Nature mends us

I recently came across Emma Mitchell on Twitter and her beautiful book ‘The Wild Remedy’. I’ve not read it all yet, but felt immediately inspired to do get outdoors and take time to observe nature more closely. I love Emma’s style of photographing what she’s found and wanted to give it a go. My opportunity …

More

Our Once in a Lifetime Experience

We were super lucky to be selected from the ballot to take part in the Queensferry Crossing Experience this weekend. For those who don’t know, Scotland has a lovely new bridge crossing the Firth of Forth, the Queensferry Crossing. Once it is fully open, it will be part of the motorway network with no access …

More

Inspired by Nikon Meetup

I couldn’t quite believe it when I got an email in December telling me that I had been selected in the ballot for a place on Nikon’s Birmingham Meetup. Today was the day of the Meetup and I set off with a sense of anticipation of what the morning would have in store. Would everyone have …

More

A New Look for the Blog

I decided my blog needed a bit of a facelift.  I hope you like the new design! I think it should make it easier for you to flick around and select which posts you want to read.  Let me know if you have any thougths or comments (good or bad).

Photocrafty

On Friday I treated myself to a fun, new photography book during my lunchtime meanderings to Waterstones.  The book, called Photocrafty, includes 75 different projects to try with a DSLR which are a bit different to the usual projects you get in some photography magazines & books. The first one I decided to try was …

More

Filters and Layers

I few weeks ago I blogged about how I was starting to learn about Layers and Filters in Photoshop.  I’ve been having another play around this afternoon and I like some of the results I am getting.  Here’s an example using one of my photos from last weekend. I’ve not quite sussed out how to …

More

Soap Bubbles

I was flicking through a few old copies of Digital SLR Photography magazine earlier looking for an article about applying filters in Photoshop.  I spotted one of their “Photo DIY” articles about making abstract photos using soap bubbles.  It looked pretty easy to set up and the result they had achieved were pretty cool so …

More

Unashamedly Inspired by Neighbours!

Okay okay I admit it, I am a fan of Neighbours – always have been, always will be!  In my defence, it is pretty much the only Soap I watch.  Anyway some of the kids on Neighbours were given an assignment to photograph anything of a certain colour.  I thought that sounded good fun, so …

More

CHRISTMAS!!!

Its Christmaaaaasssssss!!! Alas, the day is drawing to an end and there is a break in the good TV so what better a time to upload a quick Christmas blog post.  Here is a the documentation of my day. Here’s Ellie waiting for the fun to begin And here are the oh-so-tempting pressies Quickly followed …

More

Autumn Country Walks

This week a close friend’s wedding gave me the opportunity to visit my mom & dad’s new place in Staffordshire’s countryside.  Photos of the wedding will follow in a future blog post, but for now I’d like to share some from the lovely autumnal walks we’ve been able to take over the last few days. …

More

Old Buses

This weekend was Doors Open Days in Edinburgh.  It’s a fantastic way to see places the public aren’t usually allowed to go in to.  We decided to visit the Lothian Buses Open Doors Event which was held at their depot in Annandale Street.  It was a fantastic opportunity to see the insides and outs of …

More

Day out along the Coast

I’ve recently been hearing a lot of good things about North Berwick, so when deciding where to go for a fun day out it was at the top of my list.  Its only about 40 minutes down the coast from Edinburgh but we’d never thought to visit before.  I think we’ll definitely be going back! …

More

Formula 1

Just recovering from a busy but fantastic weekend, the highlight of which was a trip to the British Grand Prix. I’ve never been before, but we’re big fans and watch most of the races on TV. My dad and brother went last year and enjoyed it so much that we all decided to get tickets …

More

Land Yachting

Its good to try something new and this weekend we did just that – mom and dad were up visiting and organised for use to go land yachting.  Now I’ve spend many a fun afternoon on West Sands in St Andrews, but this was something completely different.  Jamie and Guy run their own company called Blown …

More

Falkirk Wheel

Today was another adventuring day – this time heading north west – the Falkirk Wheel to be exact.  I half knew what to expect but still found the design and engineering to be very impressive.  We took the boat ride on the wheel, before picnicking in the sunshine and strolling up to a nearby Roman Fort.  

UAE

I am currently in Ajman – for those who don’t know, this is the smallest of the United Arab Emirates not far from Dubai.  I’m here to speak at a conference on Urban Planning.  Yesterday we had the fantastic opportunity to visit the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in …

More

Fun filled weekends

This weekend has been fab due to the arrival in Edinburgh of Emily, Joe, Sarv, Laura and Ed (noting that Sanj, James and I were already here).  We’ve packed a fair bit in – thai food, plenty of wine, a bit of singing and dancing on the wii, lot of steps etc etc.  This morning …

More

Helping strangers

I like helping strangers & today I managed to do just that. What’s even better is that I helped by using my in-depth knowledge of transport real-time information systems!!! See my job is helpful in the real world after all! Okay, so basically I stood at the bus stop and told a (pregnant) woman all …

More

A week full of things that I like

I’m kicking off my blog with a bumper load full of things that I liked. This week I was off work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because our favourite Manx friends came to stay with their gorgeous 14 week old little boy. It was brill to see all three of them, but Fergus’s toothless grin …

More