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Christmas is officially over - the decorations are being packed away today (no way do they get left up until Twelfth Night).  Ralph is now experiencing gloom because all of the shiny toys he liked to trash are disappearing.  I do enjoy the build-up to Christmas, I love seeing the Christmas lights in the streets, and carol concerts, and the house looking festive.  I don't enjoy the hype, the insane consumerism and the forced jollity of it all, and right about now I'm ready to move on.  David won't want to admit this but we've grown very fond of having fairy-lights on the banisters, so we may have to keep them out (if Ralph doesn't decide to visit the curse of the claw on them and/or electrocute himself that is.

Settings: 1/30, f/4, ISO250, 35mm
Processed in LR5, texture and text added in Elements.

Linking to

Song-ography...

No Place like Home for the Holidays...

Hope everyone had an enjoyable and peaceful Christmas.  The UK has been bashed about a bit by storms but we were some of the lucky ones who didn't get flooded etc.  My heart goes out to those who were/are without power and heating over the last few days.

So back to Song-ography...  I spent years doing what I thought I should be doing at Christmas, or what I thought other people expected me to do, and so now it's a novelty and a luxury to do exactly what I want.  I'm at home with David and the kitties, we eat what we like with no pressure to have some full-on Christmas dinner if we don't want to.  Obviously the cats would eat turkey until it came out of their ears, but I'm a vegetarian, so yah boo sucks.  They won't eat nut roast so after tough negotiations we reached a compromise, and they get a smidgen of chicken cooked especially for them, then go and moan to the neighbourhood cats about how hard done to they are.  

On Christmas Day I headed over to Bradgate Park and was amazed at how many others had the same idea.  Some where drinking champagne at the top of the hill there, although they didn't offer me any - bah humbug.  On Boxing Day I went over to Bosworth Battlefield, again there were a lot of people around, all who were obviously avoiding the post-Christmas insanity of 'the sales'.  Yesterday I did actually venture out early to M&S with Cath and ended up buying a rather fab pink coat which I plan to wear today come rain, shine or gales.

No place like home for 

dropping your sartorial guard...

Christmas Eve...
Anyone else much prefer Christmas Eve to
Christmas Day?
We're very European in our house and
open our gifts on the evening of the 24th.
Here's one of mine, these are some
hand-blown glass earrings from
David.

... and some Lush smellies
from my sister...
gorgeous!

Christmas Day...

I was listening to the radio on the way

home from Bradgate Park.  Listeners

were texting in with their worst gifts:

porridge oats, jump-leads, and ant powder

seemed to be the winners!

Cats...

enjoying playing with a piece of ribbon

more than their presents ever

since ribbon was invented...

Boxing Day...

Yes that's the path.

Correction - that WAS the path.

... later that day,

this is Market Bosworth,

one of our local towns.

27th December...

No picture of the coat yet,

but these are some of the chocolates

I received but am not going to eat.

Anyone interested in swapping

for a few packets of ready salted

crisps please get in touch :-)

For more Song-ography interpretations click here.

Inspired by...

Christmas decorations and lights...  I love the bokeh that fairy lights can give to an image.  I'm a bit obsessed about using them in photography at the moment.

Linking to Create with Joy's Inspire me Monday...

Happy Bloody Christmas...

Just to show how the festivities go on and on in our household...

How did I take it?

Two lights to front, one on each side.

Camera on tripod in middle, set to shoot with ten second delay.

Me running backwards and forwards to grab newspaper and get in position.

My hair suffered considerably under that hat.

You Know You're Bored When...

You start taking photos of cake decorations in front of the Christmas Tree for something to do... 

Want to know how to create the heart bokeh?

All you need is a piece of card with a heart shape cut in it (not too big), then hold it or stick it in some way over your lens and using a wide aperture focus on your foreground objects and magically it will turn your background light source into heart shapes.

Easy-peasy...

Merry Christmas...

Hope everyone has the kind of Christmas Day they most enjoy.  Thanks for reading and commenting this year, and thanks to those who have willingly (and sometimes unwillingly) posed for my camera, especially my crazy friends Cath and Helen, and my lovely kitties (who have just snaffled a tin of tuna for Christmas Day breakfast) xx

Cats on Tuesday... Christmas Photo Shoot

Yes it's that time of year when I bravely get my camera, some props and a cat or two in the same space and attempt to take a photo for a Christmas card.  For various reasons this year it was left to my two lady cats to do the honours.  I got the lights ready (alright, I tried to get the lights ready, swore at them, yelled for David, he tried it, I swore at him, he flounced out, and then we were ready...).

