Garden Leave

For the past two and a half months I have been on "garden leave".  So, for those of yo unfamiliar with this, essentially I have handed in my notice at work and rather than require me to work they will pay me my usual salary to stay at home (and away from clients!).

This commenced on 13th December, in plenty of time for me to prepare for Christmas. Everybody I speak to appears to be concerned that this time will be boring.  Not so.  I have an extremely busy job and have worked from being 16 years old (in school holidays).  When I take annual leave from work I go on holiday, I simply never have time to just relax and be at home and this three months has been good for my soul.  I have had the time to relax, be with friends, go on additional holidays, be a wife, decorate, sort and craft.  I cannot believe that in a couple of weeks it will all be over and I will be back at work, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time to just be me.

Baby on the way

My niece was due to give birth to her first baby on 13th February 2013 and today she is in labour.  Her waters broke at 1pm yesterday and she has been having contractions since before that. She lives around 25 miles from the hospital so yesterday evening she (along with her partner and mum) presented herself at my house as I am only about 5 miles from the hospital.  The hospital had sent her away and told her to return once her contractions are a consistent 5 minutes apart or 24 hours after her waters have broken.

As a result of this turn of events I spent the evening timing contractions, taking temperature and trying the make the mummy to be as comfortable as possible.  She is being really brave just breathing deeply with each painful contraction and making no fuss.  I am very proud of her and can't wait to welcome my new great-niece into the world.

Back to Blogging

So it has been an awful long time since I last took to my blog.  It is one of those things that I never seem to get around to doing.  I always promise myself that I will make more effort and love it when I do it but time slips away!

I have lots of things going on this year so maybe I could try and find the time to share them with the world.

Technology

My husband spends an awful lot of time abroad with work (65 days in the first 6 months of this year), which leaves me missing him desperately.  In the last two weeks whilst he has been away we have discovered the joys of video calling via FaceTime on the iPhone 4.  It is fantastic.  Provided that you both have a wireless internet connection (and an iPhone 4!) you can video call each other for free.  This has completely changed the experience of my husband being away for me.  It now means that if I have bought something new I can show him, he can talk to the dogs (sad I know) and it feels like we are properly staying in touch rather than just having a fraught telephone call whilst I am busy rushing around.  I feel like a teenager sneaking home at lunch to get my half an hour video call to chat to my husband over the wireless internet.  I was even able to chat to him whilst I had a Starbucks one lunchtime using their wireless internet. Isn't technology just fantastic!

Fuji FinePix F80 EXR - Review

So, I have now had the time to have a play with my new digital camera and here are my brief thoughts. 

It has a lot of automatic settings which, whilst they are a good gimic, are a waste of time in my opinion.  If you venture in the manual settings you can get much better results.  I am not keen on the method of zooming i.e. there is a wheel around the shutter button which you push from left to right and I don't like it.  That being said however a 10x optical zoom on a small digital camera is impressive.

When venturing into the manual settings it does take some really good pictures and I have to say that for the bargain price of £99 (from Fuji's refurbished online shop) I am suitably impressed.  I would definitely recommend it.  Here are some of my results from my first outing:

My gorgeous little boy, otherwise known as "Trouble":

My beautiful (and well behaved) little girl:

They love nothing more than playing on the field:

Photography

Hi All

Long time no posting.  As you may had gathered if you have read any of my earlier posts, I am a keen photographer.  I have today purchased a new compact digital camera.  I have a DSLR which I use if I am going to events but quite often when I am out and about, maybe just walking the dogs or driving somewhere, I see something which I feel would make a good photograph.  I am therefore going to carry this camera with me to keep a record of any moments of inspiration which I may see in my day to day life.  As I go along I will try to share some of my favourites with you.  I am by no means a professional but I have learnt a few things along the way, which again I may share as I go along.

If any of you are interested, my new puchase is a Fuji FinePix F80EXR.

Wish me luck :-)

My Birthday Treat

It was my birthday last month and as a treat my husband bought me these shoes. I am absolutely in love.  I know that this is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a pair of shoes but I work really hard and all the money I have I have earnt so I do not feel any guilt about this whatsoever.

Lots of people have said that they would never spend such a vast amount of money on a pair of shoes but each to their own I say!