On Wednesday morning I shut my laptop down, went to work and opened it again to listen to some very unhealthy clunky noises. After about 10 tries to get the thing booted it became apparent that the hard drive had died a death. There was no warning at all.

Luckily I have had it instilled into me to make sure I have back ups and haven't lost one single customer photo as they are all stored on an external hard drive. I do regular back ups to another hard drive of the whole computer but unfortunately the last one of those that I did was about 2 weeks ago.

During the next couple of days I kept getting flashbacks to things that I had lost. My RapidWeaver was all out of date - the last copy I had was away at the beginning of March. All my iCal appointments were gone and my really-well-kept-up-to-date-Address Book with ALL my customers' details was gone too. . . All the recent bookmarks in Firefox including a pile of sites I had browsed through for HND research.

However, after a little looking around the Back Up Hard Drive I was able to get the NetNewsWire RSS feeds up and going again on the second Powerbook I bought second hand a while back. I have managed, to my great relief, to get both the iCal and Address Book sorted too. There is no way to get the lost Firefox stuff but that is hardly all that important.

I had to copy and paste a pile of blog entries back in to RapidWeaver and all the time I was doing that I was having a little whisper in my ear along the lines of "WordPress wouldn't do this to you . . " I would very much have liked not to have had to do that - or - at least be able to convert the entries that were there in my web space back in to RW format but as there was no immediately easy way to do that I just did good old copy and paste and had the job done in 30 minutes.

For the life of me I can not find how to magically re-install all my favourites in Transmit - I just have to add them as I need them - I only had about 9 or 10 of them and the forums say that you have to export before you can import (NetNewsWire used the latest .plist) but as I don't have access to the old version to export in the first place it is back to the good old "adding as I need them" version. I still have the back up version if anyone can come up with a way to do this.

I am just so thankful I have all my customer photos. I lost a few sessions of Dog and Children photos - but one lot has turned up on a memory card already and there is a possibility a second lot might still be on another card. But I still have both the dog and the children so more photos can be taken later. And it was only the photos taken within a two week period as well!

I am annoyed that I have had yet another problem with the Powerbook. A few months ago it developed a white line down the left hand side of the screen, effectively making it a 15.5 inch screen instead of a 17 inch one. It was because of this that I obtained the second machine. I am annoyed that the hard drive failed with absolutely no warning - it was working literally 25 minutes before it died.

Obviously a new hard drive would be required. Iain isn't squeamish when it comes to taking things apart and yesterday we spent the whole day taking both Powerbooks apart to swap the hard drives over. We put the faulty one (100 gb) in the 60gb machine and it still didn't work and we put the 60gb hd in the 100gb machine and it DID work so there is no problem with the actual machine - just the hard drive. We also took the opportunity to swap out the PRAM battery in the 60gb machine that I had bought second hand from the American guy a while back - you may remember the rant about him abusing the Unpaid Fee Dispute malarkey.

The *new* PRAM thing is still under investigation. I am not sure the new one is any better then the older one but time will tell - it may very well get better - it may very well be older than the one I already had!

I have ordered a new hard drive off eBay - going up to a 160gb this time - I wont use it all of course as I found it easy to stay less than half full on the 100gb but - I may as well have it.

Thankfully this has all come at a time when I had just finished four big orders for customers and wasn't going to need to be online or up and running for a couple of days - so often these things hit the fan when you are under pressure and just have to have a computer. If that had been the case I am afraid I would have just driven straight to PC World and not passed Go nor collected £200 and arrived home with a new MacBookPro. Can you imagine Iain's face THEN?

At the crucial moment of trying to get the thing up and running again I had Jacqui on the phone talking me through holding the C button down while rebooting etc (and whatever else Google threw at her) and that was a great help, of course, but apart from that I have managed getting all the other stuff up and running on my own and think this is a great testament to just how geeky I have become recently. I am mighty proud of myself.

I am also, finally, pleased that I had the second Powerbook in place to move on to. I worked hard a few weeks ago to get this one up to speed with all the programs I would be needing and although it is a 1ghz rather than the 1.67ghz of the other one, so far I haven't noticed any great difference between the two. I had 57 photos open on it last night in Photoshop and it didn't seem to feel the strain at all even though it is a lessor spec AND an older machine.

