Sweet nothings

latest layouts...

It smells good here

Even tho its late, the smell of chocolate cake is pervading thro the house :) I just baked a huge version of my favourite recipe so its ready in time for Mollie's party tomorrow. 

A rather large amount of chocolate icing and chocolate decorations are to be added tomorrow :) The 'non' party bags gifts are assembled too ...

{ I'm joining in with a quiet campaign to stop the stupidly competitive  party bags going on at the girls parties around here... they arent even clever or creative party favours,  they are just lots of stuff in a plastic bag. the problem is the amount of stuff is getting out of hand. To the point of the gift to the birthday girl ending up less than the goodies the guest take home. oy!  So despite a part of me wanting to ship in themed goodies from America and show these ladies how its done - ha! {they can do it so well over there sometimes!!} the bigger part of me says can we please go back to a little gift and a thankyou note, or slice of cake and thats it??? we have a topped pencil and lollipop tied to a luggage label that reads 'thank you for coming'  thats all folks...;)  I have a BIG soap box about children arriving and saying 'well? wheres the party bags? what am I getting?' ....dont get me started!!!! }

Mollie has been showing me how old she is in all her photos lately... LOL

Shes very happy to be six :)

Daisy has not enjoyed the understanding part of birthdays... she wants to be six she says ;) and she also would like all of Mollies presents...NOW.  I can tell you, when they all sing Happy Birthday and its not to her - well, can we say  b i g  meltdown coming?!!

I had no computer last night {dont ask} until this afternoon, and since then I've been fairly busy, so I cannot wait to get some scrapping time in. I feel I need it. Its my release and BOY is everyone paying for me not getting time out for myself this week! 

The London trip, half term break and then no computer have really thrown me! 

Three cheers for school, college and work starting back up Monday! I have a busy week booked in already ahead, including, but not limited to, giving my dentist large sums of cash so she can inflict pain on my mouth. woot. cant wait. 

!

There are two parcels sat here waiting to be sent. I am putting off the 'go stand in the line at the Post Office' moment. Dont understand how in todays high tech world of over night delivery, internet connections worldwide, clever solutions for all sorts of things  etc etc we still have to go stand in line to mail a parcel. sheesh. I hate it. But the recipients are important enough to me that I'll brave the weird and wonderful {or just weird} people you find lined up in the post office...eeeek. wish me luck.

I'll be back soon with a layout to share...

Now {you} are six...

Hello, Old Father Time? could you not do this? Could you make it so it takes much much much longer for my Mollie mayhem to grow up? 

Today Moll is SIX. six whole years old.  

I think I blink and missed it.

We have spent the day at the movies, training the new nintendo dog :) and eating cake.

Party at the weekend. Shes so happy and giggly about her birthday. And totally unexpecting of anything, no wish lists, no I wants, no demands. Just smiles and sweetness.

 My goodness we love her :)

ha ha -family snapshots.

two things - firstly {mostly to all female relatives} ; yes I was in London too. and yes I got in a photograph.

see-

me, out of focus in the Hotel lift. plus reflections of the girls reflections in same lift. 

Secondly-

 yes I did take picture of people and not just buildings. and yes I even got family shots.

This is Daisy falling asleep in Selfridges....

this is 'the family' shot by the Big wheel -sorry,I mean the London Eye, its called the big wheel in our house..- Daisy was desperate to get up close to this. And because she was asleep doesnt believe we went there!

this is 'harsh sunlight, Daisy asleep { are you seeing the theme here?} Daddy with aching arms and the disinterested Mollie Mayhem' shot at Horse guards parade...

Just wanted to let you know, we were there. But buildings look better than us in photos....LOL

I see no pigeons...

Before we {finally} get past the London Trip photos I have a couple more posts to show you. :)

Lets start with Trafalgar Square. 

