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.