At the hospital the other night, when filling Papa in with the latest news I was cowed to have to tell him the mighty Powerbook had died. His response was "Apple? Apple? Really?" I suppose the only thing to remember is that that machine was both my work and my hobby and regularly was on for hours at a time - I suppose I was asking too much of it.

But a little warning would have been nice.

We have had a fraught few months with Nanna.

Before Christmas she experienced symptoms and very quickly (relatively quickly - these things drag so much more in your mind than they do in real life) was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer. She was assured that this was the "best kind of cancer to have" as if that was going to be some comfort to her. She had to go for a very scary MRI and endure months of knowing there was something inside of her that she didn't want to be there - however, the idea of having it removed scared her as much as keeping it.

She was finally scheduled for an operation this week and has been in and out again having had keyhole surgery at hospital. We can't really believe that she rang our work today to say that she was home already. Obviously she has to take things very easy over the next while and wont be allowed to do anything heavy like housework or driving but we were gearing ourselves up to having a few more evenings of visits ahead of ourselves.

She has been very brave about it all and coped so much better than I would have. I think this has been a bit of a shock to us all - you kinda take people for granted until something like this happens don't you?

The moral of this story is not to sit with symptoms for too long. The doctors have said that she acted very quickly and that wont have done any harm.

The next wee while will see her receiving biopsy news but going on what they have already led her to believe that should go ok. Everyone has their fingers crossed.

You think that if she is home today that there will soup at her house tomorrow huh?

Threadless have printed The Communist Party as a hoody . . . There are still plenty in stock . . . Hopefully there will still be plenty in stock when I have money in my account. I need a new red hoody I think.

It is about time Threadless took Paypal. How rude is that?

Bad news on the Ronnie front. My mother took him back to the vet because he took a turn for the worse and he didn't come home with her this time. He is being cremated and here's hoping we don't have to attend any memorial for him when the ashes are scattered.

Speaking to my brother tonight on the phone about the cremation he wondered if they would consider a Buy One Get One Free deal . . . . See? It isn't just me who feels this way! At least I got her a Mother's Day present. And a card. He didn't even bother to ring her. What kind of son is he? :P

In a bizarre twist of weirdness, my mother's *other* dog, the one who went with the disappearing husband when he ran off with her best friend (oh yes - what a blog that would make!), the other dog called Katie, who she hasn't seen for ten years - wow how time flies - Katie - that dog - she had to be put down on the same day. How bizarre is THAT?

There has to be a common denominator here some where.

Huh uh.

I rest my case.

The Afternoon Delight Hoody is finally here. It isn't this light blue colour - it is navy blue which is a much better colour for a hoody. Makes the while motif stand out much better too!

I can not wait to wear it - it is going on me tomorrow and not coming off for . . . well . . . maybe until bed time!

This week I had Jessica asking me if I could pick them up from school some day soon. I chose Friday, worked from home in the morning and then picked them up from school and headed out to a local park to meet up with Lorna, Ethan and Caitlin. We took Bailey and walked round to the enclosed fort. We stayed in there until someone came to throw us out. We then headed on round the lake, claiming logs as we went.

It was a lovely day with great light and I am happy with some of the photos I got. I think this one was my favourite. On this photo on Flickr I have inserted:

Jessica fell in love with this tree and demanded that I take her photo at it. When I wandered off she ran up to me and took me by the hand to pull me back to take more photos. I think this is great. I am really chuffed at this. As a child of a photographer I HATE getting my photo taken and would never ask for it to be taken so am pleased that I have done something right by not having scared her off YET.

I love this one of Bailey too. This was the first time he had been with us near water. He did very well paddling in it but hasn't quite grasped the idea of "fetch" yet and didn't go swimming despite Ethan's best efforts.

Ethan now has his own Flickr account and every single photo that he or Lorna took was accompanied with what could be written beside the photo when it was uploaded. I like a guy who can forward plan!

We finished the day by getting chips from the chip VAN in the village that is too posh to allow a chip SHOP to open. Judging from the queue, a chip shop would make a killing, financially speaking, of course.

Please go and check out the original site

The weird thing is: I am currently doing about four of these things. I'll leave that little thought with you.

Back in the days when I worked a real job and had a real boss and made real money I worked in an office with another girl and our boss. But that is a whole other blog in itself.

My boss, let's call him Mervyn, cos, well, that is his name, had a few sayings that I had never heard before. One day someone annoyed us, pulled a flanker on us and generally pissed us off doing something sneaky.

Mervyn pacified us by saying "We'll get him in the Long Grass."

