Assignment finished!

The deadline for the Guardian competition is on Sunday and I have finally finished putting the images together! It's been an amazing few weeks. I set out with a grand plan to photograph the British military at work, fully knowing how difficult that was likely to be, but friends and colleagues rallied round and I had some incredible experiences getting the shots, most of which I sadly can't tell you about! :-)

I have learned huge amounts at a galloping pace and challenged myself on many levels. I am now going to wait and hope for a review of my photos on their website, and then see what the results of the competition are... I'll keep you posted, in the meantime you can see the images here.

Creations

First of all I should say that I'm going to leave you hanging on our new posting for just a little longer. We may receive absolute confirmation we are going there in a call tomorrow, so I'll wait till we hear that before I tell you more...

And whilst you wait with baited breath, I have creations to share! First off Jim baked brioche this weekend, it's a recipe from Richard Bertinet's book and the proving of the dough took 14 hours alone, well worth the wait though! I've blogged about Richard Bertinet before, we are big fans!

This weekend I have made two laptop cases for work colleagues. I made one last month, and then everyone wanted one! This one is my favourite, I think I'm going to have to make another for myself in this fabric...

And I also made an SLR camera strap, another special request from a friend. I plan to start selling these (and a few other bits) soon, so if like me, you are bored with having Nikon or Canon draped round your neck,watch this space, I'll also be doing a giveaway when the shop is up and running!

Still tweaking but...

Photograph 2 of 6 for the competition is done! I was weighed down with tripods, reflectors and lenses (most of which I really have no idea how to use!) and in the end shot this with my least favourite lens and no extra equipment. My model was incredibly tolerant and in return I told him I'd get him a print to send to his mum!

Photo 3 of 6, the military Padre has also been taken, but I'm still debating which shot to use....  Hope your Monday was also productive!

A challenge

A couple of months ago I was introduced to the Guardian newspaper's online camera club. Every month the camera club sets an assignment topic and you are invited to submit six photos for review and your best of the set for the competition, the prize for which happens to be the camera I am currently coveting.

This month the assignment topic is People At Work and I have decided to try and capture some of the faces of the forces community in Cyprus. The obvious place to start was in my own office with a good friend, but with that photo done there were still another five pictures to take... So I have spent the best part of last week persuading people to let me take their photos and I now have another three shoots lined up before Wednesday. Somewhere along the way the project became less about the prize and more about the personal challenge.

Tomorrow morning I will be imposing myself on our military Padre armed with a borrowed reflector, big ideas and a simmering fear that the end result will fall short of my high expectations... He leaves the island for several months on Tuesday, so they'll be no time for a reshoot. Keep your fingers crossed for me, if the results are any good I shall share them with you later in the week!

Clouds

Oh just look at that sky - We have clouds at long last! Maybe this was all the change I needed? (Well, that and a new blog banner) I can't begin to tell you how lovely it is to finally have relief from the heat.

Finally we can say goodbye to the constant drone of the ceiling fans and Hello to our 4 tog duvet! No longer do we have to bolt out of the door at 6am to walk the dogs ahead of the rising sun and turning the oven on doesn't mean several hours of torture. Yes, I love this time of year! As the days get shorter, the evenings cooler and the storm clouds more tantalising, everything is starting to come alive again...

Thank you for bearing with me, I did consider moving this blog to a new home, but for now I have decided to stay put and perhaps tweak the design a little... There are astonishingly 84 of you, and I feared I might lose some of you along the way... I'll be back again later in the week with more of an update.

Staycationing

We have just had a fantastic mini mini-break at the Four Seasons in Limassol, just one nights stay, but such a change!  The hotel is about half an hour from us and you can almost see my office from the beach in front of it, but it felt a world away from our army quarter.

The peace and quiet of an adult-only swimming pool, seemingly illusive foods like back bacon and mini herb sausages, a proper shower, an air-conditioned bedroom, fresh orange juice, and ITV1 on tap in the room!

And of course there were the bikinis... this was my first chance to swim since my op, and after selling my old swimming costumes on eBay (can you believe people buy second hand bikinis?) a world of halter-necks and string bikinis opened up to me this weekend... and what fun it was!

Really our excuse for our hotel stay, was a lack of celebrations for both of our birthdays last month and our anniversary in June, but we've also come to the decision that we shouldn't need excuses! This is the side of Cyprus our friends and family come to enjoy and we haven't really sampled, so as the clock ticks on our second (and final) year on the island we may be trying this more often!

My only complaint about our mini staycation, is that on a "proper" holiday you get a little time on a flight home to adjust to going back to reality. This afternoon it took us 3 minutes to go from poolside, to back in our car on a dual-carriageway in our local town... down to earth with a bump!

The Post Bag

It's been a productive week so far, but don't worry I'm sure it won't last...

I made this bag last night for one of my colleagues birthdays. It's a design I call the Post Bag and I've been making them for friends for a couple of years. The applique on the front spells out the location of the current posting, in this case RAF Akrotiri.

The bags have been modified and refined over the last couple of years and although I still like the concept and the applique, but I think I need to jazz up the actual bag design at some stage... I'll add that to The List... about which I'll mention more in another post soon!

Hope your week is going well!