Bluebell Walk at Beacon Wood Country Park

Here are some bluebells pictures, taken at Beacon Wood Country Park, Bean, Kent, taken on 22 April 2012. I love bluebells, it just looks so lovely, and once the bluebells are out, you know spring is in full swing.

Here is my friend Claire (also a keen photographer), being ambushed by our dogs Fefe and Bonnie

River Thames near Dartford

Here are some pictures from a walk down to the Thames last weekend. (near Dartford / Kent/ UK)

Dartford Bridge

It took us about 1 hour to get her clean. The mud literally sticks!! and the mud on her back is when one large Boxer dog tried to jump her - she didn't take well to it and soon showed him!

Hot day on the Thames

I took my daughter Ruby and her friend Natasha down to the Thames today, lovely cool breeze on a hot day ( well, hot for us anyway!, abt 27C). It's not a long walk from us, maybe 20 mins, but not a very pleasant walk unfortunately - lots of boy rasers on motorbikes (we had to jump into the hedges a few times), and lots of flytipping which is a great shame. It was lovely down by the water tough, despite some rubbish which always gets washed up, can't avoid it. We had fun looking for shells and stones, and Bonnie had great fun in the mud. We had to hose her down when we came back home, no way we could have let her in the house like that.




-- Post From My iPhone

Happy Birthday Bonnie

Yesterday was Bonnie's 4th. birthday. Happy Birthday Bonnie.
We've now had her for almost 2 years, we got her on the 22nd. March 2008.

Walkies again - for Bonnie and me

I finally started to go out with Bonnie again - boy, I was missing that. See, with a 35kg Labrador, I was really scared to walk with her and that I might not be able to hold her with my fresh abdo scar. Usually.... she is quite well behaved, but if she sees another dog - or anything which takes her fancy, she can pull me quite badly - and I really didn't want to risk my scar opening up again.

Out came the HALTI head collar again! I used to use it when we first got Bonnie. Her previous owner never really walked her, she was only kept in the back garden, and they only had a choke chain for her. So when I took her for a walk first time - all proud new dog owner - it was a nightmare. But the head collar changed her into a different dog, walking reallyle nicely with me and I was easily able to control her. I than stopped using it when she appeared to be a bit more settled with us, as SHE really hates the head collar. But now it is saving me again, as I find it really easy to control her with it, and Yeah, I am finally able to walk her again.  Slowly but steadily life returns to normal for me.

Btw, we've only had the slightest dusting of snow, as can be seen in the pictures, and even that is melting quickly in the winter sun. Bonnie easily broke to ice in that puddle to have a drink.

Lazy Saturday and my first walk

Weekend is here - not that it makes a difference to me at the moment. I had a bit of a scare last night when I realised that my scar is bleeding. Not badly, but... I hope this is not a setback, it's now 12 days after the surgery. I didn't lift anything heavy or anything like that, basically all I did was sitting here on my desk with the laptop, and sitting in the armchair stitching. All that sitting must have done it LOL.

The weather is really mild here at the moment, around 11 degree C,and nice winter sunshine. After some 'gentle' persuation on my part Nafees agreed to go out with me to walk Bonnie. I am really missing walking the dog, not to mention the look Bonnie gives me every time I walk past the closet with the 'dog-walking' stuff, her leads etc. But she is much too strong unforunately for me to walk her by myself. If there is no-one else around, it's fine, but if another dog appears on the scene...different story, than I won't be able to hold her in my current past-OP state. Here are a few impressions:

Nafees with Bonnie Honey outside our house, making a dash for it.

Across the road from us.

Beginner's photography

Finally, nothing else planned this evening, and so I had the chance to take the camera out to put some of the learned stuff into practice today. Now, coming back from work, doing the dinner, and then by the time of course I was ready to go out with Bonnie and take the camera, it was coming up to 7pm. It was not quite dark, but not far off. I've read somewhere the best light is at dusk and dawn, so here we go.

So, there is me, the beginner with the camera. As recommended by Michael, our teacher, I kept the setting on 'Manual' to really get the experience and try different things and not to rely on the automatic mode, because this is exactly what I want to come away from. I tried to get the exposure right with aperature and shutter speed - was quite glad that I remembered it quite easily, and managed to get the right exposure by changing shutter speed. It was getting dark pretty quickly, so the aperature had to stay at 4.0. To get enough light in, I had to put the shutter speed really slow, around 1/8 sec. and of course that's when the effect of camera shake started to appear - Bonnie is just a blurred shape! I was quite proud that at this stage, I remembered that one can also change ISO to make it more light sensitive and thus go down to a faster shutter speed - reducing the camera shake somewhat. Well, small beginnings.

