Day 296 - Knuckle Duster

My favourite green amber ring which my Granny calls my knuckle duster!

Day 295 - Running

Back in June I decided to be a bit more proactive with keeping healthy and enlisted the help of a personal trainer at the gym. It's been an amazing 5 months and I feel like a completely different woman. Kate, my trainer, has really motivated me in keeping fit and is brilliant at keeping me accountable by setting me goals. Over the last 4 months I've lost just over 1 1/2 stone and gone down 2 dress sizes but the main thing is I feel brilliant! The other amazing thing about doing all the exercise is months ago you wouldn't have caught me dead on a treadmill and now Kate has got me running for a minimum of 15 minutes every time I train and yesterday we went for a run out and about around the roads near the gym. I have even gone out and bought myself some proper running trainers to give me the support I need. I feel great and am loving it....move over Paula Radcliffe! (ok, I don't think I'll ever do a marathon but it still feels good.)

Day 294 - Office Space Avaliable

What I love with my job is that everyday is different! One day I'm taking photos of a cute baby, another it's a wedding and today it was lego men!! One of the guys in my BNI chapter works for Mailboxes etc.. and he wanted some photos for an ad that he's putting together. Part of his business is renting out mail boxes to companies and he wanted an ad which promotes this. His idea was to advertise it as "Office Space" being avaliable to rent in the city centre. The way he wanted to show this was by putting a lego office in one of the boxes and have me photograph them! An amusing little ad which I hope will work for him.

Day 293 - Loft Legs

I am in the very slow process of transforming my study bedroom into an office for Serendipity Photography. I spent this week sorting through everything which meant a lot of recycling and many trips to the charity shop! It was quite therapeutic but also a little emotional as I got rid of a lot of things which I used as a teacher...the end of an era!

In order to get things sorted I wanted to put things up in the loft but I'm not quite tall enough to get up there so my friend Dave came round to help out. The next stage is to paint the room and get furniture to transform it.

Day 292 - Lemon Meringue

Fiona and Bill ended up staying at mine for another day which was great. They went out to meet up with a few friends and run a couple of errands during the day whilst I did some work but then we chilled out in the evening. I decided to make a lemon meringue pie, which I like to think is Katy specialty! Unfortunately Fiona can't eat it so she had to leave it to Bill and I to plough through. Life's tough but we coped! I asked Bill to pose for my photo for today and show his appreciation for my lemon meringue! I think he likes it! ; )

Day 291 - Sisters

Fiona called me yesterday asking if her and Bill could come and stay tonight. They were meant to be coming up north to stay with some friends for the weekend. Unfortunately they'd had a phone call to say that their friends' baby had been taken into hospital so Fiona didn't want to turn up late at their house. It was a nice surprise and good to spend some time with Fiona and Bill. They may end up spending the whole weekend here depending on what happens with their friend's baby!

Fiona was really tired but I needed a photo for the day so persuaded her to smile for the camera..not really difficult as she's not camera shy! I never think that Fiona and I look like sisters but if you cover up our eyes we have the same nose and smile in this photo!!

Day 290 - African Dancing

I popped into town today and there was this group of African dancers from Zimbabwe who had attracted a large crowd of spectators. It was really good to stop and watch them, they had such energy and their enthusiasm was infectious.

Day 289 - Contemplating

I've got a quieter couple of weeks at the moment with Serendipity so I'm taking some time out to think about the last 9 months and how business has gone. It's still quite odd to think that I was still teaching this time last year and now I'm running my own business. I have done so much and loved all the different jobs I've done but it's good to take some time out and work out where to go from here. I feel really overwhelmed with the whole business side of things but have made some appointments to meet with people who can give some advice and point me in the right direction.

Day 288 - Father & Son

My friends Simon & Carmelina have paid for me to take a series of photos of their little boy, Oliver, over the course of the 1st year of his life. I did the first shoot with Oliver when he was 3 weeks old. Oliver is now 5 1/2 months and a real character. He was really chatty and great to photograph. I got some lovely shots of him on his own and then with his mum and dad. I love this one of Oliver and Simon.

Day 287 - I'm on the phone!

I had a brilliant day today! A couple of weeks ago I went along to a BNI training event and got the opportunity to ask for referrals into Event Management Companies. After the meeting several people came up to me with some names to get in touch with. One of them was a lady who works at Castle Park which is the home to the Doncaster Knights rugby club. I had a meeting with her today which was really positive and I hope we'll be able to work together in the future. She has lots of ideas to develop the corporate side of the events that she does and hopefully this will lead to them needing lots of photos taking.
In the midst of all the excitement I forgot to take a photo today and then realised I'd taken this shot for a friend so this is my photo for the day! I'd been asked to send a photo of me which could be used as a contact photo. I didn't want to send a boring photo so thought that this would be a great picture to come up everytime I phone! "Look it's me on the phone!"

