I Woke Up A Tad Early,

so I had some time to start playing with one of my photographs, 

I decided on this one of the Shard, 

I did a quick colour swap,

and started playing, but then stopped as Kai was on her way round, 

and here we are having Sunday lunch, 'Cheers!', Kai had arrived after a 4 month stay in Thailand visiting her family and friends there, we chatted the afternoon away before she left, then as we have booked a cruise to Morocco, what better than the,

Road to Morocco? as one commentator noted:

'More of a "big budget home movie" than anything else, but funny and enjoyable anyhow'.

and it was enjoyable, and yes we are looking foreword to our cruise there, in the evening a all star cast film,

Murder by Decree, Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, all star cast, 2 hour long film, what could be better? great fun, in many ways the later From Hell was similar, both very enjoyable to watch, after which Diana was off to bed, a 04.00AM start for her, for myself a 1 hour special staring Bill Bailey in a one man show, as ever the multitalented musician thrilled everyone, that was followed with a

Black Books, which he was in, so funny on so many levels after which I too was off to bed.

I Played With A Few Black & White Images,

but I have to say the more I looked at them, the more I did not like them, 

this garden gate for instance, as it comes out of the infrared camera,

 

which I colour swapped and made into a black & white, 

and then fine tuned it where in certain areas there was too much shadow, or some of the newer brickwork was too light, but the end result? a mess, so I hatched a cunning plane, I spent the afternoon looking through a number of folders I had of places that we had visited in the past and saved them to a desk top folder, 

and here are a few of them, it is always a bit tricky to tell if a infrared photograph will translate into a black & white print, but now I have trolled through some of my collection, so next week I will start with some of these, 

before my evening meal, time for some maintenance, ink top ups,

it is all so easy, just put the bottle upside down on the appropriate reservoir and let it fill up, (you can not use the wrong ink as each bottle will only go into its colour),

then tell the printer which reservoirs you have filled up, in my case all of them, and as they say that is that!

on to my evening read and sherry,

for tonight liver & bacon, 'Cheers!', none of the usual opal hunters or Deadliest catch tonight as it was Saturday, so a couple of Bangers & Cash before my evening film, for tonight, 

The Last Voyage of the Demeter, from the blurb:

"Based on a single chapter, the Captain's Log, from Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel "Dracula", the story is set aboard the Russian schooner Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo - 24 unmarked wooden crates - from Carpathia to London."

the ship wrecked on the English coat, with no survivors onboard, but one makes landfall, I have to say for myself very scary dairy, Diana will love it when we watch it together! and who should arrive home none other than Diana, so as we chatted away and had a coffee, (spiced rum), we watched the last half of,

 The Good The Bad and the Ugly, we had watched the film before, but it was still good fun to watch again, before we were both off to bed.

Diana Was At Work,

as I started to play,

not very successfully as it happens, I decided to go back to some of my infrared images, but unfortunately I managed when my old computer crashed, to lose the one program I used to process them, I could colour swap easily enough, but trying to adjust the colours after that I just could not achieve the effect I wanted, the program was old when I tried it and was kept on another photographers web site, his site is seems to have gone offline or at least disappeared, so that is that, 

but I could still play with black & white images, this one I thought the sky looked a tad too busy, 

so I changed it and lighted the image a tad, which brought me nicely up to, 

my evening read and sherry, today the latest edition of Private Eye had just arrived, 

'Cheers!', before I tucked into a Chinese chicken curry, after which feet up for a film, 

Fright Night, I have to say the poster looked a lot more scary dairy than the film, but still good fun to watch, as it finished Diana arrived home from work so a coffee and a chat as we settled down to watch,

 The Dinosaurs, the new Netflix Spielberg series, it was for us so good, we watched the first two that charted the rise and demise of the reptiles, the dinosaurs waiting their turn for ascendancy in a ever changing world, and the difference between a reptile and a dinosaur is? all dinosaurs are technically reptiles (specifically archosaurs), but not all reptiles are dinosaurs,

 the primary difference is that dinosaurs had an upright, perpendicular stance with legs directly under their bodies, whereas other reptiles (like crocodiles and lizards) have a sprawling gait, we are looking forward to the next instalment when Diana is at home in the evening, after which a Endeavour it was, before we were off to bed.

