Here we go again......

The problem with starting to blog again, having not blogged in over a year is this - do you just start again as if you'd never been away, or are you required to fill your once-loyal readers in with the details of what they've missed over the last year?


You want to know what you've missed?  Really!? OK.....

Not very much.

Seriously, the last 12 months have been notable for almost only one thing.  I found myself again.  Someone finally found the "ON" switch and hauled my sorry ass back from the alternate reality I had been inhabiting for the last 15 years.  However, that one notable event has led to one or two other notable events, some of which I'll tell you about, and some I won't!

But damn, it is good to be back!

New Year, New Blog

Well, not exactly a new blog but having taken most on 2009 out from blogging, I thought it was high time to start again.

The New Year has started on a tiring note. The Parents came to stay. Need I say more? Probably not but I will anyway otherwise there wouldn't be any point in mentioning it would there?

It was an uneventful stay - apart from one of The Parent's whippets ripping off a dew claw this morning and leaving a trail of blood all over the furniture, and doing the "woe is me". No other dog can do "woe is me" quite like a whippet. Nor act as if you were trying to kill them by slow and torturous methods when all you're trying to do is clean the wound and get some vet wrap on it.

Much as I love The Parents dearly, the problem with having visitors is that it is exhausting. You spend two days cleaning, changing beds, washing everything and shopping in preparation for the visit (and why do you always miss that one bloody huge cobweb that should have been obvious?) and then you spend two days in a constant frenzy of cooking, making copious amounts of tea and coffee, clearing up dishes and trying to keep on top of everything. And then, once they leave, you spend two days cleaning, changing beds, washing everything and shopping for more food because you've been eaten out of house and home.

*sighs*

Happy New Year everyone!

Tuesday Challenge #27

Stu's Tuesday Challenge this week is Music.

Playing bagpipes

Tuesday Challenge #26 - Themed Collection

Oooh look! A blog post!!

Apologies for being AWOL but, for several reasons, I took a bit of a blogging summer holiday. Anyway, I'm back now witth the latest of Stu's Tuesday Challenges.....

Your homework, should you choose to accept is to shoot a themed collection. At least ten shots with a common theme running through them. This could be a colour theme, maybe a narrative, or maybe a typology - like the Bechers' work where by keeping everything from lighting and angle as common as possible, the differences in the subject really show up. You could always use one of the previous tuesday challenges as your inspiration.

For my theme, I've taken an alternative look around my garden and picked 10 shots that show pattern and texture.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #25 - Pink

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #24 - Animals

A fairly straightforward theme from Stu this week - Animals.

I had intended to try and capture some of the local wildlife but last Tuesday evening I wrenched my shoulder and it went into spasm. I could barely move for three days so taking photographs was the last thing on my mind.

So I did what I usually do and resorted to what I had to hand. Yep, you guessed!

PAWS

The results are in.

My vet rang me this morning with the results of The Greyhound's liver biopsy.

IT'S ALL CLEAR!!

We are so doing a happy dance!

One of "those" days

So, here we are, it's just a smidge past 11am and the world has gone mad.

I had a bit of a relapse last night and spent most of it curled up on the sofa in tears again so I'm not in the best place emotionally today. The Greyhound has gone into the vets this morning to have his liver biopsy, which is enough of a worry on its own.

On top of that, I arrived at work to find a colleague had accidentally cancelled our web account and now we have no e-mail and no website. I'm paying her son to tidy up my garden for me and so far the strimmer has packed in and the lawn mower has blown up and is billowing smoke.

So bring it on....nothing else today can throw at me can surprise me.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #22 Best of

Stu's Challenge this week is pretty straightforward

The challenge this week is to go through your archive and pick out your best picture so far.

Despite the thousands of pictures I have on my computer and on back-up disc, it took only a split second for me to decide which shot is my best so far. I take a lot of photographs and 80% are crap, 15% are mediocre and the rest are OK. Sometimes I set out to take a particular photograph but the reality of what I shoot never matches up to what I am picturing in my mind's eye. For once, I achieved what I set out to achieve.

Onwards and upwards

Last Friday morning the ex-Himself rang out of the blue to say he wanted to collect the last of his things from the Cottage. He turned up Saturday morning and collected the rest of his furniture and stuff he had stored in the shed. I finally have space to move around and sort the rest of my things out.

