Makes me spit ..

There's a chance you played that 'drinking game' the last time you watched a film. You know the one? You take a drink every time someone on the screen has one. Depending on the movie, there's a good chance you could end up being completely sloshed. Well yesterday I played the 'spitting game'. I watched two football matches back to back and decided I'd spit every time I saw a footballer spit. Every goddam time there was a close-up of a player - or Pep Guardiloa, come to that - they coughed up a lovely big ball of snot. And full marks to subs Fabregas and Gabriel Jesus, both filmed spitting before they even got on the bleedin' pitch. Put me right off my family bag of Maltesers, it did. And what am I supposed to do with two and a half gallons of saliva?..

Who needs a watch? ..

It's been raining most of the week. The garden is a mud bath and there are now not one, but two leaks in our ancient red tiled roof. And do you know what? I love it! I love the fact that I still feel like I'm on holiday. This weekend marks five months since we moved over to France, and we're really getting into it now. Our chickens are laying two, sometimes three eggs a day (Omelette anyone?), we've given up on ironing our clothes and my kinetic wristwatch - which relies on movement to wind itself up - has stopped. I haven't worn it in weeks ..

More importantly, I'm really getting the time to do the things I want. I've decided to re-edit my book - The Boy who missed Next Year - and I'm putting together a Slide Show (Sorry, still can't stop calling them that!) that I'll be giving soon at our local community hall. I once went round the world with my little doll Minnie - that's her in Tahiti - featuring her in hundreds of shots as we journeyed around together. I thought it was about time her shots had a showing. Happy holidays ..

Technical PS: The pictures of Minnie are actually slides. Shot in the early 90s, I got through about 150 rolls of Kodachrome 64 using just one Nikon FM and two lenses.

Thinking of summer ..

Delighted to say I've just added another summer booking to the diary but, unlike years gone by, this was a booking for our gîte rather than for any Wedding photography. Funny how times have changed, eh? Yesterday I received a message from my e-mail domain name company, asking if I wanted to renew my 'UK Wedding Photography' domain name. Sadly, I told them 'no', as I won't be needing that anymore. My life is now focused over here in France, where bookings for the gîte are almost as important to me as Wedding enquiries once were. My photography is still the centre of my life of course, and coming soon is a 'Photography Walk' for keen amateur snappers in our village. The weather's getting better and the cameras are out. Seems I'm not the only one thinking of the summer ..

Think warm thoughts ..

The first shy flakes of snow are falling as I write this - our first snow in France! All a far cry from yesterday, when I took this photograph during our afternoon walk. Still, it won't be long until the Spring is here (we tell ourselves!) and it's fantastic to be enjoying the start of our first 'full' year here, and to be in at the start of the changing seasons. The room I'm sitting in now was one of the first we converted, and it's hard at the moment to recall the 100˚ heat of last May as I chopped up plasterboard and scraped ancient mortar from between the stones in the wall. Still, it's lovely to know that that kind of weather is on its way again. Warming thoughts indeed ..