It's been a few weeks since I logged on to this blog and I had trouble remembering my details, that's what comes when you are getting on a bit and with so many other passwords to remember. Anyway I'm afraid I haven't took many pictures of late due to crap weather and the busyness of life, (that spelling doesn't look right, maybe it's not even a word). After spending a couple of weeks decorating my sons bedroom and tidying the garden my legs are covered in bruises and my arms in scratches from the rose bushes. Not to mention my hands feeling like emery boards and my tingling finger tips, increasingly hardening due to teaching myself to play the guitar. I'm persevering a bit more this time. And last week my middle son celebrated his 8th birthday. Here's some photos of him in his new wrestling outfit to add to the increasing collection of super hero ones. Just for you Phil a couple of flower photos from my garden taken with my new camera. I realise I have a lot to learn about camera techniques but the flowers are nice, I think.

While out on our weekend walk with the dogs and kids, practising different camera techniques (mainly the rapid picture mode on moving images), our black cocker came across a rabbit run and was determined to get to whatever he could smell. After he dug it out slightly and spent a few minutes with his nose in the hole we managed to drag him away. On returning a bit later however he had run on before us and when we got a bit closer saw him toss something in the air. Steve got there before me and managed to rescue this baby rabbit that Billy, our dog, had pulled out of the hole. After a lot of oohs and aahs from me and my children we put the rabbit back in its hole where you could feel another 2 or 3 fluffy, warm rabbits. Ohhh! I hope they'll be alright as a fox or a stoat could easily get hold of them, with them being so close to the surface and even more so now that Billy has made the entrance more obvious.

New canon shots

Just a couple of shots taken from my canon 30D. I've been told that the canon 40D may be out soon.

Nature's cruelty

At the beginning of this week I noticed that a collared dove had made a nest in our small apple tree. It seemed a bit of a pathetic nest to me as it consisted of just a few twigs laid flat on top of one of the branches. I later read they only lay 1 or 2 eggs, but even so I thought it must be hard to keep a chick safe in something so fragile and easy to spot. The next couple of days I watched to see if there was any sign of an egg but in that time she had not moved out of the nest so I could not get a proper look. Yesterday afternoon I was upstairs and happened to look out of the window and saw two collared doves chasing away a magpie. I wondered if one of them was the dove that had left the nest so I went outside to see. The dove had flown back into the nest but then she flew straight out again and on inspecting the area I saw the egg on the ground smashed. I was greatly disappointed as the chick had started to develop. Either the magpie had got hold of it and dropped it or the dove itself had knocked it out of the nest while trying to chase the magpie away. I was looking forward to seeing the chick hatch and grow and have been disappointed yet again. Last year we actually had a magpie build a rather big nest in our big apple tree, but later abandoned it before anything seemed to happen.

Waiting over

My camera finally arrived yesterday but not before I had to pay out even more money on the customs and exise. I still saved a few hundred quid though. Steve is very jealous and now wants his own. I say he can use mine but it's not the same he says. I can think of a lot more good uses the money can go on, but I'm not sure how long I can hold him back for. The temptation is just too great. I now have to get out and practice using it in different ways, other than just pointing it and pressing the button. There should be plenty of opportunities as we get out into the country quite often, which you can read about in Steve's blog. The weekends exploits saw us pinching the kids bikes to ride down a steep, narrow path. Something they were too scared to do. I thought that if I did it they would get the nerve up to do it, but Steve frightened them off by telling them what could happen. It's my birthday next week, maybe I'll have to buy a new mountain bike so I too can have some fun. The problem is transferring five bikes, aswell as two dogs, their cage, three kids and a caravan. Maybe we'll just have to go out on ours when we are alone.

