Sunsational

Here is my shot of the eclipse, that I took on the way to work. Well the beginning of it. I wanted to see it when the moon had passed further across. But as I was in work, I don't think I could have nipped out with my camera.

I guess that I was also a bit disappointed that the sky didn't go blacker than it did. It did look strange, but I suppose that I was expecting something more apocalyptic.  I have no idea when the next one might occur.

There were certainly many people about standing on street corners with camera or pieces of paper in trying to capture the moment. Maybe I might have been better off in taking photos of them instead!

Still we had a brilliant sunset, which to me are infinitely more enjoyable to see. I stopped off and took this on my way home.

Potty Time

There was a large food and drink market in the Old Market Square today, so I had a look round to see if there was anything worth taking a photo of.

I had to chuckle to myself when I saw all these flowerpot men waiting in line to be sold. I wonder how many are called Bill, and how many Ben?

There were quite a few different styles of ornament. And I'm sure there is one for almost every garden. Even those that only have a postage size open space.

Chilled

Another shot of Oscar dozing on the sofa.

I think it really is a cats life, rather than a dogs, as both Oscar and Marmalade have it all; food on tap, a quiet house and comfy seats, beds and floors to relax on.

Irish Charm

Today as you all probably know is St Patrick's Day, and a day when everyone want's to be Irish.

I'm usually working in town when they have the parade to the Old Market Square. But today I had another day off, so I missed it. Although from what photos I have seen, it was more or less identical to last years.

So I scanned my archive and pulled out this photo that I took last year of this rather colourful character enjoying a slice of meet pie.

Health Service

Early this morning I had to go to the QMC hospital. No, fortunately there wass nothing wrong with me, I just had to take someone in who was scheduled to have a small operation. Thankfully nothing too serious, but it will mean that they will need to have around a month off work for their recovery time.

While they were in theatre, I took some photos of the views that I could see out of the ward windows. At the front of the photo you can see the new tram bridge, which I saw being put into place during September 2013. Then there is the main A52 road that takes vehicles towards Newark and Grantham.

There used to be a number of nurses' quarters where all those cars are parked. But they were knocked down a couple of years ago, to expand the existing car park, as the old multi-storey car park had to be knocked down due to crumbling concrete.

The hospital is meant to be building a new multi-storey car park that's going to have a helipad on the top. They just have to find all the money to build it.

There's been a lot written about the poor state of the NHS; the cuts in service, shortage of beds and overworked medical staff. But I have to say, the nurses and doctors that were involved this morning did a wonderful job, and the operation went well.

Sunday Siesta

A dull afternoon here in Beeston, and Marmalade thinks it is better to have a nap on the settee, instead of going out in the cold and wet.

Wise cat.

Marmalade

Marmalade enjoying a bit of early morning sunshine. Our little cat is getting on in years now, and he now has to have a pill each day to keep him well. But he still enjoys life in his own way, and is very dear to us.

Fashionistas, Head This Way

It's the annual 48 Hours of Fashion event in the city centre, which starts today. It mixes various offers and events, with big hourly fashion shows in the Old Market Square.

Sadly I just missed the start of the 1pm showing, and the guys on the door wouldn't let me in. Which annoyed me, as I'm sure it wouldn't have mattered. So I had to make do with taking a photo of the marquee they are using, together with a giant TV screen.

Must try harder next year.

It's A Winner

The organisation that I work for publishes an in-house magazine every month, and besides the usual work related articles, they run a photo competition. I have never gone in for it before, partly due to either forgetting, or not liking the themes.

But this changed last month, as I read that the theme for March was going to be 'retro', and I know exactly which photo I would enter with.

I took this photo last year during the Pride celebrations in the city centre. These two were standing outside a vintage store in Hockley. Obviously the owners, and they were outside the shop and enjoying the summer sunshine.

Some tweaking in my digital darkroom, to give it an aged look. The only giveaway that it wasn't taken in the 1960s is the fact that the blonde on the bike is holding an iPad.

Anyway I found out today that my photo had been picked out as the winner, and I have won a £20 shopping voucher and a mug. Not a huge prize, but it's the first one that I've ever won with one of my pictures.

Just Not Cricket

Not being interested in sport at all, I have never been to the two football grounds that Nottingham has, or indeed the cricket ground near Trent Bridge in West Bridgford.

This changed today, as I had to visit the cricket ground for a job interview. I don't think it went too badly, but we will see.

Before I left, I thought I would take a few photos of the cricket pitch, which was being got ready for the new season. It was strange to see all the empty seats, as whenever I've seen it on TV, it has been packed.

But cricket to me is slow and boring. There seems to be a lot of hanging around after the ball has been chucked, and someone tries to hit it and then there's a bit of running around. Maybe they could speed things up a bit, to make it appear to be a bit more exciting than it is a present.

