Monthly Round Up (October '10)

Well, wherever did October go?! I don't know about anyone reading, but I seem to have been busy the whole month long - which in a way is good, but doesn't really leave much time for things like blogging. Apologies for the dearth of posts - I seem to be saying that a lot lately, don't I? Oh well - here we go.

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The month began on a slightly surreal note, when, after picking up No.2 from school, we went into town to get a few bits and pieces. I parked the car in Waitrose car park, and as I got out, a woman in another car wound down her window and attracted my attention. She wanted to know what I thought about the sight of another lady, inside her car, slumped over the steering wheel. :-O We both approached the slumped lady's car and peered in through the windows .. she was breathing. Was she ill, or just asleep, the other lady asked? Erm ... I didn't know. We agreed that perhaps the best thing to do was to tell a member of staff in Waitrose, so I wrote down the car number plate (and make, colour, etc.) and ventured into the store.

The supervisory person thanked me for showing concern and despatched a minion to knock on the car window, to try to ascertain the slumpee's condition. I would quite liked to have seen what happened, but had an urgent prescription to collect from Boots, so wandered off to get that. After that, No.2 and I did a bit of food shopping in Waitrose, and tentatively approached the car park. The slumpee was no longer there but her car remained! I presume the minion had woken her from a nice nap, and she'd gone off to do her shopping. It's not every day you see a slumped person at 4.30pm on a Thursday, is it? I hope I did the right thing - what would you have done, Dear Reader?

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I want to give a shout here to Emma from Silverpebble's new Flickr Group and winter 'project' called 'Splash of Colour'. She, like many of us, struggles a bit with what can be the dreary difficulties of winter, but has discovered that colour can give her, as with many of us, a huge lift to the spirits. To that end, she is asking that bloggers who wish to take part, post something colourful during the first week of the next 4 months, so fellow bloggers can have something via which to achieve cheeriness.

It's a lovely idea, and one from which I'm sure I can benefit. I have joined her Flickr group, and added some of my colourful pictures. I thought I'd post about it here, in case anyone else might want to join in? Here's a colourful picture which resulted from the kids indulging in a baking session at half term ... I think there was more decoration than cake!

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I have had a little wrangle with PayPal this month. To cut a long story short, because Santander have taken over the Alliance & Leicester Bank, with whom I have banked for many years in a mutually peaceful fashion, the sort code I use for direct debits has changed. Instead of pointing this out to me, what did PayPal do? They told me they could no longer offer me their service(s) because my bank account was closed. Erm, no, it's not. I called the bank. It turns out I am but one in millions of Alliance & Leicester customers to whom this has happened.

I had to remove my old account details from PayPal and go through the whole procedure for adding a new one. Then wait days for them to deposit their little balances in my account for me to verify that this was indeed my account, and thereby resume my ability to use their services. It's not a huge deal in the great scheme of things, but I do like to use PayPal when it's available as it means one doesn't have to divulge financial details to yet another website. I guess it was just one of those little niggles which make life more complicated than it perhaps needs to be. I'm starting to sound like one of those 'Grumpy Old Women' on the TV series, aren't I?

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I did a teeny bit of sewing this month ... what a shock to the system! I don't seem to have done any for ages. It wasn't 'normal' sewing however. Do you, Dear Reader have the 'new' system of bins that we have here in my parts? We now have a large grey wheelie bin for non-recyclable rubbish, a large green wheelie bin for recyclables, a smaller bin for food waste (which now has to be placed in fully biodegradable corn starch liners) and an even smaller food 'caddy' to be lined by said corn starch liners, and kept in the kitchen. Before the new system started (earlier this month) we were sent information from the local Council so we knew what to do. In practice, it has been a learning curve but we're getting there.

Anyway, I needed to do something to personalise our bins. Some neighbours put their number on their bins with white paint. Others bought stick-on numbers. I didn't want to do that, I wanted something different. But what? In the end, I plumped for stripey handles. I was inspired by the textile graffiti I've seen online, and went off to inspect my sock monkey supply box - which remains full of socks for sock monkey and other sock creature potential - for what I needed. A little bit of cutting and sewing later, and all my bins are now instantly recognisable (and matching ... I used knee-length socks :D )

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My postman made me laugh this month. We have a variety of postmen and -ladies but I'm always happy when it's Kev: he is friendly and chatty and one of those people who is just 'nice'. Anyway, I am the parcel-taker-inner where we live simply because I'm at home more often than our neighbours. It is not unusual for me to take in parcels for one neighbour or another every day in any week, and I don't mind a bit. There is one particular neighbour for whom I take in quite a few - he seems to get a lot of 'stuff' via mail order. He is a single bloke who lives alone, and seems very shy; doesn't often make eye contact if I say 'hello'. I have no idea what he does for a living, or anything about him other than that he regularly throws back the footballs which No.2 kicks into his garden.

One day this month, Kev the postman knocked on the door and asked me to take in a couple of parcels: one for next door and one for the shy man. 'Blimey ... that's heavy!' I remarked on taking a large, parcel-taped parcel. 'Do you know anything about him?' asked Kev, referring to the adressee of said parcel. I had to admit, I didn't. Kev then said a couple of the lads at the Sorting Office think he (the shy man) is a cross dresser. Apparently, one of the parcels split open one day to reveal the contents ... a rather fetching dress! I'm not sure I'll ever view the shy man in the same way ever again, for wondering what he'd look like in a blue shift, or perhaps a maroon shirtwaister? When he came to pick up the latest parcel he told me he'd rather collect them from the Sorting Office in future, and has told them not to leave any more of his parcels with me. So, I won't be taking in any more of his twin sets parcels.

