Day 274 - Baby Logan

I'm slowly starting to feel more human and had a baby portrait sitting booked in for this morning. I contacted the parents to make sure they were OK with me coming round with the lingering ends of flu. Apparently this little one has a strong immune system and they weren't bothered about a few flu germs flying around.
Baby Logan is 6 months old and a very happy little boy. He has the most amazing brown eyes and a gorgeous dimple when he smiled. He was fairly easy to photograph but I'm quickly realising that the older the babies get that I photograph, the more they are able to do. Logan kept rolling over from his back onto his front and turning away from the camera! Fortunately I had his parents on hand to distract him and keep his attention focused on me and my camera.

Day 272 - Vapour Trail

I had wanted to go out on a walk today but am still not feeling 100%, this cold/flu is staying around a lot longer than I would like! I don't think singing karaoke last night helped and I'm now paying for it with no voice, sore throat, swollen glands and a horrible cough. I ended up spending today in bed feeling really miserable that I was missing out on a gorgeous day outside. I generally feel very fed up and just want to get better. I did manage to get outside to take this photo of the sunset which was beautiful so that makes up a little bit for staying at home all day!

Day 272 - Kim's Karaoke

It's my gorgeous friend Kim's birthday today. She is a huge fan of karaoke and has been wanting to go to this Chinese restaurant for a few years to hire out one of their karaoke rooms so tonight her dream came true! About 20 of us crammed into a small room and spent the evening singing karaoke after we had deciphered how to read the instructions which were all in Chinese! The song choices we had weren't extensive as a lot of them were Chinese pop stars but we managed to find a good selection of Abba and Queen which kept us all entertained for hours!

Day 271 - Birthday Lunch

My friend Lucy had her birthday last month and I promised to take her out for lunch as my gift to her. I much prefer gifts where you can "do" things together rather than getting lots of "things" which just sit and attract dust. Lucy took me out for lunch so it was my turn to take her out. We went to The Ivory restaurant in town and had an amazing meal.

Day 270 - Hot Lemon & Honey

I woke up this morning feeling like death warmed up! I had a horrible sore throat yesterday and it had has turned into the lurgy today! I cancelled all appointments I had for the day and took place on the sofa with my duvet, tissues, plenty of paracetamol and hot lemon & honey. My friend Dave was also suffering with "man flu" so he came over with more lemon and honey and we coughed and sniffled together whilst watching movies and Lee Evans.

I think my immune system has weakened since I left teaching because I rarely suffered from bugs or flu. This definitely caught me off guard but I think a mix of snowboarding, spending time at the seaside and letting myself get run down has lead to my body crying out and needing a rest.

Day 268 - The Little Flower Shop

Today was my last day as Membership Co-ordinator for my BNI Chapter. The leadership team changes over every 6 months to keep the team fresh. Rob, who is the chapter director, bought myself and Will a bouquet of flowers to say thank you for our work. As of next week the team will be new and I've been asked to head it up as Chapter Director so hopefully the next 6 months will be as great as the last.

Day 267 - 2 Today

I got a very special invitation today to go along to my friend Kim and Mark's little boy's 2nd birthday tea party. Two years ago today I was round at their house just after Rafi was born so I can't quite believe that he's now 2...and a very cute 2 year old. Kim had made him a red balloon cake after a story in Thomas the Tank Engine that he loves. Rafi loved being the centre of attention, blowing out his candles and trying to drink everyone's champagne! He quickly realised that his juice wasn't as nice as champagne..a bright boy! He then had another surprise when a friend turned up with his ice-cream van to give the birthday boy his own ice-cream! Ice-cream and cake...a great birthday party.

Day 266 - Changing Seasons

After having an amazing weekend in the sunshine it was a bit of a reality check to wake up this morning to grey skies and rain this morning!

When I went down to the gym I parked the car and noticed this tree starting to turn.....a sign that autumn is here and my hopes of a belated summer dashed! Autumn is all very pretty but when you've not had a summer I do feel a little cheated. My only saving grace is that I did paddle in the sea and play frisbee on the beach at the weekend so I had a taste of summer.