It became a bit of a saying for us in the office. It was one saying that stuck with me and I still think it now and then when someone messes with me.

Currently there are several people who will have to watch out when they find themselves in the Long Grass.

You see. The threat is enough. It is enough to say it. You don't actually have to do anything. It is satisfaction enough that some day there will be Long Grass for that person and they will . . . ok - you get the idea. It is very similar to "Long Runs The Fox" and not to be mixed up as "Long Runs The Fox In The Long Grass."

There is a photographer, local to me who, technically, ought to be my competition. He was a customer of Iain's long before I was a photographer so when he called in one day to say Hi, I chatted away to him and gleaned as much information from him as I could. I know where he gets his photos printed and who he orders his albums from and what associations he belongs to but he knows nothing much about me.

He proudly showed off a couple of wedding albums one time and although I can't really fault his work, I also wouldn't recommend it either. If I have to turn down a wedding, it would never occur to recommend him.

The shop next door has recently put a large tv on display above the checkout. You know the type. It carries PowerPoint presentations advertising various companies and to my absolute shock one day I noticed an advert for HIM in there. I was speechless! How RUDE. This shop is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to me! He couldn't have been any closer unless he plastered an advert across my own shop window.

After a while I decided that it must be a "blanket coverage" - all the local shops would carry the same advert and he would have had no knowledge of where they were positioned.

Ok, I know there is clever marketing and all that - but he relies on Iain for his phones and, well, there is a bit of "not pissing off your friends" to be done here I think!

He called today to see Iain. I was up to my ears with work and when Iain came in to see if I wanted to talk to the guy I told him flat I had no time and would catch him next time.

Four minutes later he was standing in front of me talking to me.

We chatted about how business has been. He told me how busy he is, I told him nothing. He told me how many weddings he has on, I told him nothing.

Finally he asked me about advertising - how much I do, how much I spend on it. I told him nothing!! But he admitted that he had taken out a contract to advertise "next door" and he knew that he had had NO referrals from it in the time it had been live. (Oh dear how sad.) He made it clear that he knew it was only going to be on the one machine. Like, DUDE! Next door to me? And now you are looking for sympathy from me? Seriously?

I wondered how much he had paid for it - there was no point in me doing it in THAT shop - but it would be good to know - I didn't have to wait long before he spilled the beans. £65.

Hmm. . . £65 a year wasn't bad - might be worth it. You only get so many seconds and so many times a day but wait, he is still talking - saying something about months, tune back in, what is he saying?

£65 a MONTH?

I fought (and won) the urge to snort out loud. The sound that I DID make I blamed on the dog. And got away with it.

He said he is really disappointed with the response, or lack thereof. He also said it was a silly commitment for him to make but he thought that if he only got one wedding out of it he would be quids ahead. He is going to contact the company and ask to get out of the year long deal a few months early. Good luck with that.

Remember the money I saved on the Lotto? Not playing the Lotto over the past few years has saved me £905. Add the £780 I have just saved by not advertising next door and I think I owe myself a pat on the back AND a new camera!

And that, is him, having been caught in the Long Grass. Mervyn would be very satisfied.

I have a small confession to make.

I find it very hard to choose bananas from the box in the supermarket.

Part of my problem is that I am really particular about the precise state of ripeness they have to be before I will consider them. They obviously can't be green but also, they should not be marked in any way. Any blemish will persuade me to keep on walking.

But. The confession is :

I am terrified of sticking my hand down and a bloody great hunking tarantula leaping out at me.

I have heard of that happening you know. People find them in their bananas and keep them as pets. Wont happen to me though cos I shake my bananas. A few times.

If I find any good enough to buy.

The latest three tee shirts came from Threadless today. Paperboy, Reasons Not To Go Camping and Party Pieces. The good news is that they arrived in a different kind of packaging. I emailed Threadless a while back to let them know that 3 out of the last 5 packages from them had arrived damaged and opened (although there was no damage to the shirts). They replied saying that they were about to change the packaging and it seems this is in place now. The new heavy duty bag is much better than the cardboard envelope they used previously.

The bad news is that there was only one parcel. I am awaiting the new hoody still and the last time I checked my email I had received 23 emails from Threadless telling me that the hoody parcel had been sent to me. Twenty Three Afternoon Delight Hoodies? I think that might make me smile a little. Let's hope that some of them don't have Customs on them!