Big square in the very heart of London,

 Home of the National Gallery, 

views of Big Ben, 

That tall tall column on which Nelson stands, 

 Four huge Lion statues at his feet.  {I love those Lions, I always wanted to bring one home...} 

Its a cliché must see tourist hot spot....

 On any given day it is heaving with people from towns and cities all over the world. aside from London. Londoners do not tend to go and hang out with tourists; fair enough...

I went there many times as a child. I was a fully fledged London tourist. You went to London on the promise of a trip to Hamleys {our biggest toy store} and you asked to feed the pigeons too. 

yes -Pigeons. 

Trafalgar square - home to approx 35,000 pigeons. Whom you would feed with little cups of seed and they would land all over you, stand ten in a line up your arm, on your head etc etc.... and a) delight every child, and b) be an awesome photo shoot. 

Except;

 now they dont.

:(

this piece from wiki--

Pigeons flocking to London's Trafalgar Square, 2006. As at 2008 the pigeons have largely gone.

[edit]

Pigeons

The square used to be famous for its pigeons (Feral Pigeons), and feeding them was a popular activity with Londoners and tourists. The National Portrait Gallery displays a 1948 photograph of Elizabeth Taylor posing there with bird seed so as to be mobbed by birds. The desirability of the birds' presence has long been contentious: their droppings look ugly on buildings and damage the stonework, and the flock, estimated at its peak to be 35,000, was considered to be a health hazard.

One of the trained falcons in 2007.

In 2000, the sale of bird seed in the square was controversially terminated and other measures were introduced to discourage the pigeons, including the use of trained falcons. Supporters of the birds – including Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons – as well as some tourists continued to feed the birds, but, in 2003, the then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone enacted byelaws to ban the feeding of pigeons within the square.^[15] On 10 September 2007 the byelaws were secured sealing an outright ban on feeding birds in area of the square.^[16] There are now few birds in Trafalgar Square and it is used for festivals and hired out to film companies, in a way that was not feasible in the 1990s.

And so, altho I promised the girls birdies to feed, there was not. And altho I do get and understand the 'health hazard' 'dirty birds' view, I dont like it. Its like fish without the chips, its like bread without the butter, tea without the milk, - its just not London-y anymore. Do we have to change everything?

I'm sure they are making huge amount of money hiring the place out, but its a shame. I'm getting old, I'm finding I dont like change. and I have this crazy driven need to let my girls do what I did when I was their age. {hello? other parents out there? do you find this too? how weird it is, to find yourself tracking down discontinued toys you once had, visit places you once went,  etc etc...sheesh...}

If whichever family member who has the Trafalgar-Square-me-feeding-pigeons-when-young pictures would lend me them, I really want to scan them and show the girls.... Show them, as Mollie so kindly put it, how it was in the olden days!!

teeny tiny...

we interrupt the London pictures to bring you this shot of a teeny tiny wild bunny rabbit I took the other day.

for no other reason than to make you go 'awww!'

:)

midday sun - London

the harsh contrast between shadows and sunlight is not good in photography. 

its crappy. 

It cannot easily be fixed in Adobe Lightroom. It leaves parts over exposed or under exposed and leads to great globules of sun flare, sunny circles, flashes, random orange spots and suchlike appearing on your pictures.

Photo shoots are booked for morning or late afternoon for a reason believe me.

 London was gloriously sunny.  but full of those harsh shadows. Whats a girl to do?

well; she can forget and take bad shots like this

{over exposed street and family, underexposed other side of street..}

she can wrestle with blonde hair, caps, and shadow....{and then give up and apply a filter in LR. and then still not like it anyway...}

and she can fight the sun all day :( 

Till she finally decides to embrace its shininess, and do stuff with it.

like walk round Nelson's Column til the sun is hidden behind it giving it a spotlight effect.

crouch down and bounce the sunshine off gold things :)

And take pictures where harsh shadow works - like steps and stairs.  {I really like this picture. Its not very 'London-y' but its one of my faves from the trip anyway}

I also grumbled a lot about the sun contrast all day {driving Mr BG nuts in the process} and therefore was most likely to blame for the overcast grey morning that follwed!!!! ;) oops!

