love is...

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that.

It seems to me that love is everywhere.

Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there:

fathers and sons,
mothers and daughters,
husbands and wives,
boyfriends,
girlfriends,
old friends.

When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge…they were all messages of love.

If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is…all around.

i am no one special...

I thought I would share a quote I found on Tumblr today...

“I am no one special. Just a common man with common thoughts. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived. I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul and for me that has always been enough.”

—	The Notebook

a small tale...

Just when I was starting to think that this Sunday was going to end just like any other Sunday, I get a small surprise

NO, it's nothing rude you dirty minded people.....but it is SUPER CUTE!!

My father was building a new rabbit hutch today for Mary Jane, the rabbit. When he came to move the existing, broken and quite frankly FUBAR'd hutch he discovered a small nest of mice.

They, of course, all legged it in about a million different directions, but, as the day went on he kept on noticing Alfie, my sisters dog, playing with things. Turns out, it was baby mice. The little bugger.

So...tonight whilst wondering around the garden and enjoying the last rays of today's sun I spotted movement in the flower bed and there he was, the cutest little bugger I have seen. He was tiny, so I picked him up and was thinking of what to do with him when my mum grabs my camera and suggests a photo.

After taking a few photographs we found one more! I remember noticing where the adult mouse ran off to so I got the old little straw bird house down from a tree, packed it loosely with straw and sat the two little fellas in there. Set the house down behind the tree in which the mummy mouse had ran, put out a little rabbit food and left them be. The plan, or hope, is that mum will follow the trail of food and find her little mice.

I warn you....totally cute photo's to follow!

my girl...

This picture was taken by my girl, just one of the many email photographs she sends me.

I used a text overlay from an image I picked up on Tumblr which came originally from here www.flickr.com/photos/jenosaur/3337844816/

What the eye's don't see...

This was taken whilst visiting family near Buckenham. It is a photograph of the back of what appears to be a lovely cottage that sits on the Grand Union Canal. It's amazing what you find if you just venture to where you are not expected to go.

I am really enjoying playing with textures on my photography at the moment. You really can change the way an image looks and feels in just a few simple steps.

Watch out as I experiment with textures a whole lot more...

(used two textures to create this shot)

New banner...

I liked the last picture I posted that much that I thought it was about time I made a new banner.

So..TA DA!!!

Hope you all like it.

Rescuer...

Took the dogs for a walk to the forest today, which I, unfortunately don't do as often as I should. What an adventure it turned out to be.

My lovely dog, Cinders, is now almost, if not 15 years old now. The three of us, Cinders, Alfie (my sisters little dog) and myself took a long stroll through a lovely forest near to where I live, on this particular walk there is a gentle flowing river which has a rickety old bridge that crossed it.

We arrived at the bridge and I decided to take a few snaps of the river, when all of a sudden, there was a scrambling noise from my right, I turned to look just in time to see Cinders slip and fall from bridge into the river...poor girl!

Now, she loves the water and usually she is the one volunteering to get in, but not on this occasion. Falling into the river was not the problem, the problem was getting out. Because she is, as we say, getting on a bit, she is not as agile as she used to be or as she thinks she is and she could not quite manage to get out at the river bank, it was just too steep for her.

So, guess what!! Yep, yours truly had no choice but to wade into the river, pick the poor girl up and carry her up the river back and back to dry land. All of this whilst trying to keep Alfie, who was obviously jealous of us being in the river, from taking a swan dive in himself.

Cinders was very appreciative as she gave me lots of attention after this.

Photo news:

Took a snap shot of myself and also some close ups of tree bark to use as textures. Compiled them together in Photoshop CS2 to create a self portrait. The idea was to make me look one with nature....well, ish!!

If I taken more time and had my Nikon DSLR and tripod with me I would have been able to produce a much better shot. As I only had the camera on my phone...this will have to do.



(drying off after fishing out the dog)