James

Meet Fred



She's a Leopard Gecko and the newest member of our household.
She likes to sit in your hand and crawl up to your shoulder.
She likes to eat crickets every couple of days. Om nom nom!

I love the moon. It's always fascinated me.
Last week I managed to take a decent photo of it, thanks to a sturdier tripod, new 400mm lens and a loan of a 1.4x extender


Click for much bigger!

Well I've finally got around to uploading my pictures, so I can post something about our honeymoon.
It was Fantastic!

We flew out to Nairobi airport overnight, and after getting picked up, drove 250km south through Kenya to the Amboseli reserve, over possibly the worst roads I've seen in my life. Although after a while you stopped noticing the bumps, potholes and large sections of missing road - it became the norm.

We spend two days in Amboseli, on the border with Tanzania, just under Mt Kilimanjaro, seeing some fantastic sites - Cheetah, Lions, Zebra, Wildebeest, Buffalo, Elephants, Hippos, Gazelles Hyena, Fish Eagles and many more. We even visited a Masai village where we had a welcome, looked round the plance and got ripped off for souvenirs :)

Day 3 saw us driving 350km northwest to lake Naivasha, to the most amazing resort.
Wild giraffes eating the plants outside our room - we could get to within 10 feet before they started to slowly wander away. There's something very nice about swimming a length of the pool, breaking the surface and seeing a giraffe looking at you!
Night time we had to be escorted back to our rooms with a guard, to make protect us from the hippos that came up to graze outside the rooms

Day 4 & 5 we drove 250km southwest to the Masai Mara to do another 2 days safari, seeing so many more animals; lions with cubs were plentiful and very photogenic.
Amazing.
I hired a large zoom lens for the duration of the holiday and was so glad I did - I'm really pleased with how the photos came out. Feel free to have a looksee here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/weetobix/collections/72157617171245724/

Day 6 we left for Nairobi for our connecting flight to Zanzibar.
It took a little longer than expected thanks to plane cancellations and taxis getting punctures, but we got the in the end at 1.30 in the morning.

After some sleep we woke up and saw the paradise we were in :)

Really nice, simple huts, directly on the white beach, looking out at the Indian ocean.

Day 7-14
Read books, swam in the pool, walked along the beach, collected shells, played with hermit crabs, swam with dolphins, ate, drank, slept.

Nice! :)

Well that went well!

Last Saturday, after a year's worth of planning, Becky and I Got Married!
I'm just so chuffed how well the day went.
The weather was perfect, everyone turned up on time (well, with the exception of a couple of people being more fashionably late than the bride)
The service was lovely - we had a choir of Brownies (thanks to Becky being a brownie leader) who were so sweet.
The car cut out a few times on the way to the church, but that just added to it's quirkiness:

http://www.lovedubweddings.co.uk/ - Click for more piccies

The reception was at Westbury-on-Trym village hall, which also couldn't have gone much better. A few nibbles and a glass or 2 of bucks fizz while being ordered around by the photographer, until everyone had had enough and went in for the main meal.
The speeches went well, without too many nerves - A couple of glasses of red helped with that

Basically, the day was perfect, and I couldn't be happier :)



No official photos yet, but a selection from a friend here

It's 5 days to go until I get married....
I can hear the 24 countdown sound effect in my head!

People keep asking me if I'm nervous, and to be honest, I'm not.
Everything's on schedule so far, although I'm glad we started planning a year ago.
It still seems to have come up very quicklly though.
At least the bruises from the stag weekend have gone :)

See you on the other side folks!

Ow Ow Ow!
I've somehow manage to pull a muscle in my jaw! In my sleep too!
It now hurts to eat or stay still and feels like I've got a toothache.

In other news, I'm off on my stag weekend early tomorrow morning to shoot some friends with airsoft guns, then drink myself stupid. Should be fun.

In other other news, wedding preparations are going good! 3 weeks and counting...
Had a nice surprise when our wedding photographer quoted us about £600 cheaper than we expected.

In other other other news, have a nice video of a nice song by an Icelandic band I've been listening to this week

Well what a nice weekend that was.

Friday evening, we drove down to Croyde, where a few of Becky's teacher friends had hired for the weekend, a fantastic house looking out over the sea.
By 9pm I was sitting in the hot tub outside, drinking beer, followed by an evening of drunken Rock Band.

Saturday was spent walking along the beaches and generally chilling. A few of us went body boarding, but not owning a wetsuit or having ever been on a board in my life, decided that January wasn't the best time to learn. Instead I stayed in the nice warm house and read Watchmen for a while until the evening decended into beerp, hottub and xbox.

Basically, I did nothing tiring whatsoever, which doesn't really explain why I'm so tired today...



In other news, wedding preparations are coming on nicely! We have a car booked, now all that remains are order of service, flowers and 101 little jobs that I can't quite think of yet.

Bathing a chicken is easier than bathing a cat. Fact!

This Saturday Becky was off to London to some teacher conference, so I grabbed my camera, jumped on my bike and went out togging* I did a few shots around town, but most my time (a bit over 2 hours worth) was spent around Arnos Vale cemetery.
I took just over 300 shots in total, but here's a few of the best ones - more to follow when I've got round to doing the post processing!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/weetobix/sets/72157607970196471/



Sunday was all about the drinking. We went to the Tesco wine fair at temple meads. Drank wine samples for 4 hours and had general alcohol related fun! We also got to meet the nice chap who owns our favourite wine company (we have a favourite wine company? how middle class are we!)