This morning I have woken up with a renewed sense of optimism and have set about with gusto re-arranging furniture and moving things where I want them to be. I have a strong need to be out with the old and finally make the Cottage my own.

That part of my life needs to be over.

Another up-date on The Greyhound

My vet is still not happy with The Greyhound's blood tests so she still wants to do a biopsy.

There are two options - she can do it herself but it would mean cutting him open, getting to the liver, and taking the biopsy. Alternatively she can refer me to a specialist vet who can do the biopsy with ultrasound and he may not need full anaesthtic - my vet is to discuss it with the other partners and then speak to the specialist to see how they would do it and get an idea of cost.

Either way, expensive times are ahead methinks.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #20 - Viewfinder Optional

Stu's Challenge this week

From Syl Arena’s Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School…

17. Learn to think of the viewfinder as optional.
If you don’t regularly make photographs without looking through the viewfinder, start today. Learn how your lens sees without looking. Become more spontaneous. Hold your camera up over your head - like a paparazzi. Shoot from the hip (literally). Go for the worm’s-eye view. Stop chimping the LCD after each shot. Try this. Cover the viewfinder and LCD with tape — except where the histogram shows (so you can make good exposure decisions). Then shoot for a day or a week without ever looking through the lens. I’m sure you will come up with many great images that show you the world in a way you haven’t seen before.

So there’s your challenge. Take a bunch of photos without using any kind of viewfinder or checking the images on the rear screen afterwards. Post your best one of the week!

Well this was fun! Although shooting without looking through the viewfinder did mean a lot of shots of things at some very odd angles and not getting in the image what I thought I was getting! I decided to get down to ground level and this is my favourite of the ones I took this week.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #19 - Weather

In by the skin of my teeth!

Our Challenge this week is:

This week, your task is to capture the weather. It doesn’t matter if it’s sunny or raining, or snowing for that matter. Try not to just take a picture of the sky… look for some other subjects to go in the frame to support your choice of conditions.

With the bank holiday weekend coming up, there should be lots of opportunity for storms, rain, hail, sleet…

We had some great weather for this challenge in the days leading to Stu announcing it, since then it's been nothing but sunshine. Which has been lovely, but not brilliant for getting any dramatic weather shots. So with a little artistic licence, this is my weather shot.....

Raindrop

Up-date on The Greyhound

Thank you all so much for asking after The Greyhound, and my apologies for not up-dating you.

The Bile Acid Stimulation test came back normal. Which is good. Sort of. But it still leaves the question of what is wrong with his liver unanswered.

The Greyhound had been getting much calmer than normal in the weeks leading up to this but I had put that down to the fact that he is starting to grow up and mature. Wrong! My vet had put him on a course of antibiotics and liver strengthening pills and one of them certainly did the trick because he was back to his normal bouncy, idiotic self. Because of this, my vet decided to hold off on the biopsy for a few weeks and redo the bloods once he'd finished his course of tablets.

And that's where we were. Until yesterday. When I got home last night he had weed in the house again and the amount he is drinking is also on the increase. So I need to speak to my vet again today and see where she wants to go from here. Whatever the problem, it's still there and I think the biopsy is going to be inevitable.

Hello? Hello? Anybody there?

Hello Blogland!

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here lately but I've had rather a lot on my plate and blogging has had to take a back seat for a while. Plus I had some stuff in my head that needed sorting out. Actually, it still does need sorting out, I just don't care quite so much these days. Not in a "don't care" don't care sort of way, just that I am trying to be a bit more chilled about things.

I have a habit of over-analysis sometimes. I have a pathological need to know why my thoughts and emotions about issues I might have take the direction they do and why I'm thinking what I'm thinking in the first place. It ends up seriously stressing me out.

I also get stressed out about things that I need to get done - and don't. I'm having a few problems with my thyroid medication at the moment which is leaving me with an over-whelming feeling of intertia.

So I am taking a step back from my thoughts and concerns, and I am trying to look at them more objectively. I am trying to be rational about them.

I have found a quiet place in my head that I retreat to when I find myself going into analysis mode. Somewhere that is blocked off from my more irrational feelings. Somewhere where I can see things a little more clearly.

And I do believe it's working. I am feeling much more comfortable in my skin and with my thoughts. I am much more at ease with myself and I find that the less stressed I am about things, the more I seem to get done.

Two birds one stone then. Always a bonus.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #17 - Decisive Moment

Stu's Challenge this week

Fast shutter speeds are the order of the day. Capture that split second in time. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for ever.

