering my own name I just know that this is not a dignifyed thing to do so I sneak off too. We had another of those nights that ends in me playing pac-man chasing a take away curry around the kitchen floor because Mark's put it on a plate but I'm too drunk to lift my head off of the floor so I push the plate forward with every bite I attempt.



Saturday we went to Ricmond park-WOW it's even prettier than I remembered, we saw the deer, the first time was from a distance, and we tried to get pictures with our phones and although we could see them quite clearly the camera picked them up as about 3 pixels on a screen of green and blue (The Rigante colours). Still it was a magical sight. We walked on through the park and came to a lake with a bench between it and an overgrown meadow so we sat and had lunch. Saw some beautiful blue mayflies and inspected a really ugly insect that landed on my ruck sack. As we got up to leave we saw the deer again, a lot closer this time and they were coming towards us. Some had anklers and they varied from 1 to 7 pointers, there were colour variations some being quite dark fawn and others quite bright whites. They were all beautiful and the anklers looked like they would feel like velvet to touch. I thought it looked sumptuous, Mark said the feel of velvet makes him itch. I shall put the pictures on here at somepoint when I play with this blog at home. They got closer and closer and I started to get a bit nervous-well they are a bit like small horses and one of them did try to eat me when we were in Wales. So we tried to back off but they kept coming, bloody hell we're beng surrounded by carnivorous deer! It all ended well when I hit one on the head with a digestive. Deer seem to like digestives-who knew?

SLR Film Cameras!

Started the photography craze this weekend, went to the Heath and played around. I don't remember much from my photography module at uni, so it's pretty much all guess work, but I'm hoping that at least some of the pictures came out ok.

We got through half a roll of film each day, but Sunday was by far the better of the two days.



My camera kit is bulky because I made sure I got loads of accessories with mine-bargain hunter that I am. Thus it's a bitch to lug around and I have a whole load of stuff that I don't know what to do with. Three lenses, two teleconverters, various filters (that I don't know how to attach, but Mark held one in front of the lens for me for one shot so I could justify carrying it all day).



Satuday involved getting out of the house late ;) getting a bus that took us most of the way and not finding the area we wanted to get to and playing with zoom lenses to try to photograph a stalk, a comerant and a few baby coots. Leaving the Heath at what we thought was a reasonable time but not getting home before the shops closed. Meaning toast for dinner.



Sunday, however, was wonderful. We found a sunny clearing in the wooded area and sat in the long grass drinking speciality beer and eating a frugal lunch of peanuts, pairs and cheesey biscuits. I wrote a few words in the notepad we were recording our shots in (focal length, shutter speed, aperture, lens, subject).



I got a short but helpful photography lesson from a passer by who was passionate about photography. Unfortunately the only thing I can really remember is that 125 shutter speed is fine when you don't have a tripod. An aperture of 5.6-8 will get pretty much everything in focus and the higher numbers for the aperture will focus further away and low numbers will focus close up-or was it the other way around? I'd drunk both my beers by then (Brew dog Hardcore IPA and Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA for those of you who are interested) and I couldn't take it in as easily as I could have before I drunk them (!)

Wales

Is a wonderful place. Obviously the pictures show the highlights of the holiday (at least while we had the camera). Our pictures look better than the post cards we bought while we were there, the sky and the sea seem bluer and the personalised touch of us being in the pictures proves we were there to see the very best that South-West Wales has to offer.



We arrived on Friday at around midday after setting off at the ungodly hour of 6:30. The journey was uneventful, on reflection the route was a little odd, seeming to fork off then go back on itself and the request stops were a new thing to me but we didn't have to do anything special so it didn't effect us. I was far to excited to sleep on the train as had been my plan so I read and looked at the new OS map, planning route that we would later ignore.

We arrived at the station in glorious sunshine and found the campsite (2.7 miles away) with ease. Set up camp and wandered back into town to get supplies, found a farmers market in full swing and tested some locally produced apple brandy-very nice. We made enquiries about the bus to get us to the launch point for Skomer Island and found a 'puffin shuttle' would take us there in time to queue for the boat. All good.

Mornings are my new favourite time of day

Because this morning an impromptu burst of Reel big fishes "Sell Out" really cheered me up. Even made me look forward to seeing them again, it won't be like last time, it's a different venue and everything. We'll sing (shout) along and probably jump around a bit where we're standing.

Also mornings are full of sunshine, so much so that I have to wear shades and sunshine always makes me smile, even if it's cold sunshine.

We're going to see Tom Rodwell tomorrow too. I may be working overtime everyday this week-and bunking off of my pub job to do it-but I don't feel bad about it and it will pay for the stupid spending in Brighton last weekend, which is something I have to do before I even think of purchasing a sewing machine and starting my new hobby.