Monthly Round Up (April '10)

Bonjour mes amies, it's that 'time of the month' again - only my version involves little or no mood swing, bloating or bad temper. There's still chocolate though. :D I've only written three posts this month - sorry about that. I think the school Easter Holidays must've interrupted my weekly 'flow'. Anyway, here's April.

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No.1 had a birthday in the first week of the month and is officially now a teenager. That she has been behaving like a teenager for a good 20 months already is neither here or there. To celebrate, she had a 'pizza party'. The lady on the checkout in Sainsbury's raised an eyebrow as I purchased a gazillion pizzas, along with crisps, biscuits, fruit, french bread, juices, coke, etc. 'Ha!' I smugly thought as I loaded it all into the car 'there's plenty here to last the little darlings all afternoon'. But you know, I think those teenagers have locust genes. I could not believe it when, after 5 hours (yes, I know ... I'm mad) they'd all gone and so had the food. They left a banana, 2 Jaffa Cakes, and 1 can of coke (so that was my tea covered).

They played on the Wii, watched a movie, larked about and generally had a good time. And that's what counts. Here's a collage to remind No.1 of her 13th:

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Also during that first week in April, we had Easter ... and we still have the Easter Eggs to prove it. I reckon we have enough confectionery here to last my two until at least September, if not Christmas. We enjoyed the Easter holidays very much, meeting up with friends and generally chilling out. The sunshine we had was a lovely bonus. Instead of an egg, my lovely friend 'F' gave me a bunch of roses - they were very beautiful:

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I cannot let this month go by without mentioning the bizarre situation resulting from the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland (the country, not the supermarket). Before this month, I had never heard of Eyjafjallajokull - the volcano which did all the damage. As I'm sure you all know by now, the ash cloud travelled to mainland Europe, where it just 'sat' with winds at too low a force to disperse it. Airspace was closed, resulting in a very eerie feel to the skies for those of us on the ground - there were no vapour trails or sounds from the sky other than birdsong. I liked it. When the aircraft started flying again, it was noticeable immediately.

As we weren't travelling, the situation didn't affect us until it was time for the kids to go back to school after the Easter Holidays. No.2's school was missing the school secretary (stuck in South Africa) and two teachers, but they managed to get supply staff to cover. No.1's school, however, was an entirely different kettle of poisson having so many teachers 'missing in action' that they couldn't cover lessons for all the year groups, every day. Thus, they brought in a 'rota' which saw Years 7-10 missing various days until the staffing situation could be resolved (they quite rightly, made sure that Years 11-13 had a full complement of lessons for their exam courses). As you can imagine, the kids concerned were delighted to have their Easter holidays extended in such novel circumstances.

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Are you, Dear Reader, the sort of person who enjoys the occasional dalliance with a jigsaw puzzle? Or are you, like one of my friends who says she'd rather pull off her own fingernails one by one, than do a jigsaw? The smalls and I are not averse to a spot of interconnecting cardboard pieces, but since we moved here, there is nothing suitable on which to place any puzzle. In the old house we had a dining room, and a dining room table big enough to take a puzzle and still let us eat at it.

Anyway, when my pal 'G' was packing up prior to moving house last month, he came across an old puzzle board: One of those things that allows you to fold away your puzzle and put it under the sofa, safely unbroken. He had no need of this puzzle board, so very kindly passed it our way (thank you G - x), thus the kids and I embarked on a spot of puzzling. The puzzle in question was of England's World Cup winning squad of 1966 (bet you can't guess to whom that puzzle belongs!) It was picked up for the princely sum of £1 at a Charity Shop. We thoroughly enjoyed our endeavours, but ...

How bloody annoying is that?!

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During the Easter holidays this month, HWNLR took the kids up to visit family in Cheshire. Whilst there, he took No.2 to visit the home of his beloved Liverpool FC. Yes, No.2 went to Anfield. I received a phone call from a very excited boy, saying 'You'll never guess where I am, Mum?' It was a brilliant day out for him, and something I'm sure he'll remember forever.

They had a full tour, even visiting the dressing rooms, touching the famous 'This is Anfield' sign in the players' tunnel, and standing at the Kop end; and had a photo taken of him standing beside the statue of Bill Shankly. He returned with a souvenir shirt, a Liverpool money box, and a special coin, all of which are very much treasured.

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Creatively speaking, Mum has been busier than me (just for a change) and made a gorgeous little mini quilt, which is now a wall hanging in her cloakroom:

Pretty, isn't it?

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My birthday comes at the end of the month, and I would normally post a collage to remind me of it, but various stuff has gone on which has kept me too busy to take shots. However, I had a lovely day, have a house full of flowers, some really gorgeous gifts, and would like to thank the friends and family who were responsible for that. xx

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I think that's it for now. I'll leave you with a picture I took this month with a new 'toy'.

