Inside your head

Sophie's latest artwork - Inside your head © Sophie Barnwell 2014

Day out at the Tower of London

On a glorious autumn day we had a half-term day out at the Tower of London to see the amazing display of poppies in the moat, unfortunately so did most of the rest of the population! I have never seen crowds like it, we should have known what to expect when we struggled to squeeze on to a tube for Tower Hill. So packed was the station when we got off that all the exits were left open and the announcer was exhorting everybody to exit the station as quickly as possible. Having got there it was almost impossible to get a view of the poppy filled moat as a veritable sea of humanity were all trying to do the same, the railings were lined with people several deep and the queues to get tickets and gain access to the Tower were enormous. Mercifully I'd had the forethought to purchase discounted tickets online a few days earlier and we were able to by-pass all the queues by going to the group entrance where we were granted access without any queuing at all, remarkable!

Dakota over Holme

Considering I haven't been to an air show this summer I witnessed my third flypast of the year at the 1940's weekend at the nearby village of Holme on Sunday, an excellent event again by the way. This time it was the turn of the C-47 Dakota of the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which did a generous three passes, just as well because I was in a marquee for most of the first one.

Vulcan over Kings Lynn

I caught up with the Vulcan or rather it caught up with me, while on a shoot at Kings Lynn. It was on it's 'Cold War' tour heading for RAF Marham and passed to the south of where I was working, in the car park of the Norfolk Arena. I heard it for a long time before seeing it and even then it was along way away as it emerged from behind the stadium.

Lancasters over Stamford

Finally caught up with the two Lancasters today having been frustrated when last Sundays flypast over Peterborough was cancelled due to high winds. So made the short trip to Stamford where a flypast over the classsic car show taking place on the meadows had been added to their schedule. It was all over in about 20 seconds or so but it was worth it, especially as the car show was free!

Missing Malta

Courtesy of the remnants of Hurricane Bertha it's been a wet and windy day at Barnwell Towers today. I can hardly believe it's three weeks since we were here...

Left the NUJ, by accident!

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from the NUJ telling me that new minimum subscriptions of £10 per month were coming in to effect from 1st August. Realising that this would more than double my current contribution of 1% of my profits, I decided that after 35 years membership it was time to leave, so I emailed my resignation and stopped the direct debit with the bank. A week later I got another email to say that the £10 minimum didn't apply to freelance members and that the 1% rule was still in place. Clearly I wasn't the only member that didn't realise this!

Back from Malta

Just got back from holiday in Malta, 10 days of glorious weather, clear warm seas, no language issues, driving on the left and friendly people, what's not to like, especially if like us you enjoy snorkelling!

Useless weather forecast

On Friday on the strength of both the Met Office and the BBC weather forecast for Norwich I postponed a vehicle shoot I had arranged for Saturday to Sunday. Saturday turned out to be rather less wet than forecast, but as Sunday was supposed to be dry I was sure that I had made the right decision. Come Sunday however I set off in the gloom at 8am and as I approached Wisbech it began to rain, probably just a passing shower I though and so I pressed on. By the time I'd reached Kings Lynn it was raining steadily so I stopped and checked the rainfall radar on my mobile, to my horror the whole of East Anglia was socked in with rain, the only ray of light lay with an apparently dry area just around my destination.

I decided to press on which proved to be a major mistake, by the time I arrived the dry area had gone and it was raining steadily. I pressed on with my shoot with the help of the cars owner holding an enormous umbrella over me but I'm not optimistic that the results will be usable. So how is it that these two organisations continually lecture us on how warm the planet is going to be in a few years time when they can't even get the weather right less than 24 hours ahead! Useless the pair of them.

CO2's Almost Non-Existent Global Warming Influence

http://www.c3headlines.com/2014/07/state-of-the-art-satellite-technology-provides-proof-co2s-almost-non-existent-global-warming-influence.html

Happy birthday Sophie

A little belatedly, hey I'm only a week late!
Anyway happy birthday for last week sweetie.
So I now have two teenagers. Oh joy of joys!

I'm on Instagram now (thanks to my daughter!)

There isn't much on there yet and it may be a while before there is but here is the link:

http://instagram.com/nikon2excess

Sophies new friend

Open day at the Exotic Pet Refuge, well worth a visit, but don't feed the animals!

 http://www.exoticpetrefuge.org.uk/

Happy Birthday Me!

Sophie made me this rather nice card for my recent birthday. Thanks Sophie.

Hope you're having a great time in Normandy

Hope you're having a great time in Normandy. Artwork courtesy of Sophie.

The Joker

Sophie's latest creation!