Charlie's Worldscorcher
Posted on January 19, 2010
Was very hot in Perth yesterday – 43 degrees according to the news and I don’t doubt it. It was already over 30 at 7am when I caught the train and when I went out to get lunch, the air was so warm it felt like it was burning the inside of my nose. You know when you get a blast of hot air from the oven when you open it – like that.
The office started to heat up a fair bit in the afternoon, so I came home early – just as well as all the trains were on a slow timetable because of the heat. Over 40 degree days happen every summer, so why on earth would you build a railway that can’t take it? The A/C on the train was really struggling too, especially as it was packed full 😦
Anyway, I got home (via the bottle shop and 12 bottles of cold beer) and was melting by then – I really must retire my English smart office trousers – they’re too thick material for this country.
Was bliss to get my shoes and socks off and get into shorts!
Went out to take some photos at Point Peron as the heat was causing some clouds to appear over the ocean – good chance of a nice sunset, but the clouds really rolled in and the sunset wasn’t like it could have been. There was another photographer on the beach – a Belgian guy called Tim – who was pretty cool – had a good chat whilst snapping away. He was getting some great pics straight out of the camera – I really miss my filters that got broken when my camera fell into the sea.
Despite the sunset colours being nothing to write home about, I got some corking photos. I messed about a little in Lightroom and was pretty happy with what came out.
sports
Posted on January 18, 2010
Not the actual sport itself, don’t be silly – that involves exercise and in this heat, who can be bothered – no, sports photography.
I’ve been a bit excited by my latest shots and I’ve been looking into pro kite surfing photography and am kinda liking a lot of the shots I’m seeing.
I want to get closer to the action, i.e. in the water, to take advantage of wider angles and more dramatic perspectives, but that really means dragging the camera where it’s least happy – into the wet stuff.
I know its been dunked before (accidentally) and came out ok, but I don’t think I want to chance wading into waist height and shooting big curling water trails at 2cm without some protection.
So I’ll need some kind of waterproof housing.
A few minutes of searching led me to these
They’re not that costly, but are good enough to allow me to take my expensive Nikon into the dunk zone without worrying about it getting ruined. Waterproof upto 10 meters, apparently. Thats more than enough, I only need it to be dunk proof.
*starts saving the pennies*
blimey
Posted on January 17, 2010
Its hot today
Over 40 according to my thermometer thingy.
Not as hot as I’ve felt here, but close. Hot enough to make the grass too warm to walk on. Probably hot enough to fry eggs on the drive, not that I would, detesting eggs like I do.
Gonna go out to take some pics at Point Peron after dinner, hopefully get some nice low sun/dunes/plants etc shots. We’ll see.
From yesterday..
kite surfing
Posted on January 15, 2010
a few minutes drive from where I live there’s a little shallow sheltered cove where the kitesurfers like to play.
I havent been there to take pictures for almost a year, so I figured it was about time this afternoon. I left it until almost 6 so the light would be better and the breeze nice and strong. When I pulled up in the car park though, I was surprised to see lots of people were packing up, but there were a good few people still out on the water.
Took almost 2o0 shots in the hour and a half I was there, which is a lot of pics for me, I’m getting a lot more economical these days. Less is the new more. Or something.
Anyway, I focussed on a few lads who seemed to be trying harder than the others to get huge air and faceplant themselves into the water – here’s a selection of the best shots..
hip to the beat, daddy-o
Posted on January 11, 2010
I got a new iPhone app today
I don’t normally brag or share about apps cos, well, its a bit passe, but this one is waaay cool
Its an old school camera simulator with different lens and film choices and its brilliant.
so many cool options for taking photos with the iPhone 🙂
It might have a crap camera relatively speaking, but the results are perfect for use on the web/flickr/facebook and blogs. It could possibly manage an A4 print but to worry about quality would be missing the point. Apple really have nailed the point of a smart phone. It does lots of things pretty well – its no substitute for a dedicated device, or laptop or camera or games machine, but it does them all well enough for when you’re out an about for it to be a star. My Nokia N95 was a good camera, a reasonable phone and crap at anything else.