I Had Decided It Was Time To Change Our Photographs,

I am lucky that we have a long wall to display them, 

and that Diana likes my efforts at taking photographs, so the old ones above out, 

and the new ones replacing them,

a photograph from the other end of the row, it does not sound much, change the photographs, and although not difficult, it was quite time consuming, anyway job done, all I have to do now is take another12 images that we like so much that we would like to see them on our wall, Diana was at work whilst all of this was going on, after my evening meal it was feet up for the usual Outback Opal Hunters, and Deadliest Catch, then there was for me, a bit of a treat being shown, one of the many countries I would like to visit is Namibia, and tonight there was 2 back to back programmes being shown about the country, 

they were both in the Deadly 60 series, the main points being avoid the lions and do not step on a side wider, (snake), but it was still interesting looking at them, and has increased my wish to visit there, I followed that with a Midsomer Murder but left before it ended to pick Diana up from work, arriving home a Endeavour had just started, so we settled down to watch that after which Diana was off to bed, I stayed up for a Bangers & Cash which finished at 01.00AM so I too was off to bed.

After Dropping Diana Off At Work,

I played with a few photographs, 

without much success, except this one from Beachy Head that we visited in 2020, which I quite liked,

after which it was time for my evening meal, first a read and a milk, no sherry this evening as I will be driving to the club and afterwards picking up Diana, 

'Cheers!', as I tucked into a delicious gammon ham soup that Diana had made for me, next time for the meeting of the Beckenham Photographic Society, tonight I put 2 entries into the monochrome, or black & white as I call it competition, 

every member of the club is allowed to submit 2 photographs, I choose 'The Shadow', from our trip to Edinburgh in March of 2018,

and 'High Rise Living', taken in Hong Kong when we were there in October 2015, the competition will be judged next week, once entered it was time for the guest speaker, James Burns, his talk this evening was titled London from the Rooftops, he has so many unique photographs as he can access places where most of us are not allowed, when seen from above so many familiar streets are unrecognisable, many times using long lenses, 500mm+ photographs of the moon as a backdrop behind some of London's famous buildings make it appear much larger than in real life, giving the photographs a stunning look, very entertaining indeed, after which off to pick up Diana from work, arriving home a Endeavour had just started, so a spiced rum it was as we settled down to watch that, after which we were off to bed.

I Had A Busy Day,

after dropping off Diana at 04.45AM, 

I spent the morning catching up on the previous 2 day's posts, then off to pick up Diana from work, but on the way stopping off at the doctors surgery, I had some samples to drop off for my bi-annual cancer tests, then off to pick up Diana and then to Kai's home, yes she was home after a four and a half month stay in Thailand, the girls were so pleased to see each other, and soon planning shopping and eating days out in London, the only slight problem the battery in Kai's car had died, it was terminal as a recovery crew found out later in the afternoon, so last night before the local car battery garage closed Kai was out to pick up a new battery, for us after our evening meal I was out, 

the Bricklayers Arms in Beckenham, I knew where it was, for many years it was Richards, 'Office' during working hours, I had many 'working' meetings there, the Nature Group of the Beckenham Photographic Society meet there for the bi-monthly meetings, we are meeting next week on Tuesday, the girls at the pub mentioned at our last meeting we could put up a poster if we wanted to, so I did!

I took 2 posters along with me, 

both slightly different, I only used my own photographs, well copyright and all that, 

and here is one of them, next to Spiderman above the tables we met at last time, if you are free next Tuesday please pop in and have a look, and if you have some prints or images on a memory stick bring them along, arriving home we decided on a couple of Poirot's, yes we have seen them before, but we still have to wait until at least half way through each one to remember who 'did it' we rounded off the evening with a Endeavour before we were both off to bed.

First Thing,

we were out as it was Diana's day off, 

we ended up here, no not at the cement works!

we were in Whitstable, the works a part of the harbour complex, I was soon snapping away, 

the fleet in, 

the converted net houses now used for processing the catch, 

like these bags of live whelks, 

looking back to where we had been walking, 

we decided to walk to the pub on the beach, 

and there it is in the distance, 

the Old Neptune, 

looking back to where we had walked from,

Diana had a play with the new camera, 

although I did have to brighten this one up as I was in complete shadow,

a selfie on Diana's telephone,

drink finished so over the hightide defences, 

and into the old town,

many of the buildings made of wood, 

we found our place for lunch, Diana walking towards The Duke of Cumberland, 

a flavoured soda for Diana, a red wine for myself, 

'Cheers!',

and from Diana, who went with the seafood spaghetti, shell-on tiger prawns, mussels & clams, garlic, shallots, tomato & white wine ragu, for myself, well we were at the seaside, fish & chips of course!

'Cheers!', with a rum coffee, 

a latté for Diana, the meal came to £80.00, we made our way back to the station and soon arrived in Beckenham, where as it was Monday we watched a Outback Opal Hunters, before a Midsomer Murder and a Endeavour before we were off to bed.