This week, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to capture a frozen image of a moment in time. An image that will never be seen exactly the same again. That point at the peak of the action.

OK, not my best ever effort for a number of reasons but mainly because the first idea I had didn't come off and I ran out of time. So I was back to using what I had around me. Oh. That'll be a Lurcher again then!

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #16 Creepy Crawly Close-Up

Stu's Tuesday Challenge this week is

Your challenge is to take a picture of a creepy-crawly - spider, insect, etc. Preferably a real one, and preferably close-up enough to make out detail. Preferably artistically pleasing rather than just a documentary shot.

Oooh goody! Time to get the macro lens out then!

It started with crap....

....and it's getting crappier by the minute.

Sunday morning, up with the lark. Shit, showered and shaved....well, OK, maybe not the shaved bit, dressed and The Hounds walked by 9am. At the Sunday market by 9.30.

Now for some reason, the people who run the market have decided to hold a car boot sale on the same site, at the same time. Given that the site the car boot sale occupies is usually a parking area for the market, they have had to open up the arena next door for parking. To get out of there you have to walk through a long tunnel under the buildings. As I walk through, something landed on me. It felt like someone had dropped a load of pebbles on me. Except it wasn't pebbles. It was bird shit.

I have no idea what bird was perching up there but judging by the amount of crap it produced, it was big. Possibly a vulture or something. Maybe. Anyway, more to the point, it's crap was all over my clean shirt, my jeans, my hair, my bag, inside my bag....and it was gross. I cleaned up as much as I could and bought a cheap t-shirt in the market to change into.

My mood plummetted.

Sunday afternoon I sat down to do some work on the Greyhound Gap 07/08 accounts. We do a lot through Paypal and I had to breakdown every payment we'd received for the year into different categories. Three and a half hours it took me. I started to put the breakdown onto the main spreadsheet but the figures didn't match. Odd. Looked again at the Paypal spreadsheet.....then this burning feeling just started at the tip of my toes and worked it's way up until my head exploded. I stared at the computer screen not quite sure if I could believe what was staring me in the face.

I had spent three and a half hours working on the 06/07 Paypal account instead of the 07/08.

I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, scream or get raging drunk. For the first time in my life I had rendered myself speechless.

Last week I had to take The Greyhound to the vet. He had weed in the house twice, despite having been spotless since the day he arrived, and was drinking so much water that it was obvious something was wrong. I managed to get a urine sample from him and walking in, clutching that, gave my vet some clue as to what I was there for. Like me, she suspected a urine infection of some kind and, indeeed, the tests she did on the sample did show some blood in there. But she was slightly concerned about the amount he was drinking so took bloods to send off as well.

The results came back yesterday. No bacteria or crystals but there were significantly elevated liver levels and a slightly higher than normal creatinine level in his kidneys. That "significantly" gave me a bit of a wibble.

He went in for an Acid Bile Stimulation test today - that means he was starved for 12 hours overnight, they took bloods first thing this morning then fed him a fatty meal and then took more bloods - that will indicate how well his liver is actually functioning and the results of that come back next week. Whilst he was in, they also did an ultrasound scan. The scan is showing that, whilst not enlarged, his liver is much denser than normal.

At the moment we have no idea what this may indicate. It could just be some sort of blip and all will return to normal, or it might not. Depending on what the test results indicate, the next step will be a biopsy.

This week is getting crappier by the minute....

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #15

It's jsut as well Stu is handing out these challenges or it's very likely I would have disappeared off the edge of the blogoshpere. But remind me to tell you about my day today........

Anyway, I digress. Stu's challenge this week was to take between 3 and 9 pictures which tell a story. They should be edited into the space of a single picture.
OK. Sounds easy doesn't it? My problem? Lack of imagination. End of. So I worked with what I have. Lurchers.

I can't say this tells a particulary enthralling story, as I said, my imagination is not my strongest point.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge #14 - Run Away!

This week Stu's Challenge was to set the camera onto the 10 second timer, press the shutter release.....and run away!

The challenge for me this week was to find somewhere to do this. It should have been somewhere with at least some interesting terrain but, living in London, there was no way I was running away from my camera for even 10 seconds. It wouldn't have been there when I got back! So it's a bit of a poorly effort from me this week...but I did have two lurchers running with me trying to trip me up....