I love cows, I do. I’ve loved cows since a tiny tot when my farming Uncle introduced me to them. Did you know all  female cows are called Daisy, Daisy the cow, every single one, well they are in Mandycharlie world. You have to have a healthy respect for cows, they are big animals and not always predictable, especially if you have a dog in tow.  I remember buying a book called The Secret Life of Cows , pick it up if you get the chance, there is a lot to love about that book as it illustrates the complexities of their individual personalities.

But just because cows make me giggle, here are a few cow pictures.

Seeing the lovely clear evening, not a cloud in sight, I had a bit of a brain wave, lets go and try to see the Milky Way… With the help of Dark Site Finder, The Photographers Ephemeris and Sky Guide we quickly realised that seeing the Milky Way would be impossible, what with the moon being in the sky and setting after the sun started to rise and that wasn’t including the light pollution affecting things, but as you know I am game for anything, so we went anyway! Wrapped up several layers deep, pyjamas underneath our trousers we set off at 4.00 a.m.Yep, no Milky Way, just the faintest hiss of it, but no matter, the coffee was good, there were bacon sandwiches and boiled eggs for breakfast and it was four in the morning, what adventures could we have?The light from the moon is strong, but oh so beautiful. We played with torch light painting Chesterton Windmill.And then I thought I would have a twirl around.Tripped up!Another twirl And then my favourite one of all. The moon peeking through. And then the moon glowing red as we watched it set.Whilst at the same time, the sun was peeking through the mist. And we watched the calm of another day starting.

It was such a beautiful and crazy night, I hope we do it again soon, and those pyjamas had kept us beautifully warm and it was really easy to tumble into bed when we got home.

Having spent the weekend entrenched in all things domesticity we really needed to spend just an hour with the wind blowing around us to refresh and restore us, so we chose to head off to Chesterton Windmill, camera in hand to capture the sunset. The sky looks very interesting as we climb the hill in the blustery wind. But as we do a bride passes us, we know she is a bride by the frock she is wearing under her coat wrapped tightly around her to keep the draught out.The photographer is set up, we manage to take a shot without interfering with their shoot. And as we wend our way down the hill leaving them in peace,  the sun comes out, the wind drops and I hope the bride and groom are enjoying their time together creating special memories of their own.

One evening recently Hubby and I set off to photograph a few sunsets and I can remember sitting in the car thinking to myself how wonderful it is that I know so many photographers in London and Warwickshire who, probably at that very moment will be thinking photographically minded thoughts.  How we all pursue our visions and are deeply committed to and often amused by our art. How although it might seem a competitive sport, for most a camera is just a beautiful tool to play with. And when at the end of the day we sit there at our computers and tweak a little of this and a little of that, we know that there will be fellow photographers who will understand the sheer hard work and more often than not little bit of luck that went into the end result.

I found this spot by accident, we’d tried four different spots in the previous hour but none worked, some were filled with people, some the sun wasn’t right, some the castle was in the wrong place.  And then I came up with idea of yellow flowers in the foreground of a sunset, it is a bit early for rape seed to flower, but that’s what I wanted, but seeing how beautiful the sunset was I jumped out of the car anyway to take this shot and low and behold, once I’d climbed the bank, I realised we had found a field that was just coming into tiny yellow flowers.

Enjoy. 

I spent the most blissful of afternoon’s the other day in Stratford Upon Avon, I pottered around and then went on a mini river cruise.  I was the only person on the boat!  A cruise for one, how magnificent.

When I became interested in digital photography I didn’t have Lightroom so I just used to post what came out of the camera with very little happening to it.  I have always been resistant to the idea of cheating,,, and as a photographer that grew up using film, using CAD packages went against the grain.  Mind you I was posting JPEG images that would have had some sort of processing inside the camera.  Then I started to shoot in RAW and immediately saw a difference, the JPEG images often being brighter, more saturated and with a higher degree of contrast. At that point I started to use Lightroom and do a little bit of post processing.

Most of the images that I put on the blog are either the JPEG version as they look good enough and I’m tight for time and processing images does take time or they are the RAW version but with just a couple of tiny tweaks.  Mostly I don’t post process much, but I have been playing with Lightroom a little bit.  I don’t use all the gizmo’s because I don’t understand them, but I am getting better at it, I think, you must be the judge.  These are two photos taken within a second or two of each other, one post processed one not.  The processed one was exactly what I was trying to capture at the time, a glorious summers day.

I heard a big splash and whipped the camera around towards that direction and clicked. And caught this goose coming into land, right in front of the boat I was on.Saw the goose disappear in front of the boat and held my breath, but no it was alright as it came back out the other side. Phew! Alls well that ends well – otherwise it would have been goose for dinner!

I have a love of good food, but I also love a little bit of convenience as do many cuisines of the world, this time I was looking towards the far east. People of the Orient often like dried noodles which are then popped into simmering stock for a few minutes with a few chopped vegetables and spices and possibly a little seafood which are then guzzled heartily with many lip smacking noises. I’ve tried many versions both in restaurants and made from scratch at home with authentic ingredients and I’ve loved them all. But I don’t always have the time or inclination to make chicken stock from scratch and so I’ve been dabbling with the Chinese version of our Pot Noodle and they are good. Some have won awards and use proper beef bone stock and taste really savoury with a great mouthfeel and use no MSG and very little sugar, although not all are low in sugar, read the label. 
As always in this house it was a go with the flow moment, I made up the chicken noodle soup with boiling water, fried off some yellow pepper and frozen chicken fillets with a handful of tomatoes, adding water and spices to broil for a few minutes. Served the chicken noodle soup in a big bowl, added the chicken, yellow pepper and tomatoes and picked a few fresh salad leaves to serve on the side. It was delicious.