December 18th 2010

Tim Minchin

Today was a great end to the week – the photo is of course Tim Minchin performing with a symphony orchestra behind him, as seen from our great seats in the Nottingham Arena. So nice for Claire and me just to spend a night out by ourselves and watch a genius of wordplay and music at work. If he’s your kind of thing and you ever get a chance to see him, just do it, you won’t be disappointed!

October 28th 2010

Fireworks

Today’s photo was from a fireworks display at the kids’ club – a little early for Guy Fawkes but it coincides with the half term week. I didn’t go expecting Beijing 2008, but was pleasantly surprised at the effort they’d made, although a phone camera is not really going to do it justice.

October 16th 2010

King and Knights

Recently I’ve been doing something I haven’t done in years – playing a lot of chess. It’s something I did, a lot, to a reasonable standard, while at school and to a lesser extent at university, but I haven’t played since, in about 17 years. Until now, when I have started playing initially one or two friends online, and eventually getting quite into playing more and more games online.

So I was debating taking a photo of chess pieces, arty or otherwise, to demonstrate this, although where my physical chess set is is anyone’s guess, given the location and even the ownership of most of my possessions in various places this year. But while shopping in Nottingham today I noticed that a well known department store was selling over-sized pieces. I never quite figured out why, but didn’t mind, as it was a perfect set-up for my chess piece shot. Job done.

September 21st 2010

Distant towers

Today I drove through the scenic roads of Derbyshire to Rowsley, near Bakewell in the Peak District, for a great reunion visit with a good friend. Great scenic route for a southerner like me, but all done in the dark, which is no good for this blog!

Instead, I tried, blindly and safely, to take a photo of my not so scenic route to work earlier in the day. I almost discarded this shot until I realised I did actually get the huge distant cooling towers after all, dwarfed on the horizon. I ended up rather liking this randomly-taken shot, which is just as well as it’s all I’ve got!

September 13th 2010

You can do it …

After Friday’s epic two hour plus drive home from work, I was determined to have a better drive into work this morning. Thankfully I’m not one of life’s great pessimists, the kind who deny they are by calling themselves realists, and I was optimistic at the start of the week.

A few minutes in, a few metres into my motorway commute, and the traffic began to grind to a halt again. I then spent a lot of the next hour in close proximity to a lorry of a well known DIY store.

Blog Scrabble anyone? Or Countdown? We started with this one …

August 30th 2010

Old Big ‘Ed

Today’s photo comes from (as the eagle-eyed or bus-spotters among you will have already noticed) Nottingham city centre. The photo is of course the legendary Brian Clough, former manager of both Derby County and Nottingham Forest.

Unfortunately the necessity of a daily photo blog can leave you having to make detours from the plans of the day (which, today, was coffee with friends and a spot of shopping in the city centre) and appearing to be the most blatant of tourists as you look for the most photogenic and iconic of images. But I’m used to that now.

August 21st 2010

Beam me up …

Today’s photo was from a wedding – a friend of Claire’s invited us to the evening reception. Although these things are difficult when you know nobody there, it did get more fun as the evening progressed and the food arrived. I did get some lovely photos of Claire and the kids, but they are just for me right now – leaving only a very small selection of poor quality anonymous shots. Of the few leftover shots, only one of them had a total stranger with a beam of light shining from his head. This one.

August 14th 2010

Televisions

The title of today’s photo is taken from the word on the wall at the back of the store.  I think it sums up this shot rather well.

And better still, one of these (or at least  an identical one from a box), is now in my possession, and I can see it right now set up in all its glory in my soon to be new home. Unfortunately the nicest, biggest, shiniest new TV on the planet can’t do anything about the quality of Saturday Night entertainment on UK television, but when it comes to enjoying better quality entertainment in the future, it sure is going to look good!

July 18th 2010

E Eats Everything …

Today’s quest for food and scenery on a summer Sunday began for Claire and me with the idea of finding a country pub and exploring the Dales and lakes of Derbyshire. As the skies darkened and the heavens opened, the plan changed to one of meatballs, D’aim bar cakes and furnishings and a well known large Swedish furniture store outside Nottingham.

But I didn’t care. The Dales are going nowhere, they’ll be there every weekend. It’s important to have flexible plans though, don’t you think?

July 17th 2010

High five!

A rare moment of sporting triumph as a ball (not a watermelon, despite appearances to the contrary)  heads towards the centre pin. In an even rarer moment, a significant number of pins were knocked over very shortly after this photo was taken. None of us were expert bowlers but it was a good night out and fun for the kids.