Day 265 - Donkey Rides

Another gorgeous day at the seaside although by the time we all managed to get up and out of the house we'd missed the morning. We wondered down to the beach and along the front to the pier where things got competitive as we played on the camel derby & slot machines trying to win as many tickets as possible and then win as much tat as possible! We then wandered back buying rock and ice cream before heading back to the reality of home and work. A brilliant weekend and something which looks to become an annual event!

Day 264 - On the beach!

Finally some sunshine and it couldn't have happened on a better weekend! I went to join some of my friends in Skegness for the weekend. It was meant to be a PE Department weekend away and considering I used to teach a little bit of PE with all of them I tagged along. Andy's parents own a B&B in Skegness so 10 of us descended on them for the weekend. We had a brilliant time playing on the beach in the sunshine, I finally felt like I was getting a summer! It was a typical British beach weekend, donkey rides on the beach, playing frisbee, cricket, flying kites, eating ice-cream, paddling and eating fish and chips. Perfect!

Day 263 - WWF Night

My WWF nights have been going really well over the last few months with different friends so I decided to offer to host one for my BNI colleagues. Wine, Wii and Food nights mean just that so we ordered in take away, drank wine (and beer) and played on the wii. Rob brought round his projector so that we could project the wii onto my living room wall and it was brilliant! There were about 26 people who came over and the majority had a go at bowling, tennis, boxing or mario kart. In this photo Will ( a semi pro boxer) is being beaten by Simon (a semi pro wii addict) as they play boxing on the wii! A great night and hopefully there will be many more to come.

Day 262 - Snowboarding

I decided to take a day off work today and put my snowboarding lessons into practice! Dave and I went up to Castleford for a couple of hours of boarding which was great. I did OK although I seemed to become more skilled at creatively falling over rather than snowboarding turns! I'm going again in a couple of weeks with my BNI group so hopefully I can only improve and will be doing tricks and jumps before you know it!

Day 261 - Christmas Computer

In the last 9 months of Serendipity Photography my jobs have ranged from photographing children, weddings, parties, animals, actors, head shots, landscapes and.....a piece of lego and a computer with christmas decorations!
I was asked this morning to take some photos of this computer for a company who are offering a free laptop as part of their most recent marketing strategy. It is something they are offering around Christmas so they wanted some plain shots of the laptop and some with Christmas decorations. This morning I was up in my loft rummaging around for Christmas decorations 3 months earlier than I thought!
If nothing else my job is varied and I never quite know what I'm going to be asked to photograph next!

Day 260 - Salsa

When I lived in Luton I went along to a couple of salsa lessons with my friend Patrick and loved it. Since then I have been saying that I want to go along to some salsa lessons up here in Sheffield and tonight I finally got my act together and went along! I persuaded my friend Lucy to come with me for a giggle and we had a great evening. There was a good mix of people and a good mix of abilities....some better to dance with than others but still good fun! I think we'll be going again and taking a few more people with us!

Day 259 - My precious!

259 days into my project and I thought it was only right to introduce my precious camera which is responsible for the majority of my photos! So, here is my Olympus E3 and my right eye...both important tools in my business!

Day 258 - Sarah and Andrew

I am going to photograph Sarah and Andrew's wedding at the end of October so I had arranged to meet them this morning to check out the venue and run over what they wanted from their photos. We had another lovely day so it was great to go out to the reception venue and the church, both of which are great places for taking photos so I'm happy! If we can have the same weather that we had today then that would be perfect.

Day 257 - Party Dress

I popped in to see Amy today and she was getting ready to go out to a party. She was having to make decisions about what dress to wear and how to do her hair as well as make a card and wrap the present...decisions, decisions! We settled for a princess plait in her hair, a card with a pirate drawn on it and this dress! It was given to her by her Granny so I suggested we have a modeling session so that I could take a photo of her which we could send to her Granny. Gorgeous!

Day 256 - Passed

I had my second snowboarding lesson today up at Castleford. My last 3 hr lesson was to learn the basics of toe and heel edge. Today was to put what I'd learnt last time to the test and start doing some turns...easy! ; )

I picked it up fairly quickly but did seem to spend a lot of time falling over! One of the biggest challenges was overcoming the drag lift. After a couple of goes at just about getting it I was becoming recognised by the instructors because they dutifully slowed the whole lift down so I could get on it and then they had to guide me off it at the top as I was becoming very good at falling off straight onto the only small piece of concrete avaliable! I came away from the lesson having learnt my turns, mastered the button lift, a great array of bruises and a pass for my levels 3 & 4. I'm now free to be let loose on the slopes...time to book a snowboarding holiday!

