Blue is the colour of my new rucksack. I have to learn how to pack lightly for the Galapagos trip. 12 days. Me, the one who relentlessly scours the house looking for more things to cram into my luggage “just in case”.

Blue is how I imagine the sea on which our boat will float. I’ve never slept on a boat before and I wonder what life on board will be like.

And blue is the colour of the little bird feet that will fearlessly approach us as we explore. I need to read my guide book, yet I’m torn between wanting to be prepared, but not wanting to be able to second-guess what’s around every corner.

Just 2 months to go.
Oh my.

How my time passes. In my office. Taking phone calls. Knitting. Reading. Listening to music. Looking at Statcounter. Making invoices. Reading blogs. Writing blogs. Updating websites. Admiring photos. Taking photos. Researching. Learning. Talking. Browsing. Emailing friends. Sitting still. Moving fast. Fingers flying. Over keys. Around knitting needles. Waiting for people. Waiting for inspiration. Working and idling. Singing and laughing.

Self Portrait Tuesday

I went for a walk in the rain today. As a glasses-wearer, rain was once the enemy, but now I wear contact lenses, it’s actually quite pleasant to feel the rain against my face. I set off thinking that there was only cloudiness, no rain, but didn’t get to the end of the drive before I realised that it was raining every so lightly. What the hell, thought I, I’ll see if I can make it to the railway bridge without drowning.

Going down the lane towards the bridge, the rain became a little heavier. Heavy enough to make me wonder about turning back. But I continued.

I sheltered under the bridge, discovering that actually, the rain was coming in quite a long way at either end - and there were drippy bits in the middle that needed avoiding too. Not somewhere I shall choose to live should there be a disagreement over my inheritance at any point.

A few trains rumbled noisily overhead as I stood beneath the bridge and looking up at the concrete slabs and weathered brick walls, I did find myself considering my demise beneath it, should the whole lot have fallen down around my ears.

Dad rang after a while (to see if I had dissolved) and my mobile echoed merrily under the bridge as I scrabbled for it in my rucksack. I never got round to playing with the acoustics myself. Too damn tired and too aware that there’s a new house built yards away from the bridge, which has real live hearing people inside it.

I took a bunch of photos under the bridge and ran quickly out from under cover, with my camera under my coat, snapped a few shots of the trough and ran back again. I really wanted to capture the yellow of the hay and the green of the grass standing out from the greyness of the day. Fortunately those quick shots worked. Lucky really, seeing as 90% of the shots I took while out were utter crap.

What I need is some kind of clear plastic umbrella hat, so that I can walk around in the rain and take photos without fear of my camera getting a raindrop in the wrong place and throwing a big expensive hissy fit at me. Also, as mentioned before, I need some delightful lenses and a loin-clothed lovely to lug them around for me.

Eventually I realised that I was no longer under the bridge on my own terms. The point had come when I was just the girl who was stuck under the bridge with nothing left to photograph because it was still raining. So I packed up my bag and headed out into the rain.

On my way back to the house, I met Italian Tony, who hailed me with, “You’ll-a get wet, love!” and asked if I’d been taking pictures again. He and Mick met me one time in Church Lane as I crouched in the gutter photographing horse chestnuts. The pair of them would make good subjects actually, so I shall look out for them wandering the lanes when the weather brightens.

Much photoshopping was required in order to convey the oh-so-very-greenitude of this hat. Nikon just doesn’t allow it.
Time for a bagel.

Ginga has tagged me for a meme of 3s. Will I manage to do justice to the grand occasion, or will the Blogosphere retreat, sighing and tutting, vowing never to tag me ever again?

3 things you wish for (just for you)

• (ooh, look at me and my bullet points) A big pile of lenses for my D50. With a handsome camera assistant to carry them all for me
• Better legs, cos these are just rubbish
• A pretty house with a goat, some geese, a rich bloke and a vegetable patch

3 things you would do to/for yourself if there was no one to judge you (or if you had the guts to do it!)

• Boob emperkenment
• I’d love to do a parachute jump / paragliding / being up in the air longer than usual thing
• Sing in empty multi-storey car parks. Wait, I already do that.

3 bad habits you have

• Scratching my head (although, it’s not bad exactly, it’s just weird)
• Standing in front of the mirror, ruining my skin
• Angsting. (Hands up, who’s enjoying all the newly invented words?)

3 insecurities you feel

• That I’m not doing enough
• Will I ever want to do more to combat the above?
• That I might have embarrassed myself at any point

3 talents/skills you wish you had

• Singing - properly
• Being artistic - properly
• The ability to swim - improperly would at least be a start

3 things that you would do if you had more time

• Read more
• Knit more
• See more

3 things that bring you peace/relaxation

• Walking alone
• Listening to my iPod in the dark
• Being with my buddies

3 things that spark your creativity

• Light and colour
• Reading the blogs of Christina, Elaine, Amanda and Ward
• Having fun with my friends and family

And now I’m tagging Elaine, Robin and Daphne. Although, because I’m delightfully English and couldn’t bear to be a nuisance, I won’t mind if they don’t do it. I just won’t let them hear my accent for a month. Yeehaw!

On Saturday I made a grand batch of 48 cupcakes for Alex and Fernie’s engagement party. Alex had ordered edible printed rice papers of their school photos and I was commissioned to make the cakes to go beneath them. I was a little concerned that the rice paper would fall apart as soon as I touched it, but it was much more robust than expected. Alex tended to peel off her backing paper more readily than Fernie, but that’s girls for you: helpful.

I took my camera to the party and John and Fernie had KipperTie’s D70 there too. However, the memory card on that quickly became full because of another set of photos already on there, so we put the fancy Speedlight flash on top of my camera and away I went. Damn. Now I need to buy one of those flashes. It is officially A Nice Piece of Kit. And half as expensive as I thought. The only small drawback is that when you come into a room wielding the big Speedlight, you’re likely to get even more “Good God!” comments than when you’ve just got the big D50 slung around your neck. But being able to bounce the flash off the wall/ceiling, rather than bouncing it right off the subject’s retina outweighs that disadvantage, I think.