My London poster :)

I was super inspired by Selfridges centenary celebrations in London this weekend. This poster hit me and made me want it ;)

So I made it with my Landmark photos. many many extractions of landmarks from photos later---

I am so happy it turned out pretty much how I was thinking... LOL that doesnt happen often!!

London skyline

I have a 'thing' about skylines. I like me a view of some distance. 

 In fact, if you dont like London Skylines look away now ;)

there is an overdose about to commence. We had a pretty good view from our hotel room, I am fairly sure Mr BG knows I will spend a chunk of my time hanging out the window taking pictures so does his best to make sure I have something to see ;)

You can see several London Landmarks in this view...

On the quest for more skyline pictures - or to be honest more pictures of anything, sitting in the hotel room stiffles me- I wondered down the corridor to see if there was an end window. There wasnt, but there were stairs. I climbed a flight, - arent hotel stairs deserted??!- the windows were slatted but they opened - novelty in hotels!!- I took a photo and climbed a few more flights... By  the time I got to the 15th floor I was more than a little dizzy and huffing and puffing...I am not good with heights! dont look down...

the windows with their slats-

enable me to stick my lens out, 

and also to use the slats to quirkily frame some shots too {I like this :)}

and ooooh, rooftops. I have a 'thing' about them too :)

and even come nightfall I was still up against the window taking pictures :)

Bupa 10000 pics

My dear other half is an all or nothing kinda guy. Example? ages ago he smoked 900 a day { or there abouts ;)} and then gave up, bam! just like that. to nothing. 

Running is the same -he took little or no exercise ever really, and then took up running. every week, several times. 10k runs.

Seriously its a pretty awesome/intimidating/annoying/mind blowing personality trait.

This was his race in London this weekend. It was a great atmosphere, wonderfully organised and good fun. Even for us race widows/widowers waiting for our guys/gals to finish.

This is Mr Britguy and the girls, on our way to the race:)

heres the finish line, which is just before Buckingham Palace :)

and here is Chanel 5, who filmed live,

{the funny story about being on TV?, well the runners were doing all sorts of things to make sure you could see them on TV. Dressing up, wearing hats, leaping in front of the cameras, waving madly etc etc. 12 and a half thousand runners tho and your chances of being on Tv were slim. Then, as the girls and I wondered up and down trying to figure out where best to see Daddy running, my sister sent me a text. The girls and I were on TV. eeeek!!! I was wearing a pink t-shirt and holding hands with the girls either side, who looked very cute in their shirts and blue London baseball caps. So we caught the camera-mans eye and they filmed us as a crowd shot for a few moments!!! If I'd have known I'd have breathed in ;) Luckily, I think only my Sister saw it! }

Yes the previous days blue skies had gone!, Heres Buckingham palace and the race crowd before the start, it was starting to fill up fast!

then we had to wait for Mr BG to sign in...

and I'm overwhelmed by the number of runners going to the start!

There were lots of dresssed up runners too, we had fun spotting them :)

Altho I didnt get a picture of the guy with a tree on his head - yes really- or the two people dressed as the chicken and the egg, who obviously were going to answer once and for all that who came first question!!

and then there was Mr BG, all lined up and ready to go.

and happy to be there dont you think?!

I discovered I am allergic to Hyde park - what WAS going on there I dont know, but just about everyone cut thro the park after the runners had gone, to get to the finish line via the cafe, and everyone started sneezing, coughing, eyes running... VERY weird and freaky. Must be some particular tree pollen or something. I'm going to have to google* it!!

* apparently its the number of plane tree there is there, who all dump their pollen at the same time.

we had coffee or gingerbread men depending on your preference ;) 

and then tried to spy Mr BG finishing, which we couldnt, far too many people finishing... but we tracked him down once he had:)

and he was a happy man as we headed back to the hotel :)