Day 255 - Blue Sky!!

This summer has been a bit of a wash out and I've really missed sunshine and blue skies so when the rain stopped falling and the clouds gave way to a blue sky I had to document it with a photograph! Maybe we're going to get a better September than August..here's hoping.

Day 254 - Green Fingers (part 2)

Day 239 saw the first stage of this tomato and here we are on day 254 with an update. This tomato plant was given to me by a friend and I don't think I've done a great job with it as I only have the one tomato but I'm going to blame it on the lack of sunshine rather than my poor gardening skills!!

I'll check back in a week to see how it's grown and hopefully be tucking into a salad with one little tomato...yummy.

Day 253 - Hoodie

Another wet, dreary, miserable day and I had to resort to not only my winter woolies but also a self portrait for my photo of the day!! Not a very productive day on the photo front.

Day 252 - When Harry met Oliver...

I love this photo of Oliver. I was doing a portait session of Oliver when the fourth member of their family...Harry the cat...came over to give Oliver a kiss and be part of the photo! I don't think he likes to be left out.

Day 251 - Family Time

My final journey was to go over to see my friends Jan and Rob who live just outside Oxford in a lovely little village in the Cotswolds. They had baby Oliver back in April and this was my first opportunity to meet him...he's gorgeous! My present to them was to take photos of Oliver so we spent a bit of time this evening doing some family photos as Rob is going to be at work tomorrow. It was so lovely to spend some quality time with them and see how happy they are with Oliver.

Day 250 - Happy Couple

Last Christmas I had a phone call from an old friend who told me she was getting married and was wondering if I'd be able to take the photos. I can't believe that day is now here and here she is with her husband Neil. They were lovely to photograph because they were so happy and were laughing all the time, even when we had to run in from the rain!

Day 249 - Musical Genius

One of my reasons for coming south was to take some photos of my friend Ruth's little boy. She bought my Baby Package when Jonah was born which means that I take 4 different sets of photos over the course of his first year. This is my third sitting and it was lovely to see how Jonah had grown up. He was a real character and was fun to photograph. This shot is him with one of his favourite toys, as you can see he loves it!!

Day 248 - Andy

Another trip down south for me today. It was really good to pop into my old school and catch up with ex colleagues as they prepared for the students coming back to school. It was great to see everyone and even better knowing that I didn't have to go back to school myself!

I spent the evening at my friend Leanne's whose house is quickly becoming my second home whenever I'm down south which seems to be an awful lot at the moment! It was good to spend the evening catching up with her and Nick and planning a possible holiday which is even better.

This photo is of my friend Andy who is one of the many lovely PE teachers at Icknield.

Day 247 - Hope?

You may have gathered that I'm not particularly impressed with the weather we're having at the moment but it was refreshing to see this rainbow this evening.

I'm hoping this rainbow is a promise that we're about to get better weather....it worked for Noah!

Day 246 - An elephant never forgets....

I've been wanting to do a shot like this for a while...lots of other people have done similar "feet" shots for their "Project 365+1". I thought I'd bring my lovely new doorstop into the photo...my elephant! This is the most fun, creative doorstop I've ever seen and I love it! Thanks Claire and Stu. x

Day 245 - Alfie

They say "never work with animals and children" and here am I doing both!! I had a referral from one of my contacts who overheard her hairdresser talking about her dog and how she wanted him to be photographed so she could get a portfolio together and get him some modeling jobs! So today was my pooch shoot! This is Alfie and he was my model for today. A cute little dog who was very lovely and even did tricks! Serendipity Photography is branching out into the world of animal portraits.

Day 244 - Rain...again!

I don't know how much more of this rubbish weather I can take! I need to get away...go on holiday...find some sunshine..something!

The irony of this shot is that it's my sun lounger drenched in rain! That sums up this summer..rubbish!

Day 243 - Spikes

Miserable, grey, cloudy, cold, wet, damp, fedup, wistful, craving sunshine, no summer, end of August, "is that it?"

I'm fed up with this rubbish summer that we've not had!