While Steve was travelling to York to pick up my brother to go to see 'Porcupine Tree' in Newcastle, I decided to clean out my pond. Not a very good idea while still wearing my most comfortable, velvet, lace-up pumps. Before they got totally ruined with muddy water I quickly changed into my lovely pink floral wellies, which are now pretty useless as are split in quite a few places. These fashion wellies just don't live up to the standard that wellies should. Anyway, I thought I would probably rescue a handful of frogs as I've only seen a couple in there these last few weeks. The ones that were mating, mentioned in an earlier post sadly disappeared after I tried to clean the leaves out a few weeks ago, they obviously don't like disturbance, or maybe our pond just wasn't good enough. I coudn't believe that on counting them, while putting them back in, I actually had 27 frogs. That is from a very small pond, one of the smallest you can buy. I can't imagine how many you'd get in a large pond, or even in a natural pond, there must be hundreds.

When we first built our pond we named a few of our first frogs as they were quite distinctive in their looks. This one we named Homer because of his light green, almost yellow colour. Another one we named Nelson as he only had three legs. Sadly they never returned the next year but we get a constant supply each year to keep us interested. I am just waiting for the day we get some newts.

I am told I missed an excellent gig in Newcastle but am really looking forward to seeing two great bands at the beginning of June, 'Marillion' in Leeds and 'Dream Theater' at Newcastle. Roll on June.

Easter fun

Yikes!!

This is what I first thought, like 'Oh no, what have I done?' when I read earlier today that my ebay offer had been accepted on a brand new canon 30d with a 28-135mm lens semi-professional SLR digital camera. The buy now offer was already a good offer saving me £3oo on Jessops price but I was cheeky enough to make an offer a £100 below that thinking with an element of relief that it would never be accepted. What do I need with a camera that good anyway, the 350d at less than half that price would have done the job quite satisfactorily I'm sure. For that extra money I could get my hall, stairs and landing redecorated. What was I thinking, I'm only an amateur just starting out in the game after all. This is the camera that my husband had wanted that I had discounted for myself as being too expensive. He is a lot more experienced in the photography game, (although hasn't had the time over recent years while building up his business) owning expensive cameras such as the square format Bronica and Mamia and developing his own pictures, but which sadly all got sold as it proved too costly an exercise. So I'll at least have a teacher who knows a bit about what he's talking about. I just hope I won't be disappointed and it gets here in one piece and I did get an excellent deal, maybe I should have offered less and seen what the response was. Never mind!

Now that the weather is getting warmer it is time to think about holidays and weekends away, biking, walking the dogs and spending time with friends eating, drinking and having fun. In a few weeks time we shall be spending a few days away with these friends. I wish it could be here, where looking back at the photos a few days ago brought back fond memories of a holiday in Applecross, Scotland, unspoilt territory with just one pub and one restaurant. We spent most of our time eating and drinking and one evening the restaurant that we went to for our breakfast most days, which was due to shut at 5p.m stayed open just for us from 5-9p.m supplying us with food and drink, as seen in the photo. Oh what great hospitality! They even found some pizzas in the freezer for our kids and let us in their kitchen to cook them. Here's to lots more holidays like this one but probably not quite a fifteen hour journey, bearing in mind we now have gone upmarket from tenting and will have to pull a caravan on top of travelling with three children and two dogs. If you ever should go there you have to try the pubs fish and chips, superb!

Here are some snap shots from my goodbye works meal. I have been there for a little over two years, it being my first job after 8 years of being a full time mum to my three adorable children. In some ways it would have been easier if I had stayed at home but at least I have dipped my toes back into the world of work and have had adult conversations, well just! So here's goodbye to this chapter of my life and I wait in anticipation to what the next chapter unfolds.

I'm sure someone's missing off these photographs. I wonder who it can be?!

