'X' Marks The Spot

Today the UK goes to the polls to vote for who is going to be their next MP, and which party will be in charge of the country for the next five years. We've had loads of promotional bumf through the letterbox over the last few weeks from all the parties that have put up candidates, telling us how wonderful their party is and what amazing things they are going to do to make the country better and richer.

I popped down to my polling station after work which used a local church hall for it's base to use my vote. It was actually quite a difficult decision to make. I had six candidates to choose from. I instantly ignored three of them, but it took some thought of who to pick from the remaining three, as I consider one candidate to be a friend, another I've met a few times, and the other represents the party I feel closer too.  So after some consideration I put my X in the box. Just have to wait until tomorrow to find out how everyone did, and whether my choice made it through.

I also had to vote for councillors to represent me on our local council. This was much easier, as I was allowed to vote for two people, so didn't take so much brain power.

Leaf It Alone

The layers of dead leaves are certainly building up along the walls of the castle, as the road sweepers don't seem to be clearing them as often as they used to.

Maybe it's down to the cuts, as road-sweeping isn't as high on the council's spending plans as it once was, as the money is used for more urgent things like education and Social Services.

In a way, I prefer the leaves to be there, as it makes my photo more photogenic, rather than just seeing grass at the bottom of the picture. What do you think?

Steaming Ahead

Gail has got herself a new camera. Something a little smaller and neater for her to carry around on a daily basis. It is an Olympus OMD. The one that Damian McGillycuddy let us have a go with the other week. So as a change to my hefty Nikon, I took the little DSLR for a stroll around the city centre. As it is a micro 4/3rds camera, my Panasonic lenses fitted it. So I had a go with the 20mm pancake lens. Although it came with an small zoom lens. The small buttons took some getting used to, as I'm more familiar with the chunkier Nikon ones. The weather wasn't very good, so I didn't really see anything exciting to snap. Except this scene of some council workers steam cleaning the pavement. Removing chewing gum I think. The one thing that I do like about the OMD, is it's ability to take a photo and record it using several different art filters at the same time. There are at least twelve. This is one of my favourite filters, as it gives the picture a slight HDR appearance, without it looking too unrealistic.