project 52: water

An adored (and assumed) Uncle of mine uses a particular phrase with respect to our weather. He's often heard to proclaim that: In Scotland there are two seasons, Winter and July.

While his point of view is slightly skewed (having left many decades ago for the languid, sun-soaked charms of the Far East, South America and other enviable places) the sentiment holds true. In general, you can anticipate truly atrocious weather on any day of the year in Britain. And in Scotland in particular, you can expect to add 'bloody freezing cold' to that forecast. Even (though I hate to admit it) in July.

The Queen's jubilee in London last week was a washout. Wimbledon beckons, with its time-honoured fickleness. God knows what we have in store for all those well-travelled tourists during the Olympics.

But it's so b-o-r-i-n-g hearing everyone girn on about it (one of our many national failings is that there's simply nothing we like complaining about more than the weather). So we have another proverb here in Scotland, handed down through the ages, I think, by the prophet Billy Connolly. Translated from the original Glaswegian it goes something like this: There's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.

And so, when a particularly gloomy friend of mine stated that the long-term forecast for our area was rain every day for the rest of this month, The Boss and I decided we'd better just go for a walk and make the best of it. She declared the puddles some of the best she'd ever jumped in.

Water, it seems we're in for some. Suck it up.

the corner of our street, now named "the welly bath"

project 52: playtime

See what happens when you turn your back for five minutes? Okay, so it's been more like six weeks since I fell off the P52 wagon, but in that time it's vacated the delectable Darcy's website and is now hosted by someone handsomely-named Kent. (We're all about names round here at the moment, and I have to say, Kent sounds dashing don'cha think?)

But this week I caught sight of the fact that the theme is 'playtime'. Something I clearly haven't had enough of lately, because I haven't been taking many photos or generally joining in. I blame that on physically feeling like a faded, slightly-too-squashy space hopper. One from the actual 1970s. (Btw, have you seen these - if I wasn't totally neurotic about injuring children, I'd definitely have bought one by now. Like all of the most potentially limb-threatening head-cracking toys, it looks awesomesauce.)

Anyway, I happen to have loads of photos from various childish playful activities this past week due to the fairly tolerable weather. We've had a new swing built in the garden, resulting in about forty bazillion virtually identical photos of shoe soles or undercrackers... or both. And today, my beloved progeny decided to set up a yard sale in the front path, specifically selling granite chuckies to passersby. Yes, individual bits of gravel, in a city that's entirely made of granite. Gravel from the actual path she was sitting on. Many hilarious photos. Especially after she, rather impressively, made 90p.

But here's one picture that I really like. Taken, I confess, with no skill or merit using my iphone and a brazenly-applied instagram filter (I forget which one - I think LoFi). Sorry - must try harder next time.

My daughter's bedroom is absolutely my favourite room in our house. It's dark, cheaply decorated, small and crowded, but I've always loved it. And (call me crazy) but when there have been friends round to play and it looks like a bomb has dropped, I love it even more. Looking at all the debris, I always get the feeling that it's this wild abandon and colour that allows kids to be so much happier than adults. Wouldn't you be?

Now, here I really want to add the clever linky P52 banner, but I'm too much of a numpty to know how to plop it here from Kent's website, where it sits there looking all snazzy... but where's the bit of html that I paste into my post? Do let a luddite like me in on the secret and I'll promise to do it all proper next time. Cheers.

project 52: sacrifice

We made a massive sacrifice today.

A whole container pulled up outside the house yesterday afternoon, and within the hour all of our earthly possessions had been disemboweled into a big heap. Make that five big heaps actually, one in each room of our very small house. Without a flat surface to be seen, it looked like we'd been ransacked in a particularly gory whodunnit movie.

Today, due to the sheer volume of unnecessary bilge that we'd just knowingly shipped across the world (carbon footprint guilt) and with some destructive renovations looming, my husband and I made a decision to live differently, perhaps a bit more like the original 1937 residents of our home. Without something that I love.

Without so many books.