In the absence of a 'proper' macro lens (which is something I would like one day, but will have to wait because they cost at least £350 for the cheapest variety) I bought a little gadget that fits on the end of an 'ordinary' lens. The Raynox DCR-250 is both affordable and fun. It is, in effect, a powerful magnifying tool, but one which allows for the kind of DSLR macro shots to which I aspire (I usually use my compact Canon Ixus for macros). For those of you who are interested in photography, this thing will attach to any lens which has a front thread of between 52 and 67mm (and that includes bridge cameras or compacts with bigger lenses).

This is a grape hyacinth (blue muscari) and the shot is straight out of camera. Each of those bells is a mere 8mm long (that's 0.31496063 of an inch for those of you still using 'old money').

I'm going to enjoy this little addition to my kit.

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Technology Competition

I entered another Projected Digital Image competition at Camera Club last month - my second experience of photographic battling on a personal level (as opposed to inter-club contests). I haven't yet entered any of the 'print' competitions - hopefully one day I'll advance to that. Anyway, this latest competition was judged by the Chairman (who is actually a Chairlady) of the Club. Once a year, she (or whoever is Chair) gets to choose a 'theme' for a competition which s/he then judges. This year her theme was 'Technology'. Club members could enter up to three images based on that keyword.

What, Dear Reader, would you photograph if your 'prompt' was the word Technology? At first I was totally stumped, but as I let myself think a bit more laterally, I realised it could cover a whole multitude of life as we live it today. No.1's suggestions was 'computers'; No.2 was keen for me to photograph his toy robot - which as you'll see in a minute, I did. I must have taken well over 50 possible shots for this competition, of everything from a sewing machine (my friend P has a beautiful old Singer and let me take lots of photos of it - thanks P x) to a torch. I took photos of a bike, some ball bearings, a keyboard, a car, some electric lights and some lamps. I looked at all these images over and over again, and just couldn't decide which ones were ok for the competition. I asked a friend for advice - that helped. I asked the kids for advice, and in the end let them make the final decision as the more I thought about it, the less sure I was as to what to do.

This competition wasn't like others - the Judge didn't award marks for each image, instead she spoke about each one (there were 72 entries in all), and then kept some back for the next 'round' - her further consideration.

The first one of mine was this:

It is just some CDs, but placed on top of one another and taken from an angle which allows one to see the light bouncing off the surface. I use CDs (or DVDs) quite a lot for my abstract shots - I love the colours that different light can produce. Anyway, the judge said she liked the composition and the colours, and that it fell well within the remit of 'Technology' (she rejected some images as not quite what she was looking for), and she put it through to the next round.

The second shot of mine was this:

Which is a macro of the front of a halogen light bulb. Again, I like the colours produced by the light (which was behind me as I shot the picture). There is something quite flower-like about this image isn't there? The judge said it was unusual, and she liked it, but she wondered whether the colours could have been a bit more saturated to create an even stronger effect. She put it through to the next round.

And my final shot of the evening was this:

Which I wasn't at all sure about, but the kids both urged me to put forward. It is of No.2's toy robot, taken in low light with a torch shining up at it, to create that shadow behind the robot's form. There is of course some hefty processing involved in this image - some Photoshop filters were used to increase the texture in the background, and the glowing edges of the robot itself (which is in reality just a black and white robot - although it does have luminous red eyes which look quite spooky as it marches towards you). I just felt it might be a bit too 'out there' for a club competition.

The judge liked it, and made special mention of his 'six pack'. She felt it would have been a stronger image if I had included the whole thing right down to his feet rather than concentrating on his top half. She still put it through to the next round.

There were a total of 19 images in the next round, and I was responsible for 3 of those so was very pleased. The judge then looked at all the images again, and gradually whittled them down further to a final four - the first one of mine (of the CDs) was in that four but the others had been discarded. In the end the CD image came 4th, which I felt was pretty good. The images which came first and second would also have been 'my' first and second if I had been judging the competition, although I think I'd have reversed the placings. I am gradually learning that judging is very much a personal thing, and thus that it is something of a lottery, assuming one has all the technical requirements 'right': It will ultimately come down to personal taste.

The next competition I intend to enter is in May - the second round of the competition I entered in February. Wish me luck!

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Broadband & Mobile Phone

Broadband and mobile phones - we all need them, but sorting out the various ramifications of contracts and allowances can be a right royal pain in the backside, can't it?

My broadband contract is up in a couple of weeks, so I have had the obligatory - 'Are you happy with our service, and might you sign up for another year?' phone call from my current provider - O2. I let the guy do his full spiel, and tell me what he was prepared to offer me, and then I said I couldn't talk now as I had to get tea for the kids. :D Poor man - it's not really fair to play with them like that, is it? But I wanted to stall for time and see what I could sort out viz a vis my mobile phone (which is also with O2) before I committed to another year's broadband.

