It was my birthday this week, on Tuesday. No big deal really, I worked all day and my boss and our office manager both bought me a card and some bottles of wine, my hubby, who likes to buy me ‘things I need’ rather than fripperies (as he calls bling and other things I don’t need) got me a new chair for my computer room, which arrived today. It’s white faux leather and is much more comfortable, and stable, than the old black one I was rocking around on which led to leaving black marks on the floor.  This one shoots across the floor well, like being on seated roller skates. I got some flowers too from Phil’s daughter, my favourites, lilies.

Phil and I were both at work early the next day, so a glass of wine (maybe more than one as it goes) and that was that.  I don’t get excited at birthdays, after so many of them, but in a couple of years time there’ll be a ‘0’ at the end of the number and that one will be celebrated in style. Surviving decades are much more worthy of celebration I think.

We are off to Scotland tomorrow, though not really to see Scotland. We’re off to the Edinburgh Hilton near the airport for the Scale Model Show, and will mostly be indoors looking at model tanks/cars/trucks/figures/planes and ships.  I’ll be photographing the competition entries for our Model Club’s website on Facebook so that will keep me busy for a while, and I have an excellent book to read while Phil goes off shopping and socialising with his peers. He usually gets asked to judge one of the competition classes too, which is cool. We are not staying at the Hilton this year as with the Edinburgh fringe festival on and it being a bank holiday weekend, one nights stay there costs £300. We stayed there 2 years ago at £78 for a night and thought that was bad enough.  Luckily there is a premier inn nearby, at a sixth of the cost, and they are my favourite places to stay as their beds and pillows are just fabulously comfy, and better than at the Hilton. Phil is taking me out for a Birthday Dinner on Friday night so am looking forward to that.

I’ve been re- reading Giles Kristian’s Raven trilogy, and am on to book 2, I’m having a bit of a Viking-fest at the minute, having re-read his Sigurd trilogy, and Tim Severin’s Vikings trilogy. After this I’ve got Robert Low’s Oathsworn series of 5 books, to re-do.  I really like the 10th century in history, so much derring-do going on!

We are still doing Game of Thrones, the current series ends on Monday night.  This series has had a lot of criticism that it’s all moving too fast, that the characters are losing depth since they have surpassed the books, (the last 2 books of the series that the programmes are based on have not been written as yet), so the TV writers are doing their own thing, and that the timescales of some of the stories are far-fetched.  Well, dragons, white walkers and being brought back from the dead are pretty far fetched too so I think you can allow a bit of time fudging! I am reasonably certain the people moaning about the fast pace of these episodes, also moaned about the slow pace of the previous series, there’s no pleasing some people, if you don’t like it, hit the ‘off’ button.

Photgraphically I’m embarking on a new series- Scenes from the Shed 🙂 and employing the macro lens and the fuji to make still life shots of bits and pieces that live in there now. I noticed that most of my tea cups have gold embellishments, so am showing them off first.

I’ve also started collecting Kimmidoll key rings for photographing, there’s a whole herd of related stuff for Kimmidoll fans, and the blurb on their website is all about design philosophy and inspirational values, which is another way of saying we’re making heaps of money out of daft people 🙂 and each character has a name and an ‘inspirational value’.  The things are hugely expensive, but the key rings are not too bad, and there are bargains on eBay. Anyway her’s the first, Yuna

“My spirit is serene and still.
By seeking solace in the still silence of my spirit, may you find the secret to serenity and know the peace that is found in the comforting embrace of calm”.

Apparently. 🙂  Anyway, they are cute and it’ll be good for me to find ways to photograph them.

My shout out to blogs this week goes to Assholes Watching Movies, follow the link HERE

Run by the fabulous Jay, Sean and their pal Matt they are far from being Assholes, and of course review movies and go to film festivals (a lot!). Jay is the main contributor and her way with words is second to none, in fact her reviews are consistently better than most of the movies.  Informative and funny as f*%k, I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you love movies, this is a must-read blog. Tell’em I sent ya!