We had so many that we were keeping for ridiculous reasons like:
a) they were a gift, and we wouldn't want to offend
b) we enjoyed reading them (like, 12 years ago)
c) we like the look of them, books on shelves look interesting

The thinning out became addictive, brutal and ruthless. The Oxfam charity bookshop boxes very quickly outnumbered those that we decided to keep, and before we knew it we'd achieved what we set out to; four shelves of books. Yup. Four.

The eagle-eyed might spot that these four shelves cover everything. Gardening, cooking, fiction, knitting, child-rearing, travel, and even key texts from two of my previous professional careers.

sorry, iphone photo for today's p52, I don't even know where my camera is in the chaos

I feel purged. Especially as the bookshelf sits in the precise position that the tv once occupied. It is the one item that we asked the container men not to remove from its box.

Sacrifice, it can feel good. But I'm not sure the librarian down the road is going to feel likewise when I take my next reading list to him...






*disclaimer, our daughter's books aren't part of this deal. Her bedroom shelf inches now probably outstrip ours, but as a budding bookworm, she can never have too many!

project 52: foolin' around

A weekend morning at my Grandparents' house in the mid-eighties. My brother and I were woken with a stage-whisper from Granny, and ordered to come downstairs and play a prank on Grampa. With great flourish on her part, and lots of poorly muffled sniggering on ours, a huge leek was produced. I was told to choose a radiator to hide it behind, while my brother was instructed to go upstairs to our "sleeping" Grampa and tell him, with as much panic as could be feigned, that one of the radiators had a leak.

In an award-winning display of mock-anguish, Grampa (in our eyes, the spitting image of Lance Corporal Jack Jones from Dad's Army, and equally prone to shout "Don't PANIC!" to make us laugh) rushed downstairs and checked all the heaters, becoming more and more flustered until, at last, the offending vegetable was located. Cue helplessly hysterical children, weak with puerile giggles; I think it might have been just about the funniest thing we'd ever done. I'm pretty sure he maintained the charade for the rest of the day, gruffly telling all the neighbours about his wicked grandchildren on our walk for the messages, and having "a word" about our naughtiness when Mum and Dad arrived to collect us.

And because of that morning, I can not do April Fools Day. I've never been able to get past the only April Fools prank that I know. April 1st = leeks on radiators. That part of my brain is closed to any alternatives. With just a few years hindsight, and with each re-telling of the tale, it became startlingly clear that it was a pretty weak gag.

But I might arrange a similar morning ritual for The Boss next year because, seriously, at the time? Hilarious.

project 52: details

Amazing stationery store Kikki.K wrote this great little blog post earlier in the week about finding new angles with your camera. Their examples taught me a brilliant lesson (yes, yes, photo bods, I know it's entry level but some people don't know these things 'kay?). The thing you're photographing doesn't need to be entirely in the frame, or even entirely in focus. It may be just enough to just suggest the form of an object, allowing your eyes to focus on the smaller details.

And so I thought I'd give it a go this morning for p52, "details". I'll need to practice a bit, but it was fun.

left: yawn
right: happy hazy days in the chive patch

I feel so pleased to have a "proper" camera these days, even though it's not quite the DSLR of my dreams. Manual functions are so rewarding, and auto functions are so often uniquely disappointing. I love it. If anyone's nervous of their manual functions, don't be, look what they do, even for a duffer like me.

left: "smart" settings, ISO100, auto WB, f/9.5, 1/160, couldn't force it to focus on anything but the surrounding grasses. crappy shot.
right: ISO400, daylight WB, f/4, 1/1600, manual focus. Not perfect, but a million times better, no?

UPDATE: Blogger doesn't seem to be allowing me to leave comments on any p52-ers' posts. I am looking at them and I am loving them - just sorry I can't let you know. (Anyone else having the same problem? Mind you, if you are, you probably can't leave a comment to tell me that. Hmmm.)

project 52: hunger

I am defiantly, sinfully lazy. A bone-idle, work-shy sloth. But one thing is guaranteed to motivate me: hunger. Specifically, a hunger to feed people things that I've grown myself.

