Seventeen years of no global warming.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/

Sophie's rabbit

It would appear that Sophie's now a published illustrator!  The rabbit is going in to the Nene Park Trust newsletter too.

http://www.neneparktrust.org.uk/news-events/sophies-rabbit

Poetry from the darkside

Just an unashamed plug for my brothers excellent, but dark poetry. Checkout the link:

http://poetryfromthedarkside.blogspot.co.uk/

Or the book at Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/pyyjv3k

Top of the world, well England anyway!

On holiday in the Lake District, my wife had said that she wanted to climb a mountain, so what better than Scafell Pike, the highest one in England!  Only trouble was we had to leave her at Lingmell Col, about 700 ft from the top in order that the kids and I would still have time to make it to the top and that we'd all have time to get down off the mountain in daylight.

Tornado in Peterborough

It's been a bit quiet lately, so when I noticed that Tornado was coming through Peterborough pulling the Cathedrals Express I thought I'd see if I could get a shot of it, as the line passes little more than a mile away from where we live. I decided to give an outing to a camera I hadn't used in a while, in fact the last shoot I'd done with it was for Model Rail magazine under lights. In my hurry however I failed to remember that the camera was set to the colour temperature for tungsten light and not daylight, it was only after I got back and downloaded the shots that I realised my error. So after an attempt to correct the colour balance had failed to yield satisfactory results I thought I'd try converting it to black & white, after all it was kind of the ideal subject for it. The overhead lines had to go, which made for a cleaner shot anyway and the result wasn't bad,  just glad the mistake wasn't made on a commission!

New blog

I've added another blog devoted to one of my main hobbies, collecting autographs or more accurately signatures of historical military characters, mainly from the covers of envelopes which they were obliged to sign in order to qualify for the privilege of free postage. The envelope fronts were cut out, pasted into albums and collected during the first four decades of the 19th century in particular and are commonly known as 'free fronts'. For anyone interested the blog which is in it's very early stages is called the 'Free Front Signature Database and can be found here: http://freefrontsignaturedatabase.blogspot.co.uk/

Small world

I was out on a shoot yesterday photographing a classic lorry at Stibbington Diner when a, shall we say, characterful man with long white hair and beard came up to me, to ask who I was doing the pictures for. "Classic & Vintage Commercials" I said, "oh" he replied, "I've got a lorry you might be interested in, it's a hedge lorry", "you mean you use it for hedge trimming, do you?" I said, "no, it's in a hedge, with a tree growing through it" he says!

That in itself might not sound that bizarre but then he writes his phone number on a UKIP flyer (in case the magazine is interested in doing a feature on him), which has his name and picture on it. It seems he's standing in the local council elections this week. Anyway when I get home from the job I discover from a UKIP flyer that he's actually my UKIP candidate!

Slide.ly of Warner Brothers Studio Tour

Warner Brothers Studio Tour from June last year, slide show put to music courtesy of Slide.ly a quick, easy and most importantly free way to compile a audio-visual. Very enjoyable day and yes, the butter beer was actually rather good!

More snow, more postponements

Saturdays multiple lorry shoot was postponed which slightly surprised me as the weather forecast hadn't predicted that the snow would be a problem as far south as north London. It was less of a surprise to be unable to do today's shoot in the Peak District as both the roads we had intended to use were still closed due to the snow.

The longest day

It has to be one of the longest day trips I've done in a long time, Peterborough to Bristol to pick up a car from Charles Ware's Morris Minor Centre, then down through Bath, Shepton Mallett, Castle Cary and the Cerne Abbass Giant to Weymouth before going back to Bristol via Yeovil to return the car and head back home. Left at 7am and got home at 10.30pm, well at least the weather was good for a change and as I've often been reminded, photography isn't a 9 to 5 job!

Breaking down

Attempted to do a touring shoot last Friday in a convertible MGB, but things didn't go too well. In hindsight we should probably never have started considering that the whole area where we were was shrouded in fog, then we nearly ran out of petrol and finally the car decided enough was enough and ground to a halt, leaving us stuck at the side of the A16 awaiting the arrival of the AA. Anyway, about an hour and a half later we were on our way again courtesy of an 89p rotor arm, the only problem was the fog wasn't clearing and it was getting darker, so after attempting to photograph the car in front of the Boston stump, the top of which was almost lost in the fog we decided to abandon the shoot and try again on Monday.