Today we have been on a 4 hour walk in the Wolds and delightful it was too. I got to see one of these, a tree creeper, which I have only ever seen once before in Scotland. I also saw some grey wagtails and some goldfinches. I'm not really a bird twitcher that goes out just to bird watch but I do like to look if I am out anyway. The dogs thoroughly enjoyed themselves as always doing what they do best, flushing out pheasants and yelping with exitement. Today they even flushed out a deer and chased it across a field. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera out ready. We all got home very tired and I was left to bath the dirtiest dog I have ever seen, which took over half an hour for the water to start to run anything like clear, while Steve went out for a curry with some friends, lucky him! I had to make do with a corned beef sandwich in stale bread. Next time I shall try to remember my binoculars.

I love the countryside and especially wildlife and my wish has always been to live in a lovely house in the country with a big garden and an abundance of animals. But where I live now also gives me a lot of joy. I live in a big terraced edwardian house on a very busy road in a busy city but I also have the privilege of having a long 150 foot garden and when you go in the garden you would never know that we live on such a busy road as it very quiet. Each morning when I go out in the garden with the dogs I am greeted by the lovely song of a thrush, or the distinct chirp of the robin and if I am lucky I will catch a glimpse of a family of timid long tailed tits. Of course there are also the regular blue and great tits, hedge sparrows and black birds. I have had the pleasure of seeing a rare black cap, a few goldfinches and on a few occassions I've been lucky enough to see an owl flying low over my house, I've even seen a woodpecker. Then there are the other animals. Just a few nights ago I was watching a little mouse hop back and forth from our guinea pig hutch to its hiding place amongst the leaves under my mini -greenhouse, we seem to have a regular fox that I have seen in our ten foot on occassions that has also sadly had a few of my guinea pigs for its supper. We sometimes see the odd hedgehog while on its travels through the gardens, and then there are our green friends that come back to our little pond each year, of which I have five of mating in my pond right now, let's hope for some frog spawn this as of yet we haven't had any frogs actually laying their eggs there.

Night out with the girls

Wednesday night was the first of hopefully many checking out the local music talent in and around Hull with two arty friends and fellow singing group members. Our first trip took us to 'Tigers Lair' down Anlaby Road for one of their 'Acoustic Wednesdays' where we saw among others 'The Wrigglers' and a couple of other soloists. I was quite disappointed with the turn out but then again it was mid week, on a cold and damp evening. We found ourselves doodling trees on pieces of paper as Fiona has decided for us all to paint a tree on her living room wall in her new rented house. Here are our first attempts. Unfortunately we left the real masterpieces behind. Next time we shall try and go somewhere with a bit more life and atmosphere. Until then we shall work on the trees. Of course our real aim other than to see if there is any local talent is to check out the places we shall want to book ourselves into at a later date and entertain everyone with our fantastic singing and playing, or is that just one dream too far out of our grasp!?

Monsters or angels or SUPERHEROS

Grass verges

I have not written anything for a while, either because I have had other things on my mind or because I just can't be bothered and have chosen to read or vegetate in front of the T.V on the night. Also one of my ideas of what to put on this blog, in regard to food and cooking, has been stolen from me by my husband, who has set up, not one, not two but three blogs so other than write the same things you can just read his. My two eldest sons have also got the blogging bug and have set up their own so the chances of me getting on this computer very often are slim.

Anyway what is there to write of interest, not much really but the other day, while unpacking my car of shopping, it brought to mind of the time when I first moved to Hull and then a few years later while studying in London and returning back to Hull in the holidays, of how I used to think how green Hull was. How nice it was to have so many green verges and how I enjoyed travelling down Beverley Road and seeing all the blossom trees and crocus' growing or going to what is now Kingswood and seeing all the fields. I still enjoy the trees but I'm beginning to think of the grass verges as a pain in the backside, at least in this weather when every time you get out of the car you have to walk over a muddy mess and my heels always sinking into it. To cross them once is bad enough but when you have to take three or four trips back and forth to your car is just a plain nuisance. But I suppose I'd rather them be there than just a block of flat, grey pavement. At least you don't seem to get the contents of dogs bowels being left on the verges as often these days, when once we had to watch where we were walking every time we got out of the car.