Only yesterday, that hunger triggered a three hour frenzy, digging over the green manure beds and generally preparing the veg patch for Spring. It also inspired the singular kind of madness known as talking to trees. Asking the apple buds if this year, their fourth since being planted, might just be the year, and begging them not to flower while there's still a threat of frost.

And at risk of sounding excessively crunchy, I admit to evangelising about veg patches being the best way to encourage a child's hunger for greens. The Boss, who like most of her ilk has never willingly eaten a salad leaf, has declared her sprouting micro cabbage leaves (sown on some damp kitchen roll and ready 10 days later) to be delicious. (Authoritative proof, sample size one.)

Luckily, that kind of physical exertion also makes me hungry, giving me an excuse to sit in the sun with a cup of tea and some Mothers' Day chocolates. Happy weekend!

project 52: the "eyes" of march

In November 2009, in the pitch dark of a Winter afternoon, my toddler and I prepared some pots in anticipation of Spring. Tiny white tulip bulbs, white daffodils and three hellebore plants. Dressed in her fleecy jumpsuit, mittens and hat, my two-year-old patted down the soil over the bulbs and coined a phrase that I will now use for ever when planting bulbs, saying that she was "tucking the flowers in to bed for the Winter". By the time Spring arrived, we were on our way to the other side of the world at the start of our tropical adventures, so we never did get to see the pot waking up.

Three Springs later, The Boss is a leggy wisecracker who has completely forgotten that lovely cold, dark afternoon, in fact she's forgotten that afternoons can be cold and dark. But on arriving home from the airport she immediately decided to go and pick me some flowers. Turns out that those hellebores (or aptly-known "Lenten roses") are the first and only flowers in the garden at the moment, so that's what she brought me. If you've ever seen them, you'll know that hellebores have beguiling eyes that you can spend ages peering into. Hence they're my subject for p52, the "eyes" of March.

ISO200, f/10, 1/25s, macro filter on 50mm lens, cloudy WB
auto curves applied in photoshop
a bit fuzzy - that might have been me shivering...

project 52: a great leap

Well, the time has come. We're not even close to being ready. But even my hairdresser has banished the faux sun-kissed blonde from my locks in preparation for our return to the UK, so there's no turning back now.

Moving to Singapore in 2010 was a great leap for us, a family who had never lived abroad, and knew not a thing or a body in this tiny island in the South China Sea. Honestly, I'm not even sure that we knew it was an island in the South China Sea. But our great leap paid off a hundred times over and we've had the most wonderful experience.

the morning the packers came, no-one can possibly need this much kitchen ware... can they?

eighty one boxes later...

I had planned lots of posts detailing our Singapore highlights, so that I will remember them for more than about two days after we leave. The best places to eat, the best places to shop, the best places to drink coffee and our favourite little hidden, off-the-radar places to drink cocktails. But time has run out, so I guess it's suffice to say: if you're stopping over in Singapore for any reason and don't know your way about, leave me message and I'll give you the lowdown... if I can remember it.

In short, in Singapore I have learned:

1. how to stay presentable while eating noodle soup with chopsticks while wearing a white shirt
2. that there is a caveat to lesson one: choose your noodles wisely. Ramen or wanton mee = childsplay, pho and udon = trickier, la mian = almost impossible, and laksa = don't even try it, especially if you have to share your table with a stranger (which is quite usual in Singapore). You will ruin that busy businessman's shirt for ever 
3. that it's curiously impossible to avoid getting a bit weepy at the National Day Parade song - even when it's not your own nation
4. how to design and draw fine jewellery
5. more fascinating and heartbreaking history than during my whole previous 30 years - if you've never heard of the Fall of Singapore, I urge you to read Tanamera by Noel Barber, or A Different Sky by Meira Chand
6. that hor fun is a lip-lickingly indulgent dinner, not some kind of illegal activity, and nobody will snigger when you ask for some
7. that Kampong Glam is the oldest, most historic and most stunning part of the city, and not a specialist nightclub
8. that I love roti prata more than it loves me (plate full of fried lardy dough with curry sauce, indigestion much? Trust me, it has to be tried to be believed.)
9. to take an umbrella - always take an umbrella - always
10. that no matter how different your surroundings, you will remain, fundamentally, the same. So there's no point in saying "I'll do more xxx once I've moved house" or "I'd make more time for yyy if we lived in this place or that situation". Personally, I've found that my habits, my preferences, my style, my flaws and my abundant neuroses are exactly the same in Singapore as they are in Scotland. Enriched perhaps, with wider horizons certainly, but I haven't morphed into the smoothly tanned, svelte, stylish, relaxed, tropical uber-femme that I had in mind two years ago. Turns out, I'm still me. Bummer eh?!