Laugh

Poor Threadless must have had a wee email gremlin! Hmmmm - that might be a thought for a submission!

I love RapidWeaver. Everyone knows I love RapidWeaver. If it hadn't have been for RapidWeaver I wouldn't be as geeky as I am now.

However, because of the way the program currently works it now takes fifteen minutes to upload even as little as one change in punctuation. I don't have time to wait fifteen minutes and I am seriously considering changing things at Chez AD. This will please some people and horrify some others. But just so my cards are on the table - I am now thinking about moving on from my beloved.

In the meantime I intend to keep RW open during the day and just upload once in the evening so I might have a couple of updates in a row to pester you with.

From entertainment.ie here is a little fun. This isn't for the UK Lotto - but I can't find one similar to play with for the UK version.

I haven't played the Lottery since I worked out I was getting a better return from the shopping trolley (put a pound in, get a pound back) but had I been using numbers with a little bit of meaning to me here is how much I would have *won*.

If you had played these numbers in one panel every lottery draw since 2003, you would have spent €1,348 and won at least €25.

A potential loss of

€1,323

The good news is, with these numbers, your day of luck has still to come.

To date, the highest earning panel entered here by one of our viewers is [11 13 15 22 40 2] which won €7,420,713. The luckiest panel entered here by one of our viewers is [10 11 13 31 38 40] which won 15 times. However, it lost €993. The average win is €2,855,783. The average loss is €1,233. To date this tool has been used 1173 times.


Seriously, how gutted would you be when you entered your numbers and found that you could have won €7,420,713? I think that would be enough for me to go and sit in a darkened room on my own for a while.

I have converted my losses to pounds - I would have lost £905 - but also that means that by shrewd decision making on my part I DIDN'T lose it - therefore I SAVED it - so it is still mine to spend - I think I could justify a new camera now. Surely Iain will see it my way. I have SAVED £905 by NOT playing the lottery so therefore the money is spendable.

Hands up who agrees with me . . .

We got a pup. This is a photo of him lying at my feet in work. He is between 4 and 8 months old depending on who you speak to. He is quite a big pup. He is the most gorgeous boy in the world and I love him. And so does David. And so does Jessica. And Iain is totally besotted by him too.

It is a very long story which I wont bore you with (I have promised not to become a doggy bore - but expect loads of photos of him nonetheless!) but he is the second dog to be living in our garage in less than a week. We were *gifted* a Border Collie pup on Friday night and it took us until Saturday morning to realise she was just NOT for us. David didn't like her - he has a bit of a thing about dogs and although I don't want to pamper to him - it is important that he bonds with our dog. They are going to be around each other a lot over the next few years hopefully. She also was a bit of a pyscho dog who paced up and down constantly and none of us managed to see her sleep the whole four days she was here.

This fella was picked up from the animal rescue centre, run by the bonkiest woman ever, on Sunday and has been an absolute dote since he got here. He is very quiet and very loving and just soaks up any attention we give him. He only got his second injection today so can't be taken out for a walk until the weekend and none of us can wait to see him running round the park.

It took until today for him to be named and it was someone in college who kinda pushed me towards one of Iain's choices. He came to us as Shep, then became Jake for a day, then all day yesterday he was "YouMyBoy?" every time I looked at him, then Iain got as far as the Bs in the online dog name list, then he was microchipped as Jake . . . until we went with one of the B names.

Meet Bailey. Isn't he a sweety?

If you love Northern Ireland, have any friends in Northern Ireland, have ever been to Northern Ireland, ever driven in Northern Ireland or if you are missing being "at home" and need a little whiff of Northern Ireland, I urge you to listen to this.

Let me know how much you think the unit should be sold at. Let me know what your favourite bit is. Mine is the boy who made a fortune buying and selling pallets. . . Let me know how much you laughed . . .

You can have a listen to the follow up as well . . .

Ok, so, what's with the Tummy Thing Jessica has going on at the moment? She is so funny. We spent a great hour together tonight before bed time. She came and lay on our bed (we do a lot of our family life on our bed) and we had cuddles and watched tv and chatted and then we did a little job for Mummy (which involved me photoshopping photos of myself wearing Threadless t shirts in a cold studio and having to clone out the "boobie pimples" which had me biting my lip with laughter - you can not persuade me to use proper words when she comes up with alternatives like that) and then we did the Tummy Thing.