The design of the floodlights is quite unusual, as they look like giant lollypops, and you can see them from quite a way away.

Purple

I seem to be taking a lot of flower photos recently. I'm not too sure why. Possibly because there's not too many events going on at the moment, being still early in the year.

It was lovely and sunny today, and so I went for a walk around Hockley and the Lace Market. These crocuses were enjoying the warmth in the grounds of St Mary's Church.

Spring is definitely on it's way.

Paws For Thought

I also came across this message at the garden centre, that spoke to me, as an owner of two cats.

I would say that both our lives have changed since Marmalade and Oscar joined our household some years ago. They have certainly left their mark on our hearts, and wallets, as they only seem to eat expensive cat food!

Spring Is Almost Here

We popped over to a local garden centre near West Bridgford this afternoon, to look at plants, as Gail was especially keen on getting some rhubarb plants for presents for some friends of ours.

It's a very big garden centre and they sell practically everything to do with a person's outside space. Looking around, I noticed a trolley full of resin birds and animals.

There were dogs, cats, pigs, chickens and this very cute spring lamb. A shame that he is made of hard plastic, rather than soft wool, as he would be really cuddly to touch.

Sidney

As you may have noticed by reading previous blog entries, we are very good friends with the Disco Prophets. So it was nice to be asked round for dinner today and having the opportunity of taking photos of Louie & Sidney, two very special cocker spaniels.

Louie & Sidney are very active and do a lot of running around, so I was happy that Sidney managed to sit still long enough in the garden for me to take his portrait. Poor Louie is deaf, so obviously he can't hear any instructions, so he has to be physically picked up or held for posing. So Gail had a go at taking his photo.

Monkeying Around

I bought a large box of PG Tips tea bags today, that came with a free cuddly chimp toy that often features in their TV ads.

PG used to use real chimps in their TV adverts up until the late 80s. I think the most famous, or well known advert is the piano one, with the immortal line "You hum it son, and I'll play it".

The main aim of the free toy is that it promotes the Red Nose Day charity, which this year falls on the 13th of March.

Table Manners

Posh is a play that chronicles a group of students at Oxford University who are in an exclusive dining club and get up to some bad behaviour.

The play is based around the exploits of the real Bullingdon Club, whose members have included David Cameron, George Osborn and London Mayor Boris Johnson. The all male group dined, got drunk then would often run amoco in restaurants, breaking windows and smashing things up, and being from wealthy backgrounds, would apparently pay for the damage in cash.

The Playhouse hosted the play, which was written in 2010, last week. Sadly I didn't get to see it, but to tie in with the performances, the theatre ran a competition on Twitter to win a copy of the script, signed by Laura Wade herself. Fortunately I was one of the winners, and went to collect the book from the Playhouse today.

On The Tiles

A bit of fun with a game of Scrabble.

I created it for a little contest a few of us photographers have on Twitter. Some are UK based, and other are Stateside. The theme was tabletop games. I thought I would use Olympus, as it's a seven letter word, and also the make of my camera.

A Little Ray Of Sunshine

The first daffodil to bloom in our garden, although a few more are slowly popping their heads up out of the soil.

I think it had a head start, as it's home is in the front garden, which gets most of the sun. Well when we get some that is. But at least we know that spring is still getting nearer by the day.

Night Light

Well at long last the evenings are really drawing out now. It was even still light as I cycled home.

But the light began to fade by the time that I reached Highfields. But not too dark to stop me taking a photo or two of the University and lake without a tripod. Although I did rest my camera on a nearby litterbin bin.

Love Never Dies

March the 1st, and it's theme day in the world of the Daily Photo blogs.

This months theme is ageing. Of course we all get older by the second, but love never dies.

As proof of this, Gail bought me this rose for Valentine's Day. It's lasted well over the last two weeks, but sadly I had to put it in the compost bin, as it has aged and the petals were very dry and getting ready to fall off and make a bit of a mess.

A Touch Of Pink

Besides crocuses appearing in the garden, our camellia bush has sprouted into colour too, with lots of lovely pink flowers.

Poking Through

The first signs of spring have started to appear in our garden.

I spotted this crocus slowly making its way up through the soil and into the sunshine. Which gladly we had some today, as Mr Blue Sky has been missing all week, which makes everywhere so grey. So it was nice to see a bit of colour today.

Down On The Farm

My birthday & wedding anniversary today, and for a pressie Gail got me this model tin tractor.

It's quite big and the wheels go round, but I don't think I'll be taking it down to a muddy field.

Let Sleeping Cats Sleep

Here's Oscar, the youngest of our two cats, being four. Marmalade will be ten in May.

Of course being a cat, Oscar likes two things in his easy life, namely eating and sleeping. So here he is sleeping, probably after one of his many visits to his bowls of food.