The iPhone and its oh so clever App Store really is a work of genius.
Back in the real world
Posted on January 8, 2010
Got back to Perth on the 3rd of Jan and it was bloody hot coming out of the airport, especially as I’d been in either air conditioned comfort or the freezing UK air for 3 days.
Was nice to get back home though and one of the first things I did was to skype the kids.
Poor Henry, being small, burst into tears when I spoke to him and wanted me to cuddle him (we’d being doing lots of that and I miss it too). They’d had the remainder of their presents and were pretty happy.
The next day, Monday 4th I had to prep for an interview (sorry if any work people read this – its true, its not that I’m really unhappy with my job or company, it just pays to explore the market every now and again – if I get the new job, I’ll be over the moon as its a good opportunity, if I don’t, its a shame but I’ll carry on and continue to focus 100% on my current job – does that cover my arse enough?) which was a pain – it was a presentation on stuff that I don’t know anything about, so I had to put in 1/2 days work to get to grips with what I had to do.
The interview the next day went well I think, although I haven’t heard yet – its always hard to gauge what an interview panel really think – I’ll let you all know what happens as soon as I know anything.
So, we’re almost upto date – back to work this week already although very little is happening at the moment as a lot of people are still away. I have a big project to take part in this month, although I’m not sure what my active involvement as technical architect will actually be as this is going to be a hands on exercise, I’ll find out on Monday.
Well, thats a load of text without any pretty pictures..so, to remedy that..here’s some I took the other night 🙂
Its another beautiful day today, so I may pop out to get some photos this afternoon 🙂
New Years Eve
Posted on January 7, 2010
NYE was the last day in Oz for my kids – the flight out wasn’t until 2am (yeah, I know..) so we had a full day to have fun.
We drove off to Mandurah for a walk, a play in the park, an explore and a coffee – its only a 30 min drive and its quite pretty on the board-walk.
The kids had loads of fun exploring, looking for fish in the harbour, cleaning up litter (yeah, we have a bunch of conscientious environmentalists on the books) and playing in the park. We went for a longer walk over to the marina which was nice – its looking like its going to be a much nicer version of Hillary’s Boat Harbour (which I hate with a passion) – somewhere I might actually want to hang out. Hopefully they don’t spoil it.
It was a lovely afternoon, really relaxed and a good finish for the kids.
We scooted back to Rockingham to get fish and chips and scoffed them on the foreshore and listened to the NYE entertainment starting up. After a good feed, we had a little play and then headed home to pack 😦
Here are some pics from the day 🙂
Some tearful farewells later, I drove off with Ella and Henry to get the plane back to Singapore and then onto Heathrow. Its a shame we live so far apart as we had such a lovely time all together. I get to see them much more often as I’ll fly back to the UK a few times a year, but we simply can’t afford the AU$10k+ it costs to get them all here to Perth or for us to go to the UK en-masse very often. Ah well..lottery win, where are you?
The trip back was uneventful – its a bloody long way – the kids were shattered by the time we took off and were asleep for a good chunk of the trip. They were good as gold really given how tired they were and how much they just wanted to either stay or get back depending on how they were feeling.
We picked up the hire car and drove to my mum and dad’s place on New Years Day where their mum and her parents (my ex-wife and ex-inlaws) came to collect them, saving me a 4 hour+ drive there and back. It felt a bit odd, but we all get on ok and I like my ex-inlaws.
Was sad to see them off cos it was so lovely having Ella and Henry here for 10 days, but I know we’ll manage to do this again sooner rather than later.
After an very short sleep, I was off back to the airport and despite having to change terminals for Malaysian Airlines, I was uneventfully back off to Perth via Kuala Lumpur only 15 hours after I arrived.
Jet lag, what jet lag?
And so ended 2009 and began 2010.
Wedding
Posted on January 1, 2010
So, you’ve all been wondering about the wedding (well, mostly Lauren 🙂 ) – so here goes..
Well, it was amazing. It flew past so quickly though as I knew it would, but I have some awesome memories from the day
We held it outside by the lake as we had wanted, it was only 30 degrees so not too hot.