It basically starts off as her putting the pillow over my head. I pretend to struggle and gasp and take my last breath and then wait for her to take the pillow off my head saying "Oh pooooor Mummy, dead at last. . . " or "Are you REALLY dead THIS time?" and such like. Mostly she will try to resurrect her darling mother by pulling my closed eye lids viciously open to see if she can find any sign of intelligent life.

When she can't, she will start to kiss me with wet slobbery kisses which cracks me up. Oh don't get me wrong, by the time we get to the kisses I have already been through this routine about 23 times, every time with the pillow and holding my breath that little longer and each time a little bit of a variation to the theme.

Tonight, just as I was expecting the kisses again, I suddenly got Raspberry Blowing on my body. In totally random places. I was ready for bed so got them on my bare leg, my arm, my cheek, my eye, anywhere but where I was expecting them!

Finally, she lay down exhausted and demanded that I do The Tummy Thing. It is easy. All I do is hover above her. Take a deep breath. Hold it. She uncovers her tummy. I pretend to move forward. She loses her nerve and covers her tummy with lightning fast speed. Repeat. Rinse. Lather.

This can go on for HOURS. Or until one of us needs the loo. Most evenings I never make contact with skin. Ever. What's with this? If she likes it - why doesn't she let me do it? If she doesn't like it why does she ask for it? Either way it makes for great fun and loads of squeals of laughter and two exhausted girls by the end of it all.

What's with The Tummy Thing and where does she get THAT from?

And get this out of my system. . .

I recently wanted to bid on a computer item on eBay that was located in America. I contacted the guy first and asked if he would send to the UK. He replied within a day and said yes. I had also asked if he had a Buy It Now price and I wanted the item quickly. He said no - he wanted to let it run a little and see how high it went - that is fair enough. I was prepared to pay £25 for it and actually stuck a highest bid on it for that. It finally finished four days later with no other bidders and I won it for the paltry sum of £5. Ha!

I emailed him and asked him how much he wanted for the postage. No reply. I emailed a further twice before I got a reply ten days later. I was quite sure that he wanted to back out of the deal as I have seen these items go for £30 to £40 at other times and I know he regrets letting it go for so little. By the time the reply came through I had already guess-timated the postage and sent him $20 (£10.51) being a fiver for the item and a fiver for postage. I "sent money" through Paypal and sat back happy I had done my bit.

Two days later, his first contact with me was a refund of the Paypal money and an email saying he only sent to Confirmed Paypal Addresses. I was confused because I HAD taken the time to get my address confirmed years ago - then realised that I had changed the delivery address from the Confirmed home address to the more convenient work address. I emailed to explain this to him but he was adamant that he only sends to Confirmed Addresses. I resent the same amount (I still hadn't had an invoice from him) via Paypal again with the proper-less-convenient-address and sat back. Again. The next day I received an eBay invoice from him saying $18.99 - but I had already sent the $20 so didn't bother replying to the invoice.

The next day I received an Unpaid Item dispute from eBay. WTF? I had paid! A quick look in Paypal told me I HADN'T paid - the payment hadn't gone through - I must not have pressed the PAY button. It HAS been known for me to be this stupid before. I paid the eBay invoice immediately and within a day I had positive feedback on the item.

Ok. So. It isn't the end of the world. And that should be the end of the matter for me.

But I just can't bring myself to archive that email until I do something about it. I looked on eBay to see if I could put in a "I am REALLY annoyed about this Unpaid Item Dispute as it is the first time in my whole eBay career I have ever had anything like this and don't you make the seller send a personal email first before you allow this to be raised against me?" but there isn't a thing like that anywhere funnily enough.

I SENT him three emails asking for the amount he wanted. I SENT him $20. I HAD already shown that I WANTED the item and was PREPARED to pay for it. All he had to do was send an email to say "OI! Where's me money?" and I would have realised my mistake. Is it me? Am I being overly sensitive?

Ok - don't bother answering that one - I know the answer. He has thousands of feedbacks and I know he is only protecting his own interests but revenge WILL be mine. I am going to post him something like "Takes ten days to send an invoice then will give Unpaid Item if you are a second late paying. A1 eBayer. NOT"

Ok. Maybe I wont. But at least now I can get rid of that damn email out of my inbox. One down. 23 to go. . . .

Huh uh. There is a sale at Threadless. Most of the t shirts are down to $10 again with Hoodies at $35.

Threadless is Evil. Spring "Broke" is about right.

