It's snowing again!

Very unusual to snow this much in England. It's not great in the sense that we can't drive anywhere when it snows because we live on a hill now and English towns can't cope with snow well; it takes days for the gritters to reach this area (about half a mile from the very centre of the town!) and by then the snow has melted anyway.

BUT it IS great because it looks so pretty! Ha! Here are a few shots I took when we went out with Zebedee this afternoon.















I don't think this taxi will be doing any business today:
(This shot was taken through a foggy lense... Top tip for winter photography: You might think it's a good idea to put your camera under your coat to shield it from the snow in between shooting, but don't - you will risk getting condensation inside your lense.)



Oh, go on - one more tree, 'cause I love them.

Teddy

Meet Teddy, a five month old pointer. Lovely little rascal, he is.



A couple of weeks ago we came across Teddy (and Roz) at Stanmer Park, and as Zebedee and Teddy were having such great time playing together, I asked Roz whether we could meet up again some time. And today we did. Here they are scampering together in the woods.



It's funny how sometimes puppies look like puppies, but sometime you can catch them looking very much like adult dogs. Like here:



And the next second they look like puppies again.



Zed was being a little too "assertive" at times today when the two were play fighting. Most likely due to the fact that he didn't get a proper long walk yesterday, and he was frustrated and full of repressed energy. Or he just took a revenge on me for not giving him his daily quota of outdoor exercise yesterday.



Not that Teddy minded Zebedee's rough play. He just ran back for more time after time. Mostly they played nicely, though.






Teddy had the cheek to go and pick up Zebedee's ball, so he really wasn't intimidated by Zed's bossing around.



...although he wasn't so sure anymore when he saw that Zed had noticed what he'd done...!



Haha, what a cute little doggie. Just look at this silly face, caught mid-run.



We hope to see Teddy again soon. :-)

Bathroom exhibition

Finally we got round to putting the last wall of our bathroom into good use. Here it is - a bathroom exhibition of my photography:

Women in Photography

I came across a wonderful web site today: http://www.wipnyc.org/

Some exceptionally good, inspiring photography. Enjoy!

E-Kagen, the best value Japanese restaurant in England

I have had a very bad conscious for about six months now. I've been a terrible person. I offered to take food photos for a restaurant that I really like, and even said that I could make them a little web site - just because I like their restaurant so much and think that it deserves more publicity.

The horrible thing is that so far I haven't managed to do anything else than take some photos and buy a domain for them. Well, that is going to change soon! Here are some photos that I'm going to use for their web site (http://www.e-kagen.co.uk/)






















...more to come...

Little wren

My long lense (Canon 100-400mm) always attracts attention wherever it goes. Today I was walking Zebedee (and the lense) in Stanmer Park when yet another person commented: "Wow, that's a big camera!" I said that I had it with me in case I saw some birds during my walk. And complained that I rarely see ANY in Stanmer Park, apart from magpies and the odd robin. To my surprise they replied that they often see green woodpeckers and many other birds there. The bastards. So I decided to make a special effort today to spot any other birds than magpies.

Pretty futile effort. First was this:



Yeah, there's a great tit there. Honest. For about 1.2 seconds, and then it flew into the top branches of the tallest trees. I only got this one, extremely crap photo.



I've seen tits before in Stanmer Park, but always so high up in the trees that there has been no way to get a photo of them.

Then, a little later, I saw a bird that I haven't seen in Stanmer Park before.



Let's zoom in.



Hey, it's a cute little wren. I think I've spotted wren only once or twice before in England, although apparently they are quite common here. They are very rare in Finland, and I never saw one there, so I get pretty excited when I see one. I remember just HOW excited I was to see the first one ever. Let me tell you first that I remember wrens from the big bird book we used to have in our home when I was a kid; the little wren with its funny little upturned tail. I always thought it was a strange but cute little bird that I would probably never see in the wild. Who would have thought that the first time I see one in "nature" was going to be 30 years later in the middle of the City of London, hopping along in a flower bed that I was staring at absent-mindedly while taking a ciggie break from work (looking after the London branch servers of the largest Japanese bank).



It was the first time I HEARD a wren today. Its song is quite loud given the size of the bird!



Well, that was it for birds on today's hour long walk. We had to hurry home in order to drive to London, but on the way back to the car Zebedee found some (probably) fox poo to roll in. Nice. The stinky so-and-so.

Christmas Eve

It's Xmas! I can't wait to see what Santa has brought me! But, crap... we have agreed to do it the English way and open the presents on Xmas Day! Rubbish! If this was Finland I would have opened my first present as soon as I woke up on Xmas Eve! Or at least I'd rattled all my presents in an attempt to find out what was in them! Not fair!