Well it's Monday and the fog has cleared, but now we've got snow, bitter cold and fierce winds, bearing in mind that this shoot is for publication in the summer there's no chance of a shoot today either, so we've had to call it off again.

Budding artist

My 11 year old daughter has always been good at drawing but just lately her 'manga' style drawings have started to become very good for one so young. I have quite a few so I might devote a page to them , for a while at least, so if you like this one look out for a new page of Sophie's art coming soon.

Dog flight

I was at Brooklands yesterday and after the shoot I had a little look around the museum, with a particular personal interest in finding anything to do with a cousin of my grandfather's, the aviation pioneer Harold Barnwell who I knew to have been based at Brooklands as a test pilot for Vickers until he died in a plane crash in 1917. Anyway as luck would have it, in a display cabinet dedicated to F. W. Merriam there was a picture dated 1912 of the first ever dog to fly, the pilot was Merriam and who should be holding the dog, none other than Harold Barnwell. I wonder if it's in the Guinness Book of Records?

The Wellington Monument

I was out on a shoot last week in Aldershot, the first in quite a while due to the adverse weather of recent weeks and found myself at a location overlooked by the most enormous statue of the Duke of Wellington. Apparently it used to adorn the top of the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner before being replaced after the Duke's death with the current bronze statue of the angel of peace descending on the chariot of war.

The bronze Wellington Statue by Matthew Cotes Wyatt was at 40 tons (40.62 tonne) and 28 feet (8.53 m) high, the largest equestrian figure ever made when it was unveiled in 1846. Many people, Queen Victoria included thought it looked disproportionately large on top of the arch, but it was left there until after the Duke's death so as not to offend him by replacing it while he was still alive, especially so as it was directly opposite his home, Apsley House (No.1 London).

Round Hill close by the Royal Garrison Church in Aldershot was selected as the new site for the Statue, Aldershot being the home of the British Army, where it was moved to in August 1885.

Storm damage

Woke up this morning to find that my garage roof had been ripped off during the night and was hanging into my neighbours garden, I know it was quite windy at times but I was quite unprepared for what I saw when I opened the bedroom curtains.

Rang the local roofer who arrived suspiciously quickly and got a quote which was at least double what I was expecting, anyway my wife rang around a few other roofers and indeed we were able to arrange to get the work done for less than half the original quote!  Just goes to show you shouldn't assume that your local tradesman is necessarily going to give you a competitive price.

Another satisfied customer

It's always nice to get feedback, especially when it's complimentary, so thank you Brian for the kind words and mention on your blog: brianfordtrains.blogspot.co.uk regarding the 'Levenbridge' layout that I shot for Model Rail and which is in the latest issue (179).

Fun and games in the snow

Well the Met Office got it wrong again, 2 to 5 cm of snow they said to expect on Sunday, in fact it snowed all day and by the morning when I went out to clear the car, there was clearly more like 10 or 12 cm.

Anyway, my daughter's school announced it was closed with just a few minutes to spare before she would have had to set out to catch the bus (it's 9 miles away!), my son's school however clearly stated on it's website that it would be open, so we duly set off in the 4 x 4 as I wasn't convinced my wife's A-class would make it up the hill to the main road through 15 cm of virgin snow.

When we arrived at the school, I normally drop my son off at the 'kiss & go' car park near the school entrance, but as the conditions were so bad and as it seemed very quiet I decided to take him up the sheet ice and snow covered drive, right up to the school itself. Just as well I did because as I dropped him off by the main entrance, the caretaker came over to tell us that the earlier decision had been reversed and the school was now closed. So we turned around and headed home, informing any stray students as we went that the school had closed. Having finally got home, I then had to take my wife to work!

Diary of a sick dad

It had to happen, a week before Christmas, hit by a particularly nasty virus which still hasn't fully cleared up nearly three weeks later! So not really the Christmas and New Year that it might have been, from my point of view in particular. Hopefully I wasn't too miserable and grumpy (actually I think I probably was). The kids seemed to have enjoyed themselves at least. If I can just shake off this cough then I'll be laughing, that's both figuratively and literally!