I post photos to moblog (albeit a lot less frequently than I did before) and soon there will be my own website (but the story of that deserves a whole post of it’s own) but at the moment I mainly use flickr.

I like flickr because it’s a fantastic learning platform – it forces me to improve my photography as when I compare it to some of the work on show mine pales in comparrison and I love it because of the groups.

Groups are a great, you can share your photos, start discussions and in some cases arrange to meet other people to walk talk and take photos. Groups can be based on anything – a theme, a style, a geographic location.

Recently I’ve taken part in a few flickr projects that I want to blog about but without first talking about Flickr they make no sense at all.

My Flickr:

I love being a Mom, I love being a Mom more than anything else in the world…and this dude makes it easy!

I love night photography but don’t get out as often as a I would like to shoot in the evening – come to think of it I don’t  do ANY photography as often as I’d like!

p.s That’s the building I work in.

I like mood lighting, particularly fairy lights and I have 2 sets permanently in my living room. This isn’t a picture of either one!

I think you can never have too much love and romance, and I probably (definitely) put more onus on it than I should.

Happy Valentines day.

Maybe it’s because I’m English, but, I do like a cup of tea.

I work for a media company which specialises in visual media, i.e film and photography.

I know next to nothing about film* , but I love photography.

*I’m learning!

Despite several attempt by my grandmother while I was growing up to teach me, I only succeeded in learning  to knit 3 years ago.

HERE IS A SMALL FACT,

You are going to die.

I read a lot and I read anything, I’m not a snob when it comes to authors or genre. I’ll read anything recommended to me or anything I find whilst trawling book shops and charity shops. I dont usually blog about books, never have before but I think this deserves a mention.

“Liesel” a young girl is adopted by a German family during the second world war. There is Jew hidden in the basement, persecution in the streets and there is a coming of age as Liesel grows up in Nazi Germany with all the madness this entails. Liesel makes friends and forms relationships with the unlikeliest of characters and all the while with death breathing over her shoulder. This is her story;

I love this book. It’s not an happy book.  I dont think any book narrated by death could be, But there are some momenst that make you smile, some that make you laugh and some that in my case bought me to tears.It is so well written the characters stay with you long after the final page has been turned.

I recommend it to you all.

Mid November right through til mid December I become the worlds WORST obsessive compulsive. Christmas without fail brings out the perfectionist in me!

The tree has to go up at the first available opportunity in December – allowing for TBK feelings about having the tree up on his birthday which differs from year to year. Then the decorations HAVE to go on in order, lights first, then ribbons, pine cones, plain baubles, glitter baubles, and finally depending how I’m feeling either the star or the angel is sat on the top. We have one of each as I couldn’t make up my mind which I preferred so now every year I agonise over which one should go up as once the decision is made it has to stay that way! Everything has its “proper” place and I have redecorated whole trees if they don’t look just right.

James and TBK have learned not to be offended if they put something on the tree to later find it’s moved, after all there has to be and equal spread of decorations and colours or it wouldn’t look right! Right? At the same time as doing this I’ll also decorate the matching swag which sits on my fire surround in place of the family photographs which sit there for the rest of the year and all my candles etc get removed and replaced with nativity scenes, Santa Claus figurines and snowmen because Christmas supersedes EVERYTHING including family photos!

I wish it ended there but it gets worse…

I am relentless in my pursuit of the “perfect presents”, I beat myself up about them searching endlessly for just the right thing for each person. I make repeated lists of WHO to buy for, then other lists of WHAT I should buy. Then once a purchase has been made I spend hours deliberating whether I’ve made the right choice and “will they like it?”.  It takes James ages to talk me round but then once he’s finally convinced me that the gifts are fine and nobody really cares what they’ve receive, they have to be wrapped….

…For this I save a special kind of neurosis…

…All my presents have to be wrapped to a colour scheme – complimentary to, but different from that of my tree (which is gold and ivory) and it’s one scheme for the adults presents and one for the children’s but everything gets wrapped with matching ribbons and tags and if they aren’t wrapped just so they WILL be unwrapped to start all over again!!

Once finished they go under my tree and have to stay there unless I move them to put other presents people bring around behind them that don’t match my colour scheme!

My wrapping compulsion is such that two Christmases ago my manager at the time bought me all her Christmas gifts from home to wrap in work and it has been known for my sister to deliver her entire Christmas booty to my house complete with wrapping paper and sticky tape to wrap all her presents for her as “You’ll do a much better job than me”.

I’m such loser!

This Christmas I’m striving to be more relaxed and well, less anal about the whole thing.

The Christmas tree still went up the first chance I got (last night) but get this I let James choose whether the star or the angel went on the top, I let him hang some of the baubles AND I’ve left them where he put them(Kind of). I made a conscience desicion to buy wrapping paper so the adults and kids do NOT match and I haven’t finished putting all the decorations up, even though in previous years I’ve insisted i all go up in one night!

Now if you’ll excuse me as I have to go sit on my hands to stop me returning the lights I bought for the window that are just the wrong shade of white, adjusting those two red baubles which are much to close together (one should really be in the middle of those gold ones to distribute the colours) and moving Santa to the other side of the fireplace because he just looks so much better there….