During my workshop with my Meetup group last week we learned more about bracketing, which I later through many trials and tribulations in photoshop turned into high dynamic range – photoshop not being a strong point of mine. I think I have finally captured some photographs of which I am very proud, if I can say that without sounding too pompous.

Just to give you a reality attack here, it took one hour and fifty minutes from the time of leaving the house to get to our desired meet up point.. a two and a half hour shoot in the freeeezing cold, it was cold at 6.00 p.m., pretty cold at 7.30 p.m. and positively glacial at 8.30 p.m., standing and not walking is going to freeze you more than you thought possible.

Between you and me we had layered up, I was wearing four of my own layers and hubby was wearing three of his and one of mine !!! (it was just a tshirt) I am so glad I forced him into doing that, it really helped to keep the cold at bay.

And after the shoot, our eyes alighted on the nearest French bistro and a good steak and a bottle of red was just the ticket with which to warm up with.  Much laughter ensued and eventually we got home well past midnight – the things I do for my art!, a sum total of eight hours out the house for a couple of snaps, well it beats golf!!!

I’ve been mooching around Meet Up. for a while looking at the various and most wonderful courses that are around London.  The photography ones in particular always catch my eye, so when one of the photography groups said they were organising the last night photography workshop of the season I jumped at the chance, having wanted to learn just how light trails are photographed.

It was a lot of fun and I picked up some great techniques and next time I’ll be on my own so will be able to jostle for a better spot.

But until then, may I present my light trails…

We haven’t been eating much bread of late, so I haven’t been baking  and on the rare occasion that a Sunday morning bacon sandwich has been called for hubby has popped to the shop for a loaf of something wrapped in plastic and sliced – Oh the horror!  But even though that commercial bread has entered my home, its not leaving without doing it proper justice.

So eyeing up the ends of a brown loaf that had been sat there for a couple of days and the start of a white loaf that I knew we would never get through, three bananas that were just about to expire from the exhaustion of looking pretty and half a pot of economy marmalade jam bought at Christmas for glazing the ham an idea started to form.

Crusts included I used four slices of brown and four slices of white, heavily buttered and spread with the marmalade and then spread with crushed up banana on top of the marmalade and cut into triangles.

Arranged browns then whites triangles in an oven proof dish  (or tried to, I made an error half way through!) next beat six medium eggs, added 2 ounces of sugar and then added milk and made up to the 1.5 pt mark on the jug and then slowly trickled that over the luscious triangles to allow the bread to soak up the milk.  You may need more it depends on the size of your dish.  And allowed it to soak for ten minutes.

Popped it into a hot oven for half an hour…

And it became a thing of beauty.

It was very yummy, the tang of the marmalade, the comfort of the custard mingling with the banana and the crispy bits on top without any of those dead fly currants  you normally get.

Six to eight portions, price depends on eggs and marmalade used, economy version comes in at approx £2.30, eight portions equals 29p a portion.  Not bad considering most of those ingredients were heading for the bin.

Hubby was tootling back from the shops at the end of last week when his car was smacked across the nose by a chap who hadn’t realised the road bends and had decided to go straight on.  So the last few days have been spent nursing a hubby with whiplash and making sure he got to the hospital to be checked out and nursing a hubby who understandably was having a few emotional moments and then starting the arduous and quite frankly unbearable task of looking around for another car.   We had a nice little Mercedes estate which to all intents and purposes was probably worthless, the book price is just a few hundred quid, but this was a lovely little runner.  It had a low mileage built like a tank diesel engine and very few rust spots and everything worked!  Well it did, we are waiting to hear, but suspect the insurance company will right it off as being too expensive to fix.

Which leaves us out of pocket and looking for another car in London.  Urgh, its horrible, travelling just a few miles takes hours, its not like lovely Warwickshire where you can tootle along and not even think about it, you get on that North Circular and  your done for.  Wish us luck whilst we veer widely from a brand new Dacia to a Mercedes which when looked at leaves one grumpy at the flowery questionable description that we are still clutching in our grubby hands whilst talking to a shady operator who is telling us black is white and who has no awareness of our knowledge base.

I think this iconic image needs a little explanation.

For more than one hundred years horse drawn or mechanical vehicles have entered and left ‘Savoy Court’ on the right-hand side of the road, due to the construction of the court and is the only road in the UK where this is the case.   An Act of Parliament was passed in 1902  allowing carriages and cars to enter Savoy Court on the right.  This allows the ladies who traditionally would sit behind the driver to exit their cars or carriages with a flourish, their driver having leapt from their seat as soon as the vehicle had stopped to open the door and allow the lady to exit the car and enter the building unscathed by muddy puddles, splashes from other cars or run aground by wild horses.

I do so enjoy our half days at the Zoo, as the weather warms we will spend longer, but for now just after lunch until 5.30 seems plenty.  This is just a few photos of day 2.  I love the African Wild Dogs with a passion and have a whole series of photos to look through, I’m losing light, the ISO is ramped right up, the aperture is wide open just to get the speed.