The reality is that I have actually been very happy with the broadband service they provide. When I first started writing this blog, my broadband provider was Virgin. I didn't have a single problem with them until it came to the time (in 2008) for me to move house. We were moving in with Mum for a while (I didn't know how long) so would be using her broadband (which is with TalkTalk). I tried to explain this to Virgin, but they still insisted I continue to pay them the entire monthly fee, to do nothing but retain an email address. I didn't think that was fair, so I terminated the contract.

When we moved here, I had no option but to go with BT broadband as there wasn't even a phone line in the house, which meant no other provider could 'see' the property on their systems. The service from BT was so crubbish, that I didn't even last the whole 12 month contract. The wireless reception from their super-whizzy router would not even hold a connection two rooms away, let alone up a flight or two of stairs. Eight months into that contract, I terminated it and went over to O2 who had won all kinds of awards for their broadband service.

The fact that I'd also got my mobile phone contract with them meant that I paid a discounted price on the broadband. However, it is more expensive than some other providers - I am still waiting for them to 'unbundle' at my local exchange, which will cut my broadband bill considerably. After my last 18 month mobile phone contract with O2 ended, I went over to a rolling month-to-month contract as I had no problem with the phone I was using. The prospect of a new broadband contract though, gave me a bit of extra 'clout' when it came to negotiating on a mobile phone deal.

I blogged a while ago about the whole saga of my previous phone descending into a catatonic state, and the shenanigans involved in getting a replacement. I have had that replacement phone for 17 months now - it's been great: Lovely phone, and I very much like the touch screen. But because that phone was a replacement handset (and a refurbished one at that), it came with no software, leads or 'words' - I had to find my own way with it. I had a mooch round on the net and looks at reviews of all manner of phones, but you know what? I like the one I've got. No.1 is using an old phone of mine (after having broken her previous two - tsk) and has a hankering for a touch screen model. I wondered what sort of deal I could get on a new handset like the one I've got now so I could have a new one and she could have my current one?

I called O2. I told them my broadband deal was 'up' and that if I couldn't get a good phone deal, I'd be taking my custom elsewhere. I told them about the research I'd been doing, which told me that Virgin could offer me 'x' and 'y'; that T-Mobile could offer me 'z' and 'xx'; and that Orange could offer me 'yy' and 'zz' on the same handset. The woman to whom I spoke gave me the words she's allowed to tell me - which weren't competitive words. I said I could do better and would therefore like her to transfer me to the person who could give me my PAC code so I might change to another mobile operator.

I found myself put through to Amy in the Retentions Department. I like the people in these Retention Departments - they know they've got to offer something good, or you're off. She listened to what I had to say. I mentioned Virgin, T-Mobile and Orange. I mentioned the broadband situation. I mentioned that I'd been using a refurbished phone for 17 months. It seemed to do the trick. Amy offered me a brand new Samsung Tocco (F480i), on a 24 month contract, which gives me 250 anytime minutes (to any other networks and landlines), along with unlimited texts for the princely sum of £10 per month.

I liked this deal. I liked Amy. I said 'yes please, I'll take it'. Amy sorted out the dispatch and the new phone was with me a couple of days later. I was busy that day so didn't have time to play with it, but the next day I got it out of its box. I charged and inserted the battery. I inserted my SIM card, and when asked, entered my PIN Code. The phone then presented me with a numerical keypad and said 'Network lock'. Erm ... pardon? I went online and used the O2 'Live chat' facility to chat to a man named Frank. He didn't know what it meant either and advised me to email them, saying I'd get a response within 24 hours. I didn't get a response within 24 hours, so I called them. I spoke to a couple of very helpful chaps who said 'oh dear ... that's not good' and 'that's not something we know how to fix, so we'd better send you a new one'. :(

The new one arrived the next day, and guess what? That had exactly the same problem. I called O2 - they apologised, said 'oh dear' and sent another new one. Guess what again? Yep, the third one had exactly the same fault as the first two. I called O2 again. This time I spoke to Chris in Glasgow. He said there was no point them sending yet another handset as there was obviously 'an issue' with these phones at the Samsung end of things. He said they could send me a different phone if I liked, but I didn't have a second choice. (I've since been doing some research - does anyone reading this have a Nokia 5800 or X6? If so, are you happy with it?)

The situation at the moment is that Chris is going to call me back this week and let me know what's happening. But in the meantime, I am having to use my old phone, which means No.1 didn't get my current phone as her new phone (are you still with me?) for an extra birthday present, as we'd thought.

The chappie from the broadband department called me back a couple of days later, and I accepted his special deal (12 months broadband for the price of 10 months), but I'm not overly happy with O2 at the moment. Can you blame me?

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