It just isn't fair. Just when I become settled, knowing I have enough t shirts and knowing that a divorce might be arranged should another parcel arrive then they go and unsettle it all again. Just for fun I rattled through the Stock Chart and added all the items I want this time round. There is a total of $135 worth there and that is only because one sold out while I was hesitating. One of the things in the cart is the Afternoon Delight Hoody - don't worry - there are plenty in stock! I have $30 in Street Team Points - but that isn't going to go far enough. It is possible that I might not get all I want this time.

Oh well. . . .

As part of the HND course I am to try out, generally experiment with and hopefully master Pinhole Photography. To that end I bought a 1970s Russian Zenit E camera on eBay with a pinhole body cap on board. The first roll of film came back from the lab totally blank - seems that I am a Jamoke when it comes to loading film. This morning I made a last second decision to swerve in to the local park and finish off a roll of film there on The Tree I like to take photos of. You have seen it before - I took photos of it for the Open project last year, remember?

The park was nearly empty. One car arrived while I was there and the driver looked like a girl I used to know years ago and who I keep seeing around the near-by village and then our own village - it seems she is living locally which is really weird because when I knew her we were both living 40 miles down that way. I stared at her - parks really aren't the best place to start staring at people.

I set up the tripod and took light meter readings (get me! light meter. readings. HA! I am a photographer at last!). I started to take photos. An older man approached me and I actually looked forward to a wee chat with him - he was looking at me and inclining his head at me in a "Oh I used to have a camera like that" way and I really fancied a chance of swapping stories with him. Sometimes I can be sociable with strangers in a way that I can't be arsed with real people.

He DID stop. He smiled and did that wee nod of his head again and asked me "How old is it?" HEEEEEEEE! I wanted to tell him EVERYTHING I knew about this beast of mine - how it was so old and you would have to drive over it in a tank to break it and how it had been customised and sold from Poland and how we reckoned, going on scientific squintings at it, that it was f.82 but that it is easier to work out the shutter speeds at f.90 and and and I managed to tell him it was a Pinhole camera, the name of it and the age of it.

He did that wee nod again. Just before I launched in to more he said "I meant the tree."

Sigh. It seems not everyone has the same One Track Mind That I have. How rude.

The Pinhole isn't really going to work out for me though - the photos came back from the lab and were ok but in a disappointing way. On to the next experiment. . .

I received an email today. Right from the Subject Line of "Photographer Needed" I was suspicious of it. I can't remember where I read it or what the scam was but I am fairly certain that this is part of a scam.

Gooday
I somehow came across your email while i was searchin for photographers online. Please i will like to Hire your profssional photography serivce for my Daughters Wedding Ceremony coming up on April 21st..I am expecting about a hundred guest for the party and i want a full photography coverage..
Pls let me know if you would be availble for the date...and the break down of the total amount it would cost for over 5 hours of full service...
The venue is would be in Glasgow, Scotland right in my resindence and we wouldnt mind paying for transport all the way down there....here is a little photograph checklist of what would b expcted:
At the house:
Mother adjusting veil
Bride in dressingroom with mirror
Bride pinning flowers on father & mother
Family portraits
Flower girl handing bouquet to bride
Bride leaving house
Father helpping Bride into car

Photograph young children as early in the proceedings
At the venue prior to ceremony:
View of venue
Groom & bestman shaking hands
Groom, bestman and ushers
Bridesmaids - with Brides mother
Brides car arriving
Bride with father & car
Bride with father, car & bridesmaids

During ceremony -- Dependant upon Priest's wishes:
Bride & father going down aisle
Shots during ceremony
Exchanging rings
Overall shot
Signing marriage certificate
Signing marriage certificate with
Priest, bestman, bridesmaids
Bride & Groom coming down aisle

After the ceremony:
B&G at door - kissing
B&G and families
Confetti
Children presenting horseshoes
At car

Gardens:
Take bridal party to gardens/beach/car park
Mood shots in gardens
Bride showing ring to bridesmaids
Brides ring hand on bouquet
Fun shots
Individual shots of bridesmaids, best man, etc.
Bridesmaids solo & with their Man

At reception:
Other special request photographs required by Bride
Candid shots
B&G with champange glasses
Record shot of cake
Cutting cake
Little flowergirls cutting cake