The hi-tech set consisted of two pieces of white card, a furry rug, some gold tinsel, and a few baubles.  

 Pepper helped me arrange the set,

then ate the cat treats I'd hidden under

the tinsel and ran away.

Mrs P was more amiable,

but even she couldn't resist pulling a scary face...

She did agree to pose

nicely after being told she wouldn't

be in CoT if she didn't...

This is the set-up we used.

Note how hard it is to

get a cat to stay awake

to do some work...

Did I manage to get a usable image in the end?  Yes, 148 shots later.  However you'll have to wait until the festive season to see it :O))

And so that fans of Charlie won't feel too bereft, here he is sitting with some pumpkins on Halloween, which is much more his style really.

For more kitties visit Gattina's Cats on Tuesday.

Books, books, books...

Considering the name of this blog, I actually seem to write very few words on it - the camera has taken over! Anyway, to somewhat rectify this I thought I'd post something about the books I'm either reading, or that I'm hoping to read over Christmas and the coming weeks.  Never one to go for light-heart frothiness at this time of year, my reading choices seem to be verging on the downright gloomy at the moment.

My current read is Nemesis by Jo Nesbo.  Nesbo writes Norwegian crime fiction, which is dark, complex and wonderful, with plots that are more twisty-turny than a twisty-turny thing.  Of course because I'm perverse I've read them in the wrong order - it still doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the adventures of Nesbo's chief protagonist Harry Hole, the alcoholic loner police detective.  My friend Sandra always reads them too and we have a great time discussing who we think has done it, and why Harry has such unsuitable girlfriends.

Amongst the goodies arriving from Amazon over the last couple of weeks was Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, a ghost story set in the Arctic.  What is it about Christmas and ghost stories?  Is it all down to A Christmas Carol?  Talking of ghost stories, there is also on my tbr pile The Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions.  Less well known than the likes of M R James, Onions (1873-1961) wrote over forty novels and story collections.  Mention of M R James has reminded me to re-read Casting the Runes.  One of my favourite supernatural tales, and the basis for the film Night of the Demon, which is a great film although the demon himself is a bit of a damp squib.  Think early Doctor Who monster... (yes I will be watching Dr Who on Christmas Day, even though I still prefer David Tennant).

I also want to start re-reading the Charlie Parker books by John Connolly.  These are crime stories too, but with an element of the supernatural (sort of a Chandleresque Paradise Lost), and Connolly writes like a dream.  He also has the best two side-kicks ever in the form of Angel and Louis the two gay hit-men (some of their dialogue makes me laugh out loud).

Mention of Milton (how's that for alliteration?), means poetry.  I have various poetry anthologies that I like to dip into so will be doing that at various points.  I usually grab a poetry book whilst sitting eating breakfast (if I have time to sit - often I'm standing in the kitchen trying to make my lunch at the same time).  That's the great thing about poetry - it's usually short and can be managed in small bites (much like my breakfast).  One of my tutors for literature, a specialist in poetry, once said he couldn't understand why Middlemarch was so long as if it were a poem it could be fitted onto one page.  I don't think he was a fan of novels...

Non-fiction wise I have Magnetic North about Sara Wheeler's travels in the Arctic, because you can just never have enough snow and ice at this time of year, and for some moments of spiritual reflection there's a book on Buddhism.  Last of all, as Santa is bringing me a new camera (weather and Royal Mail permitting), I also hope to be perusing the Canon 7D instruction book.  It took me about four years to get to grips with the last camera so I might be able to post pictures from it by 2015!

Happy holiday reading to all, and God bless us, everyone etc... 

Merry Christmas!

From me and mine, to you and yours, may your Christmas be all that you wish for, and may you have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2011...

Oh Christmas Tree... (said through gritted teeth)

After seeing these great shots at The Bonnie 5 and Ashley's Scavenger Hunt I knew I had to have a go at one.  It wasn't as easy as I thought and I almost (ahem!) lost my temper with it, as David will testify... :O)  Anyway, with some trial and error (for some reason it would only work if the lens were turned away from me) I managed it after a fashion.  One change I made was to flip the image of the tree in the lens so it was the right way up.  Thinking of giving up photography for something less fraught...