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This month has seen No.2's birthday. Another one. This year he broke with tradition, not having a football party as he has done for the previous three years. This year he took a couple of pals to Laser Quest where they could run around and shoot one another to their hearts' content. And because it was his birthday on his school's INSET day (sometimes referred to as 'Insect Day' or even 'Incest Day'), they turned out to be the only people there. At all! They came back here for a birthday tea and the pals stayed for a sleepover (stayawakechattingandgigglingover) after which I was totally knackered due to the boys not sleeping much at all, in turn causing me not to sleep much at all. He requested a chocolate cake for his birthday cake ... this is it.

It didn't last long! Anyway, the main thing is that he had a good birthday. His main present was a new bike (have you seen the price of bikes these days?!) but he had other bits and pieces. Here's his birthday collage.

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I think the fact that it was No.2's birthday, and half term is probably the main reason I've been so busy this month. Then of course there is Halloween. We bought a 'monster' pumpkin from Sainsbury's and carved it just this morning. Normally we are a bit more organised, but never mind. (This pumpkin was quite a smelly one - we had to keep it outside in the garden prior to carving because its scent pervaded the whole of downstairs).

This year's offering is a bit of an ugly brute - and is named Norman:

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I'd like to thank those of you who left kind and supportive comments on my September round up. The clouds have continued to be cloudy through October, and there were days that were rather challenging. Hopefully, things will start to look up soon. Thank you all again - xxx.

I'll leave you with an image I took this month - I love this tree. It stands all alone at a local place to where I retreat when life is tough and I need a personal time out.

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Round 3

Last month saw the third (and final) round of the Open Subject Digitial Projected Image Competition (blimey, what a mouthful) at Camera Club.  As you may or may not remember, I had done surprisingly well in Rounds 1 and 2, and before the start of Round 3, was lying in second place overall by a single point.

The guy in first place at the end of Round 2 now lives overseas, but because he was such a valued member of the club for many years, he has been granted a special 'overseas membership' to enable him to continue to partake in Club contests.  We recently had a presentation he'd prepared and sent over via the interweb - the man takes stunning pictures.  As I sat and watched his presentation, I was pretty sure there was no way I would ever be able to overtake him in the final round of the competition.

Anyway, the week before the competition, I handed in my memory stick containing my three images.  Nobody seemed to know much about the judge on that evening so it was anyone's guess what sort of images he'd like.

My first image that evening was this one:

 

(I love that the new Blogger can make super big pictures!)

The Judge said it was pleasing, he liked the way that the yellow flowers (it was actually ragwort) were in varying degrees of sharpness, or not as the case may be.  He liked the positioning of the bee within the frame but said it wasn't as sharp as another shot that evening of an insect. (It was one of a fly, which was really terrific).  He gave the image 17 points out of a possible 20.

My second image was this one:

The Judge said it was a very sensual image, and that the author (that's what they call the person who 'took' the image) should perhaps send it to an ice cream manufacturer as he found it made him think of ice cream ... and want to eat some!  He liked the way that although we knew it was a rose, it was quite abstract because we couldn't see the 'outside' of the flower 'head'.  He asked to keep this image back for further consideration later.

My third image for this competition was this one:

The judge liked that the squirrel was so nice and sharp, and that we could see texture in the tree.  He also liked the out of focus background.  However, he felt the lefthand third of the image was perhaps a bit redundant and said he would have preferred it with a more severe crop of that side.  (Ironically, I did consider that myself, but when I tried it, I felt the picture lacked balance.  I couldn't say that of course, as one just has to sit and listen.)  He gave this image - just like the first one - 17 points.

After he had marked all the images, he asked to see again the ones he had kept back for further consideration.  There were around 9 of them that evening (out of a total of 60 images) and these were the ones which would be getting the highest mark(s).  Unfortunately, I had to leave before he got to my rose shot, to go and pick up No.1 from somewhere, so I didn't get to hear any further comments he might have made about it.  A friend from Camera Club very kindly messaged me when he got home to let me know the Judge had awarded it 19 points, which gave me a grand total of 53 points.  Again! I got the same score for all three rounds of the competition: 9 different images, in front of 3 different judges.  I had come third on the night.

I assumed that the chap from overseas was the outright winner of the competition, but no. It turns out that another guy came from behind us both, with some particularly beautiful images, and took the winner's spot.  Congratulations to PK - he had some fantastic shots.

As for me, well I wasn't too unhappy with the final outcome.  This was my very first attempt at photographic competition, and to have achieved 53 points out of a possible 60 on three separate occasions seemed like a pretty good result to me.  For a while there, it seemed like I might actually win the darned thing - which would have been rather shocking to me.  But in the end I came second behind PK ... by one point!  The overseas blokey came third - two points behind me.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience, and I am more than encouraged enough to enter it again next year - assuming I have some images which I feel are good enough.  Thanks to all my bloggy friends for their support - it was very much appreciated - x.

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