Anyway, yes. A damn fine weekend! More please!



* - tog, from photographer. nothing to do with dogging. unless you like to photograpgh dogging.

I woke up this morning at 4.30 and couldn't get back to sleep.
I lay in bed until 5.30, but it wasn't helping, so I got up.
By 7 it was time to let the chickens out but upon opening the back door I was greeted by thick fog, so I grabbed my camera and headed to the Suspension Bridge for a session before it cleared up.
[Click for bigger]





More on Flickr

I work right in the centre of Bristol, infact I can see the Hippodrome from my window.
Another thing I can oocasionally see from my window is this:





I've seen him there a few times now and as far as I know he's been living in the plant beds for the past couple of months at least. Luckily I had my EOS and telephoto handy :)


In other news, wedding plans are going well, although Becky's back at school so has silly amounts of work again. Also it appears most school children are noisy little shits :(

This weekend saw us going to Becky's cousin's wedding in London.

Friday we were treated to a ridiculously expensive but fantastic meal, courtesy of becky's Grandpa. Mmm monkfish in pancetta...

Saturday was the big day, that seemed like the hottest day of the year, but that could be just because I had to wear a suit. Anyway, it was nice to dress up smart for a change, and a good chance to meet a lot of the people who will be coming to our wedding.

I also got to play with my camera again! Ok, I know other people's wedding aren't the most interesting to people who don't know them, but I was happy with how quite a few of them came out.
Here are the best 50 ish out of the 275 I took.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27953749@N07/sets/72157607041626222/

Sleepy now. need snooze not work.

Technophilia and a backdated pay rise are a dangerous combination...



It is one of these

I may also have had to get one of these to go with it.

Photoshop is very nice now, as it everything. And bigger.

I was tempted to mail order them both, but I thought sod it, went to PC world and got them to price match Amazon - ended up cheaper overall too thanks to their 10% promise. I am now in a happy, geeky stupor.

Last weekend I took a few days off and had a long weekend in Paris with ukjubilee, and to be honest, it was lovely!
I've never been to France before. Ok, I've technically been a few times but that was always me passing through France on the way to somewhere else. This time we jumped on the national express at far too early on Saturday morning, tube to St Pancras whilst navigating the closed Jubilee line, then Eurostar to Paris til we ended up in our hotel in Alésia.

Sunday we had a general tour of Paris via coach followed by a trip to Versailles, which is stunning - it makes Buckingham Palace look like a tool shed. We tried to get back in time to visit the Paris Catacombs before they closed for the day, but were just too late.

Monday we went to Montmartre for a couple of hours, followed by a river trip up the Seine - very touristy I know, but hey - it's the first time I'd been there and it was pretty good!
We then got a bus to Notre Dame, which was stunning - probably my favourite part of the trip - then had a long meander to the Eiffel tower, taking in a few sights on the way.

Anyway, got back on Tues after a looong day of traveling.
A few photos here with a few more to follow - enjoy!

Thursday was Combichrist.
I'd been looking forward to this for weeks and they didn't disappoint! Fantastic gig!
My voice is still sore and various extremities hurt - must have been good then.
Have a pic

Hooray! I managed to get tickets for Sunday's airshow, thanks to cycling like a madman into town before the shop sold out.

I was happy for a full 3 hours before I found they'd cancelled Sunday as well...

The Air tattoo at Fairford's been cancelled today - car parks are flooded. Arse.

Soo, it's been a month or so since my last proper update - let's have a summary:

Barbeque - We built a brick one which we have used on several occasions since. Seems to work well.
Sausages cooked on it are extra tasty due to science and I get to feel manly by cooking with fire.

Birthday - I was 32 on the 26th June. Had a quiet one at home with a few friends, using the aforementioned barbeque. Becky bought me a fantastic telephoto lens for my new SLR, which I've been trying to play with on sunny occasions, which alas have been few and far between.
Anyway, I've set up a FlickR page which I hope to add some more pics to soon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27953749@N07/

Chickens - They're both laying now so we're getting a bit swamped in eggs, but they're also really nice to keep. There's something quite soothing about watching them and they have distinct personalities. They complain if they have to spend the day in their coop and will run up to the chicken wire to say hello if you come close. Mealworms are apparently the food of the gods.

London - We took a couple of days off this week and headed to London on the coach for dinner and a show. Avenue Q to be precise. Food was good, show was great, underground was not good, weather was just awful. Still, it was really nice to get out somewhere different. We managed to squeeze in some shopping in Camden and Tottenham Court Road too.


Coming Soon:

Aeroplanes - I'm tempted to head to RAF Fairford this weekend to see the air tattoo, mostly as the Vulcan will be making an appearance and I haven't seen it for about 20 years. This is of course depending on whether or not it decides to piss it down. Am really getting fed up with this weather. If I do go I'll stick the bike in the back of the car just in case we have a repeat of last year - the traffic queue started some 10 miles from the event.

France - Me and Becky have booked a long weekend in Paris to see some sights. I've never really been to France; I've passed through it and over it on many occasions, but never stopped to look. Relying on Becky's pre-GCSE knowledge of French as I only know how to get by in German and a few phrases of useful Japanese - neither really that useful in France.

http://www.honeyweed.com/viele-suesse-katzen_276.htm

Hello people, how are we today?
I am glad it's Friday

Found this cheeky chappie in our garden earlier.
Well ok, I say found, more like rescued from a kitten who was just about to pounce.



In other news, my new camera is fab!

In other news, Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium is pants.