……sculpture by David!

(Or Home is where the Heart is….)

Safely home and away from the misery of the last couple of days, I feel myself coming alive again. I’ve still been working really hard but it never seems so bad when I’m here somehow, technical problems aside.

For the second weekend in a row, we’ve been out and had a fantastic evening with our friends. Last weekend we were out with my folks, Alan and Dee in a wonderful small intimate restaurant in our local town. That place may be the only restaurant in town (apart from the curry house) but it would stand out in a crowd for its excellence if there was a crowd for it to stand out in!!

Tonight we were out with our friends Iain and Becks who wanted to take us out as a ‘thanks’ for the biker babe gear that I gave to Becks, having finally decided that I’m really never going to get on a bike again. She’s got my crash helmet and my waterproof trousers so she’s delighted and I’m pretty pleased they’re going to a good home as they say. Now the only items left for me find a home for are the boots. Ebay here I come…….

Every time we spend an evening with them we are all shocked at how quickly the end of the evening races towards us. There are no quiet moments or awkward pauses, the evening flashes past in a whirl of banter and laughter. They are good friends indeed.

I did take out my camera with me, with an f1.8 lens but I didn’t even think about getting it out of my handbag because there was so much else to do and to think about. So, I got home with no pic and feeling decidedly cavalier (which could have had something to do with the beer, wine and port but we won’t go there…). I’m on a mission to try to raise my own bar in terms of pics, as I’ve said before – last year’s gallery was….well not to put too fine a point on it, pretty crap in terms of pics really. I’m quite pleased with progress so far, looking back, there are really not that many complete duffers and some of them are actually quite good (in my own view anyway).

This year’s pics have clawed my way back up the technical ladder a bit but they are a bit ‘soul-less’ really on the whole and that’s what I’ve always thought of as my key strength so that’s where I now see myself needing to rebuild my efforts.

So, I hit on an idea that was bordering on the insane given that the temperature was below zero, it was pitch dark, very late and it’s been snowing here on and off all day. I put my camera on the tripod, grabbed a couple of torches and set off to the secret garden (I cannot express adequately how much I love having a secret garden, it’s utterly fabulous).

One torch lit my work area, where I framed my shot, set up my camera and ‘started from’ while the other lit the heart, going round and round its edges throughout the thirty second exposure. But, the shot really started to zing when DM came out to give me a kiss, see what I was doing and helpfully he said ‘why not try running around it rather than you staying stationary’ so I did. His inspired advice transformed the final pic because the ones I’d done before his contribution had ambient light in the centre of the heart, from where the beam passed over it on its way to the stones on the far side. When I walked the torch round it, I managed to cut out that and ended up with this. I’m thrilled with it.

The heart is my perfect Valentine’s Day gift from my perfect valentine – completely valueless in terms of it being a few bits of granite from lying around in the garden and some twigs but absolutely priceless in its sentiment. Thank you DM.

Jeanne – he wanted me to photograph this on the day to show you that he’s following along in Tony’s footsteps but I declined on the basis that the meta-gallery would be full of ‘hearts and flowers’….I’m glad I waited for this inspiration because this does it so much more justice than I’d have done for it on that day.

Last year, I found myself eating my words....on the day I'd been pontificating about the correct use of spelling, discovered I'd been pilloried on Edwyn Collins's website's message board because someone thought it was hilarious that I claimed to be a long-time fan yet I'd mis-spelled his name on my gallery of pics of one of his gigs...just goes to show, you can't be too careful and on the bright side, the person did say the pics were fab!!!