Special Guest Appearance

Had an interesting bit of action on Twitter yesterday. I took a photo of the Wheel in the Old Market Square with my iPhone and Tweeted it. One of the producers at Notts TV contacted me and asked if they could use it as part of their news programme.

Of course I said yes, as long as they credited me. No problem they said.  So as you can see, my name's proudly displayed for the world, well Nottingham for all to see.

Spiderman

They've started taking down the Nottingham Wheel in the Old Market Square. It might take them a couple of days, as it's so big.

I passed by at lunchtime and they had taken down all the cabins and removed some of the arms of the wheel.

I am no good with heights, so I could never be able to climb up like this workman is doing. Balancing, while undoing the big metal parts of the Wheel.

Apparently there was a big metallic crash this afternoon, as one chunk of metal hit another. No one was hurt, but it made the news.

Glow In The Dark

We went to a gig last night at a bar in the city centre to see a band we are friends with called The Disco Prophets.  We often take photos and videos of them performing at their various gigs around Nottingham.

Of course we took some last night and sifting through them today, I came across this one that looked quite unusual to me, as the woman dancing appears to be glowing, or being zapped by a ray gun.

I promise that I've not fiddled with this photo at all in my digital darkroom, except for a bit of tweaking with the the contrast and sharpening. The strange effect was caused by the bar's disco lights, as they are LED ones, and sometimes cause colour problems with the electronics in my Olympus camera.  Sometimes it's annoying, but on occasions it works out for the best.

Gong Hey Fat Choy

 It's the Year of the Goat this year in the Chinese calendar and their New Year celebrations took place today in Beeston, on a smaller scale than usual due to the budget cuts in community events.

They of course had the dragon dance, some demonstrations of martial arts and how to write your name in Chinese. I didn't do this, as having a pretty long name, I would be there all afternoon!

I bumped into a couple of friends of mine, one being a filmmaker and puppeteer, who was putting on a show in about ten minutes time. I had not seen his show before, so I went off to find a seat. I was quite surprised that there were more adults wanting to see the show than children.

The story revolved around a girl, her father, a teacher and a yak. The Professor (my friend Melvyn) did all the voices and actions. Quite amusing to hear one sentence in a man's voice and then another in a woman's. The audience appeared to thoroughly enjoy it.

Foaming Hell

No, this isn't snow, but foam bubbling around the water feature in the Old Market Square.

Someone must have sneaked in some shower gel or washing up liquid to get the effect. It used to happen quite a lot in the old days when there were two fountains near the Council House.

I used a fast shutter speed to freeze the action of the water droplets, so it looks a bit like snow.

Colour Wheel

Another grey and wet day in Nottingham and not a lot happening. So I've had a play about in my digital darkroom and created this. Just to add a little colour to this photo of the Nottingham Wheel.

The Bonny Lads

Back in November a new record shop opened in the city centre. A branch of Rough Trade no less.

Besides selling albums, CDs and books they also have a snack bar and have recently been having live in-store gigs by up and coming bands.

I saw one such band today at lunchtime, who go by the name of The Little Comets, an indie rock group from the North East of England.  I'd not heard of them before, even though they have been going since 2008.

They played for about half an hour to a receptive audience, who had packed the upstairs cafe area. They weren't bad considering it's not really my kind of music. They also have a bass player, who I sadly didn't manage to get in the shot, so here he is, in a portrait of  his own.

The Blue Period

It was sunny today for the first time since last Sunday, so it made for a slightly lighter night as I cycled home from work.

As the sky was still blue, I stopped on the bridge that I cross the canal on and took a few photos of the canal, it's boats and the sun setting in the sky beyond.

Synthesis

The first time that I came across a synthesiser was at school in London in about 1975. It was during a music lesson, when our teacher switched on this strange looking black box with lots of flashing lights. He then played a simple tune and all sorts of weird noises came out. There was also a lot of plugs that he changed by unplugging them and putting them into other holes and some even stranger noises came out.

I was amazed about what it could do, and have been in love with such music ever since. The first musician that I got into was Jean Michel Jarre and his 1976 album Oxygene. Then came along Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis and Kraftwerk.

So I was excited to see this Moog Voyager synth at the studio in Mansfield yesterday. Sadly it wasn't used in the songs that were demoed by the Disco Prophets, although they do have a keyboard player in the band called Richard, who has a couple of keyboards himself, but neither of them are Moogs.

Adventures In Modern Recording

The former library in Mansfield has been turned into an arts centre and recording studio. Our favourite band The Disco Prophets were there to record some demo songs for promotional purposes. We of course were there to record the event in photographic form.