I will like the arrangement to be made as soon as possible because so many other things needs to be taken care of.
I will be awaiting your response soonest and i urge you to get back with the kinds of mode of services you have with their prices so i could personally choose the option which best suites me.
I would have loved to call you on phone but i'm presently having hearing difficulties.And i will let you know when i'm fit to get close to the phone.I'd prefer you contact me via email.
Your response is needed as soon as possible.
Gary

As I say, I know I have heard of a scam against photographers where they have to do something like travel somewhere away from their own area but I can't remember what it is. If anyone has further details please let me know. I do not intend to put a bid in for this job (I wonder what would happen if I put a bid in for £5k per hour . . . ) so if you are in the Glasgow, Scotland area, don't mind getting back to him with the kinds of mode of services you have and don't mind dealing travelling to his resindence then let me know and I will pass on his email address to you.

In the meantime, thanks for the little photograph checklist!

You may remember the way the London Trip ended. Badly. In a word.

We missed our flight home because of a typo on the easyJet "Cancelled Flights" page and ended up miserable in a hotel room and stuck in a bus for hours the next day, missing a full day at work and only making it home by late evening a full 24 hours after we were due.

Once we were home for couple of days it struck me that, really, there was no reason that we couldn't put in for compensation. We had kept all our receipts and cleverly I had taken a screenshot of the easyJet "Cancelled Flights" page which I was able to print off and attach to a wonderfully written claim. No one really gave it much of a hope that easyJet would come through for us. After all, it was our word against theirs that there had been a typo. And have you SEEN the easyJet program on the telly? They never give an inch!

Imagine my absolute delight today to get an email saying:

Thank you for your letter about your claim.

May I take this opportunity to sincerely apologise for the incorrect information displayed on our website and the inconvenience caused as a result of this.

I can confirm that I have discussed your matter with my Manager and they have agreed to refund your extra expenses.

I am writing to confirm that we have authorised a refund which covers the cost of your rescue fee, hotel, and bus.

Once again we apologise profusely for this error.

She apologised both SINCERELY and PROFUSELY! What more could you ask for? I am mightily chuffed with myself for putting the effort in to it - it took me the guts of a day to word the claim and gather the receipts etc but it was still worth it - the total amount refunded was £220 - not to be sniffed at!

Well done easyJet for doing the right thing. They could have been real arses about it all but this time they acted beautifully. I WILL be telling them this too.

Now, onto my next project. I will soon be writing (on behalf of our classmate Davd) to the Radisson at Stansted Airport to ask why he was given the "cheapest room available" at a price of £168 being told there were only "three other rooms available" when, two hours later two friends of his arrived and were given "the cheapest room available" at at price of £129.50 and by that time there were "only nine rooms available in the whole hotel! They may run for cover - my letters of complaint are now legendary. . . .

One day, when I was about Jessica's age, my Uncle David ran a bath for me - just for me. I remember the bathroom and the house and that it was in the bathroom that he tried to tell me why it takes a split second for my brain to register that water is too hot. I have always adored really hot baths but couldn't understand then why some were "nice and hot" and some were "blister-causing-far-too-hot".

This particular time he called me in and there was an absolute mass of bubbles. Like OverKill of Bubbles. Death By Bubbles. For someone who always had to share baths with a horrible brother (who always got the non-tap end and therefore ALL the bubbles) this was heaven to me. I think, if I had known then what squeeing was, I would have been Squeeing Mightily that day.

I am not sure if he accidentally left the bath running and forgot about it, or if he did it as a special treat. Either would be possible, but the fact that he was sheepish and didn't tell me that it was a treat makes me always remember it as an accident - perhaps the top came off the bottle as he was pouring it.

Whatever.

It was a bath that has stuck with me forever.

I love bubble baths now and love to soak in one for Me Time / Down Time over anything else.

I wish my children were the same. Jessica will do it to a certain extent, she is most like me but David, you would think I was making him get into a bath of acid the way he screams when I suggest the tub over the shower.

This morning I ran him one and cajoled him in to the bathroom. I had done an Uncle David special, pouring in far too much bubble bath and swishing it frantically with my hands, thinking about that other bath all those years ago all the time. David took a look at the bubbles and said "Coooool! Bubbles!"

And so, once more, as happens in my life often, something else came full circle.

Women who walk in to mobile phone shops, throw their old phone down in disgust and declare they can't even work out how to turn it on, make a phone call or send a text message but then demand a new phone that allows them to get on to the internet are Jamokes.