In Singapore I have not:

1. learned to love seafood - I really wish I had
2. decided what the national sport is; between shopping and eating, it's just too close to call
3. learned a single Chinese character or Mandarin phrase, much to my daughter's amusement
4. lost a single pound; despite the onsite swimming pool and gym the scales remain steadfast (which I actually consider no small achievement given points 1, 2, 6 and 8 above)
5. got to the bottom of the concept of "heatiness", a subject which I find endlessly fascinating
6. had my eyebrows threaded, as my hairdresser assures me that it would make me cry
7. eaten a durian
8. learned to love the wildlife - ants, snakes, roaches, rats, monkeys, countless tail-less feral cats - I shan't miss even the very idea of you
9. taken any of the photography classes I intended to - d'oh
10. acclimatised; between March and October air con has been my most constant friend, albeit a fickle, cranky and financially demanding one who needs endless supervision and medical attention

So long Singa-ling, ta ta to the tai tai life, it's been fun... sniff.

project 52: cabin fever

Wiki currently describes cabin fever as "a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period (as in a simple country vacation cottage during a long rain or snow)."

Now - bearing in mind that I'm prone to gross exaggeration and writing entirely for provocative effect - to me, that simple cottage with nothing to do sounds amazing. Fresh air and vigorous activity are totally over-rated, especially if you hail from the North of Scotland where the weather is (at worst) horrific or (at best) a bit parky even at the height of Summer.

My favourite kind of day involves me and my girl, jogging bottoms, blinds drawn against the rain, a burbling radio, a purring cat, and nothing in particular to do beyond stories, crayons and maybe a bit of knitting. If I can arrange for that day to last a week, so much the better. And the apogee is reached with free-flow tea and toast. Very, very rarely have we darkened the doors of a "musik!" group or a preschool gymnastics class, because frankly, we just prefer being at home. (If you're thinking I'm an idle, unstimulating mother, you'd be right. But she sometimes drinks the tea with me, and caffeine is a stimulant. Please let me know before nominating me for the worst mum in the world award, it's only fair.)

So, if being shut in my wee house for a while = cabin fever, bring it on I say. I do remember the phrase "cabin fever" being bandied about between my friends when our babies were small, some of the more proactive among us clearly feeling a little housebound. Occasionally I did almost get where they were coming from, but mostly I just smiled and sympathised.

However, while pondering tomorrow's p52 theme, I realised that there is one place that does give me cabin fever every. single. time.

In anticipation, a visit to this place always seems like a good idea. And it usually starts off well. But, no matter how good your intentions, it's never possible to avoid a marathon expedition. About half way through said marathon I start to get restless, irritated, frustrated... I feel an overwhelming urge to just GET OUT (I did once abandon my trolley, diving for the nearest cab with a whimper). I always vow that, in future, I will happily spend 500% more in John Lewis just so that I can avoid the Scandi hangar of genius storage and writhing nightmares for EVER, never to return...

But return I inevitably do, because lets face it, it's the consumerist yoke of our generation.

bags behind bars: ISO400, f2, 1/30

project 52: true love

Now don't panic, the combination of this week's prompt and my photo is not getting smutty. I won't be giving you too much information, so you can relax. We're not doing an ode to Tracey Emin's unmade bed.