Day 286 - Lazy Sunday

This photo speaks for itself. After a bit of a late night there were a few of us who had a quieter day rather than go on a walk. It would have been good to go on a walk before heading home, I felt we didn't make the most of the day but it was a good weekend.

Day 285 - 9 Standard's Ridge

After a miserable, rainy day yesterday it was great to wake up to this amazing weather. There were 3 walks to choose from today; a 16 mile walk, an 11 mile walk and a 7 mile walk. We chose the 11 mile walk which took us up to 9 standard's ridge and then back along bogs and marshland so we got back to the hostel a little muddier and soggier than when we left!

Day 284 - Weekend Away

I went on a weekend away with the local walking group. We headed up to Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria and stayed in the local youth hostel. Michelle and I drove up on the Friday afternoon which made it a much more relaxing day. We got to the hostel about 3pm and others started to arrive over the course of the evening. We wandered over the pub for a few drinks and then came back to the hostel for cups of tea and late night chat.

Day 283 - Making Hay

This is a shot I have been wanting to get for a while. I love driving past all the fields with these rolls of hay but it's quite difficult to find somewhere to park to jump out and get a shot. In my mind's eye the sky would be bluer and the field would roll down to join it so this isn't quite what I wanted but it'll do for now until I get to take another shot!

Day 282 - Dinner

A long tiring day so I was once again uninspired for my photo of the day. This was my dinner...tuna pasta bake!

Day 281 - Rainbow

As I was working on lots of emails and photos this afternoon I looked out of the window to see this amazing rainbow, it lasted for about 20 minutes and brightened up an otherwise dull day.

Day 280 - Schmores

On the first Monday of every month I meet up with my girlfriends. This month we went round to Kim's for wine and a catch up around the first proper fire of the winter. I decided to introduce the girls to schmores! We roasted marshmallows and sandwiched them between digestive biscuits with chocolate....completely healthy! They weren't the best schmores I've had, somehow they taste better when cooked over an open log fire when you're camping.

Day 279 - A Face in the Crowd.

The day of the Great North run dawns and it was a gorgeous day! Claire had decided that she wasn't well enough to do the run so we went down to support Ben. Ben was raising money for Diabetes UK which explains his rather attractive head wear. The atmosphere at the start of the race was amazing. There were over 52000 people running the 13 miles and then with all the people supporting them it was really busy. After watching the start of the race (and guessing when Ben crossed the start line which was probably about 30 mins after it actually started!) Claire and I made our way into town to catch the metro down to South Shields. It was mayhem in town and took us about as long to get to the end of the race as it took Ben to run it!! He did the run in 2:29 hrs and had a great sense of achievement for completing the race but I don't think he'll be doing it again! I was hoping that seeing Ben complete the race might inspire me to enter it another time.....but I don't think so! I'll stick to running in the park!

Day 278 - Nice Day for a Walk

Ben and I wandered down into Newcastle to have a look at all the different events going on for the Great North run. There were several junior runs happening around the quayside and I didn't envy the kids participating in this weather! It was a miserable afternoon and with the nerves already kicking in I think Ben was a little worried about running 13 miles tomorrow in this weather!

Day 277 - Mario Kart Wii

A weekend up in Newcastle with Ben and Claire to support them in their Great North Run. I caught the train this afternoon and Ben met me at the station before taking me home to see birthday girl Claire who was full of a cold and not really up to celebrating! They had some friends come round for wine, cake and a few games on the wii.

Day 276 - "Look what I found!"

Hey, look what I found today! My voice! I'm finally starting to feel human again and it's great to have most of my voice back.
I spent today sorting through paperwork and chasing up invoices and customer orders which had been piling up in my inbox, it's made me realise I have more to do than I thought but it's good to be feeling well enough to be back at work. : )

Day 275 - Fed up!

I'm officially fed up and bored of being poorly. It's been over a week now since I started to sniffle and feel rough with what I thought was just a measly cold. Unfortunately it's now a week later and I'm not better. I'm not very good at stopping and I think that may be part of the problem so I spent today at home, switched off my phone and made myself rest....so boring! I still have no voice and would quite like to have it back now. I've had enough of people asking me to "speak up" or ask me "sorry, have I just woken you up?" when they call me.....my sense of humour is quickly disappearing.