Maggie and the start of the packing

Spent a good weekend with Freyja and Steve from Sydney who came up to visit us this weekend. Met them at the airport around 3:30 on Friday and after having a coffee on The Strand overlooking Magnetic Island whilst accompanied by much talking about how good it was to see the Sun, headed back over to our place to find Em waiting on the doorstep (she'd cycled in and had left her keys at home). Had a relatively quiet night catching up and having some food down at the local pub, and enjoying more than our fair share of laughs as the University Frisbee Team was beginning a night on the town dressed as TV/movie characters. Lots of Wolverines, an Iron Man, Mad Hatter and many, many others. Queue a fair bit of reminiscing about uni!

Em headed to the hospital with Steve on Sat morning - grit in the eye a few days earlier. Note to self: don't use a grinder on mortar when only wearing a pair of sunnies. After initially thinking they'd only be an hour or so, headed to grab a drink at the cafe after a couple of hours then walked around the river with Freyja until about 11:30 when we heard they were heading home with drop versions of the cream Em had in the house. Had a bite to eat and then headed off to Magnetic Island for the afternoon.

Steve hired a car and then we drove to Horseshoe Bay at the top of the island (about a 5 minute drive) and then decided to find Arthur Bay which the guidebooks said was good for Snorkelling.

Freyja and Steve Snorkelled, I took some piccies (trying to get back into the photography so spent a lot of the afternoon playing with settings and making lots of mistakes, but got a few nice shots) and Em sunned herself on a big rock by the water.

Arthur Bay, MAgnetic IslandMarlin Bar, Horseshoe Bay

Went back to Horseshoe Bay after driving around a bit first and had some food and a beer. Headed back home around 7 and then finished off by watching the All Blacks vs the Wallabies Rugby match. Australia managed to hold on for the win after a big NZ come back.

Went to the markets in the morning and had some brunch then went up Castle Hill to take in the view (unfortunately a tad cloudy so weren't able to see as far as normal) and then a final drink on The Strand before dropping them at the airport.

Em has now got into total holiday mode - we are both pretty much packed and just need to put in a few toiletries on Friday. Realised that I need to figure out how to put the hot water system on standby and a hoping that the Letting Agents get onto fixing the sprinkler system in the garden otherwise we may have a completely brown (rather than mostly brown) lawn when we get home!

Just spent a while crawling around chasing a Gecko (poor thing was terrified!) so I could put it outside. I don't fancy getting home to find Gecko poo all over the new sofa!

8 days to go

In a little over a week Em and I shall be winging our way back over to Blighty for a 3 week holiday. I've got in touch with most people to arrange a catch up and hope we can see most people whilst back.

Ash is sorting out a weekend in the Lakes (mainly because I've been a bit tardy with helping to sort stuff) so we should have a good couple of days on the hills if the weather plays ball.

It turns out that it is another friend's birthday party that weekend, so the trip may be cut short to accommodate that, but even if it is, we should be able to see a few more people at that!

I'm hoping that the seats we were given when I booked are as good as they say and we don't get unlucky and stay awake all night. This is because although the seats are rated highly on seatguru.com they are also 'bassinet' seat. This means that there are baby 'tables' attached to the bulkhead in front of the seats and could well house some small people who will be intent on keeping us awake for the 13 hours we are on that flight. I shall be packing my headphones so that hopefully I can hear the films over any crying. It makes me wish that noise cancelling headphones were cheaper than the $260 that I've seen them selling for over here.

Well in 8 days I'll be able to say if I should have spent the cash or if it was money well saved.

I found some pennies in gathering dust ... Not sure what 1.20 will buy these days

Returning to the basics

I've lately started to take some photos again - to try and get into Photography once more.  I've upgraded my lens kit to a 24-105 f4.0 L IS USM lens from one of Em's bosses who was upgrading himself (thanks for the early birthday present Em) and gave me a great deal, and a 50mm f1.8 lens to give me some flexibility with low-light situations and in preparation for our trip back to the UK as it should prove to be a good portrait lens on my crop-sensor camera.

I have also found and installed the 'Russian hack' for the EOS 300D camera which I own.  My model has been out of warranty for a long time, so I had no issue with breaking the warranty by doing this.  Obviously if you want to use it yourself, you should be aware that some people have reported problems with the installation resulting in it locking up during installation.  This installs a hacked firmware so that it releases a number of functions that were available on the EOS 10D camera which was the number one 'Prosumer' Digital SLR at the time.  This has given me access to some functions I think I will use a fair bit, notably selectable autofocus modes and a max ISO of 3200.

I plan to try and upload one or two photos to Flickr daily.  I shall also try and improve my creative mind by deciding on subject matter and trying to create a set of photos based around a theme.  I hope that this should help with my imagination for coming up with ideas for my paintings too.

If you have any ideas or subjects that you would like me to use as the basis for some of these sets, then please leave me a comment.

Footbridge on the Cudtheringa Track of Castle Hill, Townsville

This shot was taken on a walk with a good friend from NSW who was staying with us for a few days.

View across Townsville Port from Castle Hill, Townsville

More of photos can be seen on my flickr page here.