Despite this week's Hallmark Holiday (or maybe because of it) I really struggled to find a unique expression of true love for a photo. Don't get me wrong, we've celebrated Valentine's day in the past, but this year a few crayon drawn cards from the Boss and a nice bar of chocolate each sufficed. So, instead I thought I'd show you a photo of the one activity that I truly love: sleeping. And since my husband offered to be an hour late for work this morning so that he could do the school run and I could stay in bed, this photo sort of illustrates why I love him too!

I consider myself to be a semi-professional sleeper. There is rarely a time of day when I couldn't be tempted take a nap. And that wonderful advice someone gave, when I was a mother of a newborn, to nap whenever the baby does? Well, five years on, I still do whenever possible. (Yup, my five-year-old still takes a nap every afternoon. An hour, sometimes two. A girl after my own heart!) If Tom Hodgkinson advocates napping, then that's good enough for me. To quote "The morning is improved by its anticipation, and the afternoon and evening are improved because you are not exhausted." I couldn't agree more.

Go on, try it, take a nap. You'll love it.

project 52: drink up!

We made it through The Boss's birthday last week. I say "made it through" because there were a few different celebrations, various treats, and it suddenly dawned on me that our normally healthy diet had morphed into the Saturday page of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. By lunchtime on day five of being five, she turned to me with a pained face and, like said caterpillar, moaned "Mummy, I've got a tummy ache". She opted only to eat cucumber dipped in hummus for the rest of the day, and I decided it was time for a homestyle detox, using whatever ingredients I had to hand.

So my photo for this week's p52 is more a demonstration of food over photography, nutrition over composition, diet over dof. If your tummy needs the afternoon off, this might be just the job.

makes about 400-500ml of thick smoothie:
     125g blueberries
     10 strawberries
     1 mango
     1 sprig of mint
     1 large scoop natural yoghurt
     1 handful mixed nuts

Blitz in the liquidiser and drink up!

project 52: shadows

I knew I wanted to photograph our cardboard muji CNY dragon for this week's p52 theme: shadows. He casts fascinating shadows wherever he sits. I didn't realise how difficult it would be to take a photo where his shadow was strong but not obscured by my own. After half an hour of falling off various bits of furniture onto anglepoises (me, not him) I decided to call it a day and see what fun things can be done with shadows in post production instead. I know that photoshop and (the soon to be historical) picnik can't make a good photo out of a bad one, so I'm not under any illusion, but it's a fun way to wait for a thunderstorm to pass anyway!

samsung nx10, 30mm pancake lens, ISO400, f/2, 1/30
dodged the hell out of the highlights at 7% in photoshop, not carefully enough on his tail and ears

a bit of "chinoiserie" using the infrared filter in picnik!

project 52: a display of remarkable incompetence

This week Darcy over at my3boybarians requires a self portrait for p52. Hmmm.

I dutifully set the scene - a nice white wall and a white countertop - intending to pose resting my chin on my hands or something (and feeling deeply uncomfortable about every move - posing for a selfie - what a weird thing to do). I put a stack of plates on the edge of the counter so that I could set the focus and check the lighting, and then I moved the plates out of the way, all ready to get into position...

Except that I must have unwittingly pressed the timer button already because the first shot is of me moving the plates! I took a few more afterwards, but they were all very awkward, self-conscious and badly framed. That first one kind of sums up the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Taking a picture of myself, pfff, what a hopeless nerd. With broken fingernails.

samsung nx10, 30mm pancake lens, ISO400, f/2.5, 1/15

project 52: i dreamed a dream

I think I share a dream with quite a lot of other people. That's the only plausible explanation for the success of the BBC's Dragons' Den. It's the fantasy of that lightbulb moment, where a normobod like you or me has flash of divine inspiration to create something so fantastic that the human race won't know how they ever managed without it.

It's always the simplest ideas that strike me as real genius. Taking the purest of concepts and combining it with a brainwave to create a product that makes life just that little bit easier, that little bit more accessible, that little bit more affordable. So for Project 52 this week, I looked around my apartment to see if I could find an example of that.

