Mama Says Om: Blue

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.

Self Portrait Tuesday: Time

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

Admittedly it was forecast…

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.

Click for the set

Kryptonite hat

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.

Tagged!

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!

Partying like it’s time for cake

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.

Click for the set

Seriously, I could teach dance

Last video, my dears – at least, it’s the last clip from the recording we did a little while ago. This one was edited by the Lord John Almighty, cameraman and editing wizard. There’s a short bit you’ve already seen, but you’re strong people, I know you can take it.

Dance on Vimeo

The wool turned up yesterday, both from ebay and the online shop. I’m now in a quandary about leaving feedback for the ebay seller. Negative is too mean, but the wool did turn up smelling a bit smokey and one ball wasn’t the colour the auction had offered, although this was mutually agreed after the auction ended and before I paid.

So now I have a ball of plum mix and a dark blue mix. You can see the swatches for both here – numbers 1934 and 1951. The third ball of wool is a green so vibrant that it’s like Superman threw up a barrel load of Kryptonite in here. I can’t get a picture of it that does it true justice. It’s as if Nikon doesn’t accept that anything can be that horrific in colour.

Guess which wool I’ve started using first…

Anyway, while waiting for my wools to arrive, I completed another toddler hat. Behold its delightfulness:

It’s a little small again, but it’ll fit a toddler. In playing around with the pattern, I even made up my own double moss stitch: knit 2, purl 2, purl your knits and knit your purls. It makes a soft and squishy rib. The main body of the hat is just stocking stitch, with a strand of yellow and a strand of green.

Mum has also finished her jumper for the Dulaan project. Now she’s onto making a hat in bootiful red wool. We’ll send a package of heavier items (tabards, blanket and jumper) to the Dulaan people via surface mail at the weekend. Then the lighter hats and scarves can go via airmail nearer the deadline.