I was hoping that it would be a big open studio like the Beatles recoded in, so I could get some nice shots of the band members doing their thing. Alas it was a fairly small room with subdued lighting. But I still managed to take some shots of the band in action, although I could only hear the drums, as the guitars & keyboards were plugged straight into the recording equipment. We also watched the sound engineer/producer twiddling all these knobs and using ProTools to work on the sound

Love

Today is of course Valentine's Day, where people show love for each other. Although this really should happen every day, and not just once a year.

Things were no different in the Frost household. Here's the card and friendly love dragon that I got for Gail. And of course there had to be a single red rose.

Playful Pooch

I poked my head into Cobden Chambers at lunchtime, just to see if anything was going on, when this little fellow came toddling towards me.

You have to agree he's a cute little fellow. Getting on a bit I think, by the greying of his fur round his face. Very friendly too. I gave him some patting, while he sniffed me. He could probably smell Oscar & Marmalade on me.

A Sweet Way To Learn The Alphabet

Sugar letters, a bit more tasty than Alphabetti Spaghetti, and easier to spell with, as they are not covered in tomato sauce.

Just found them today in a local supermarket, and thought they would make for an interesting photo for today.

Saturday Night Isn't All Right For Fighting

I think the whole of Nottingham was shocked when it was announced on the news that there had been a murder in the city centre in the early hours of Sunday morning.

As the reports were updated, it emerged that there had been several arrests and the victim was only a teenager.

I went through the area today that had been cordoned off by the police during Sunday & Monday, while the investigation took place, and came across a lamppost that was covered in floral tributes for the murdered man.

It emerged that his name was Joshua Bradley, and he was only 19. A pleasant, happy lad by all accounts, and he was a keen boxer. He may even have followed Carl Froch into being a famous fighter, if he hadn't been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There has been a couple of arrests and hopefully they will be charged soon. It beats me why anyone should do such a thing to someone who was just out to enjoy himself at the weekend.

Balls Up

Another quiet day in Nottingham, so here's a shot of the Beeston Bears' training match that I photographed on Sunday afternoon.

Now I bet you are wondering whether Number 59 caught the ball, even though he had his hands closed at that particular moment. Well the answer is yes, before he was chased by the guy in the orange tabbard.

City Lights

A shot from the Castle grounds of the Nottingham skyline, which I took during Friday's Light Night celebrations. There is of course the big ferris wheel situated in the Old Market Square on the left. The Victoria Centre flats in the middle and of course the dome of the Council House on the right.

Bear Grills

I went down to a local recreation ground today to take photos and do some interviewing of a local American Flag Fottball team called the Beeston Bears, for a local magazine that I am involved in called the Beestonian.

For a winter's day it was very sunny, so it made taking the photos more interesting and the light gave the pictures some life, as you can see.

The visit made me remember when I was at school, as we went there for our PE lessons.

The Beestonian is available on line, and here is the LINK, so you will be able to read my article when the next issue is published.

High Tea

Walking around the city centre last night, I came across this rather amusing scene, which was part of a
big front window display for a clothing store.

It does make good use of some old and odd cups and saucers, including the well known Willow Pattern design.

Wheel Of Light

The city centre came alive tonight when the annual Light Night festival took place across various areas of the city, much to the delight of the thousands of people that I saw walking around the Lace Market, Hockley and the castle.

Of course the highlight for many was seeing the Nottingham Wheel lit up and people seeing the skyline in the night sky.

Heart Of Glass

I wonder how long it to to stick all those little bits of glass on this figure of a woman?

She presently sits in the window of a hairdressers on Castle Boulevard.

I wonder how many extra customers she's helped the shop to get?

Armed And Dangerous

Don't worry, there wasn't a terrorist attack in the city centre today, it was just the Army on a recruitment exercise. Although not many people seemed to be stopping to enlist.

Either that, or the soldiers are planning a raid on the chocolate shop, to get some luxury Valentine goodies for their wives and girlfriends.

Round And Round

The 60 metre tall ferris wheel has made a welcome return after being absent for four years.

Unofficially called the 'Nottingham Eye', but due to copyright reasons, it's been named 'the Wheel of Nottingham'.

It's here for about a month. But will be very popular on Friday, when it's Light Night across the city.

Seat Of Learning

Here's a night time shot of the University's Trent Building, which I took tonight from Highfields Park.

What I Would Miss..

The first of February and so I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to make a return to publishing my daily blog from Nottingham, as I've taken a break from it for a while.

It's also the theme day and this month's theme is "What would I miss if I left Nottingham?"  Well for me it would be the music scene. I've seen some really great bands and musicians over the past few years, such as The Disco Prophets, One Girl, One Boy, Emma Blaydon-Jones and The Madeline Rust, amongst many others.

My photo shows Lucy, the singer and bassist from The Madeline Rust, who I saw for the first time in concert back in August, at their debut album launch at a city centre club.