I chose my weights because I think they are genius with a capital G. A set of bog-standard handweights can be quite pricey, and I'm not a dedicated enough gym bunny to justify buying them. So imagine my delight on finding this brilliant product in the $2 shop!

Samsung NX10, ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/10s, against the light of a bright window.
Photoshopping limited to removing some tiny bobbles from the blanket using the healing tool.

A litre of water weighs 1 kg, as all good secondary school students will know. So, you take that gem of knowledge and use it to make 1 litre water bottles in the shape of handweights. G E N I U S!

Okay, okay, so I acknowledge that the inventors of this particular piece of artistry may not exactly change the world, but the clarity of the idea makes me smile every time. I'd just love to think up something as cool as this one day. And they're photogenic too, with a dreamy sort of quality, don't you think?!

project 52: made with love

If it's not too dramatic for a Friday morning in January, my heart's actually breaking. Seriously. Pretty much chest pain. Almost.

When we moved to this wonderful country, we were delighted that the local preschool employed a creative attitude. But nearly two years later, when I need to start planning/rationalising/streamlining for our next move, we have an entire wardrobe full of "creative attitude". And it doesn't help that, at said preschool, they refer to every piece as an "artwork". Talk about guilt trip.

Regarding this week's p52 theme, Made with love, I'm not under the illusion that my daughter made all these artworks out of love for me, for her teacher, or indeed for for anyone. But boy does she have a passion for making them! So (without wanting to sound like too much of a luvvy) I guess they're made with love for the creative process dah-ling (air kiss, air kiss).

Throwing any of them away feels like a betrayal that's almost certain to crop up on the therapist's couch in twenty years time. But I can't keep it all... can I?  

Can I? (remember, chest pain...)

No don't tempt me, I'm resolute: I can't keep it all. Trouble is, I went to art school for a while here too, and I haven't even started on my boxes full of drawing exercises. January is going to be a loooong month.

Samsung nx10, ISO1600, f22, 1/60s. Cropped in Photoshop, contrast adjusted using s-curve, 50% smart sharpen.
I forgot that I'd last used my camera on ISO1600 and not turning that down was a mistake I think.

Just a small sample of the output! I love the patterns it all makes, and if it's not too insulting to her, it kind of reminds me of the amazing textile seascapes by this wonderful artist! Seriously, look what happens with the palette knife filter in Photoshop, it becomes a Hebridean seascape! (I'm thoroughly enjoying my Photoshop course, can you tell?!)

project 52: resolution

We've got these mugs. We've had them since we first moved in together, you must know the ones, that Penguin book cover range. This week we had a friend staying. He's a writer and he started to talk about the book title on his mug of tea. Gradually it dawned on me that owning these mugs is totally phoney, because I've never read any of the books that they illustrate. We agreed that to source and read them is as good a New Year's resolution as any.

They are: Persuasion by Jane Austin, Country Life by H.E. Bates, Together by Norman Douglas, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Traveller from Tokyo by John Morris, and Civilisation by Clive Bell. The real challenge is going to be finding copies of some of them.

So I photographed them for Darcy's Project 52 photo challenge (click the button below), which is this week inpired by the word "resolution". I'm still figuring out my way around my camera, and have only just enrolled in a Photoshop course, so I know this could be better, but perhaps taking part in Project 52 will help me to progress in 2012.

I'd like to try and make notes about the photos I post too, so that if any of Darcy's followers can tell me the crashing errors I'm making with my camera or in Photoshop, they might let me know. This was taken on my Samsung NX10 with 50-200mm zoom lens. ISO 1600,  f/7.1,  1/8. Using flash, indoors, in direct overhead halogen lighting (nice huh?). I tweaked the image by adjusting the curves graph a wee smidge, having sampled the background colour. If that last bit makes no sense, it's because I'm only on week one of the Photoshop course... can you tell?!

Despite the horrible lighting, I like the way the image appears quite serene and floaty. And for some reason, my little girl loves this photo and keeps asking if we can make the cup flower again!