Henry was the first to walk down from the house to the gazebo by the lake, followed by Ella then Piper, Anja, Larissa then Jay, escorted by her Dad.
Jay looked amazing, so beautiful, I’m sure any photos of me would just have me grinning like a loon 🙂
The service was short and sweet, I loved the vows and the exchange of rings – I just remember focussing on Jay’s big blue eyes and grinning lots
The kids did us proud, Henry was so good, standing by either Pete or me very patiently and the girls looked and behaved beautifully
We walked up to the house after the ‘I will’s’
and had some champers and did some formal photos. It started to heat up a bit at this point – over 30 degrees in a suit or wedding dress is pretty warm.
We did a load of pics with Shelly from Smile Photography, then went for a 10 minute chill before making our grand entrance for the reception.
The food was lovely, they catered for Jay with a lovely vegan dish, but she was a bit hot to eat much.
We did the speeches after dinner was over, eating up our bar tab with more champers – *hic*. My speech went ok, my voice was totally shot from the virus I picked up from either my sister, my kids or the plane earlier in the week, so I had to keep it really short. Pete, Jay’s ex and my best man (I get on really well with him, he’s a top bloke!) did a wonderfully sincere speech that I’ll never forget.
Then we cut the cake (and very yummy it is too – we have a whole tier left to eat – chocolate mudcake – non nom :))
We did the first dance to ‘little waltz’ by Basia Bullat – check it out if you’ve not heard it – which was lovely – everything just vanished apart from Jay and I slowly twirling for those 3 minutes
The rest of the night was spent chatting everyone, putting Henry to bed and unwinding..
Professional photos will follow in a few weeks or so – here’s a couple that got taken whilst Shelly was doing her thing before the ceremony
All in all, it was a most excellent day and I’m still grinning about it all 🙂
Love you, Jay xx
Christmas
Posted on December 30, 2009
Only 5 days late – lol.
So, Christmas morning was a late one, the kids slept in as we had dragged them around the Christmas lights late the night before – I even had to go wake Henry at 8:30 as he was still sound asleep.
Got some excellent presents, a wide angle pin-hole Holga, a fish-eye lens for the other Holga and a Wii cricket game that I am yet to play as the kids have been on Wii Sport Resort morning noon and night.
Loved seeing all the kids get their presents – they all got surprises which was cool. Everything was a surprise for Henry though and he had a lovely time.
My parents came over, followed by Jays parents and Jay’s brother – we had a wicked feast and lots of presents and we had a brilliant day. We all sat outside on the patio in the 30+ degree heat and drank wine and chatted. Bliss.
Some pics from the day 🙂
Henry with Thomas the tank engine presents
Ella with Littlest Pet Shop presents
H in his Thomas t-shirt
amazingly that t-shirt stayed clean for 3 days despite heavy chocolate consumption, jam sandwiches and running about boy-style-ee.
Cos we were so busy, I don’t have many other pics – Jay’s girls were off playing within seconds of getting their presents and that was that – what with a houseful, I never did get to play family snapper. Ah well..they all had buckets of fun.
a brief moment
Posted on December 30, 2009
yup – the kids are playing, we have guests (well, Jay’s friend Cher is here) and I have finally managed to slink off to write a quick update..
We’ve had an awesome week with my parents and kids being here. We went out to meet my parents in Fremantle and headed over to have dinner in Wagamama on Tuesday (was that really more than a week ago? – man, time is rushing by) which was cool – they cater well for gluten free and vegan diets which was a major draw for us.
Other things we did – it all seems so jumbled up now:
- we’ve been to the beach a few times for a paddle in the surf
- went to Penguin Island on Christmas Eve to see Western Australia’s largest colony of Little (or fairy) penguins
- had a walk down the street with all the Christmas lights
- had the whole family over for Christmas lunch
- had a quiet boxing day with a walk on the beach
- got married (more on this later 😉 )
- had lots of friends over
The kids have had a lovely time so far – we’re going to play in the park thats just behind where I live later which should keep the monsters at bay for a few hours.
Here’s some pics from our trip to Penguin Island on Christmas Eve
Still to come, Christmas Day and our wedding 🙂
Charlie's World 