Bonnie with flash

and Bonnie without flash

I like how the autumn colours appear here. 

By than, the night was really drawing in and I was presented with a beautiful orange sunset. I tried to capture it with the houses as a 'skyline', but unfortunately not very successfully. I know there is a trick somewhere - I don't remember it, not at this stage anyway. I think the camera exposed for the very lit sky, and than the foreground became too dark:

Or, with a different exposure setting, the whole picture became too light:

I think the best picture I took right at the end:

I 'm off work this week (lots of flexi time). I was hoping for good weather, and continue to work in the garden. This is b****y hard work – I am preparing the vegetable beds and tried to dig up the soil. After about 20 cam, there is just rubble in the ground. Apparently, this is what’s happening commonly in newly build houses, were the builders, when they leave, just dump the rubble in the garden and top it with a whimsy layer of top soil. Yep, that’s exactly how my soil is! Great. I dug about 30 cm deep or so, but can’t do no more, it is just too hard going through the rubble. I’ve done about 60% of the border in the last 4 weeks, planted so far runner beans, tomatoes, broccoli,coriander, rocket.

It is quite windy today, and not very warm, sitting in the garden and reading is not an option (that’s what I did yesterday, my ideal holiday occupation – bliss!). I took the camera out with me when I walked Bonnie. I still feel a little uncomfortable, walking with a big camera and enormous lens around my neck. I don’t feel very safe to be honest. Maybe its because I’m not used to it, but on the other hand I don’t want to miss out on photo opportunities. Today it was too windy to attempt pictures of flowers, they were blowing all over the place. So I did some more of those ducks/ducklings – all good practice. Downloading is easy peasy. I hadn’t realized what big difference the photo editing software makes to the quality of the pictures. I only did so far level tools. Takes up all my time, but is fun. And than there is a big book to read, all about Photoshop… Only 695 pages. Yes, I do enjoy it.

Oh, and I set up that Flickr account www.flickr.com/thepegster2009. Not a lot in there yet - another thing I gotta do!

Here is an example of my (still veeeery amateur) work in the photo editing programm. I did not use Photoshop for this, but the simple software which was supplied by Canon with the Camera. Didn't dare to look at Photoshop yet hee hee - that big 695 pages long book is waiting for me.

Original
edited with level / curve tools

Big news - well, for me anyway. I have finally bought my first D-SLR camera. Have been toying with this for the last few months, as I enjoy walking and wildlife/wildflowers more and more and really want to get more serious about photography. So... I have saved up on a deposit and got a Canon Eos 450D. There is sooo much to learn, I've been submerged in the 'Dummy' guide for the past few days and taking my first shots. I love it.

Problem is that this is going to be an expensive hobby. Already I realised that I may have to purchase more lenses with the stuff I want to take pictures off. I got 2 lenses with the camera (as I kit), and I want to get completely comfortable with everything in the first place. I'm still on the 'Automatic' setting for the camera, but hopefully will explore more in the next few weeks and can start experimenting with the manual settings.

Completely neglected cross stitch as a hobby, but will definitely return to it sooner or later - just enjoy taking pictures so much at the mo (and playing with all the new equipment). Here are some of the first pictures I took - completely unedited(haven't yet got the hang of Photoshop - another Dummy-guide I gotta get through LOL - Amazon is making tons of profit with me at the mo.

Here it goes, this is the first post from my iphone - I'm actually walking Bonnie at the mo and can't put the iphone away - nice little toy LOL

-- Post From My iPhone

Shorne Wood Country Park

We went to Shorne Wood Country park today - that is Bonnie, Dan, Imran and me. Yes, I could talk my two teenage boys into coming with their old mum on a ramble through the woods. The boys came because they wanted to have a look at the fishing lakes in the park. And -- they liked it and want to come back!

The park is massive, and it was very very busy. We had trouble finding parking and had to cruise for ages on the (massive!) carpark. There were so many people on the main walk ways, it felt like London Bridge for rush hour!! But once we were into the deeper woods, it was a bit better and I saw the first wild primulas - right in the middle of the forest - beautiful.

Why are the weekends always sooo short? My Saturdays are usually filled with doing the shopping here and there, cleaning the house, taking Ruby to swimming. Not much left for anything else. Last Saturday we went to Bluewater (big shopping centre near where we live) and bought Danial's birthday present). I have given him the choice of having a 'smaller' present and a large party, or a big present and just us as a family having a meal - latter option is what he went for and we bought him the desired X-box 360. I'm not into gaming whatsoever, and can't understand why he needs/wants an x-box when he already has a Playstation. Apparently two completeley different things. go figure... I'll never understand.




I didn't fancy going anywhere in the car on Sunday for our walk, so I took Bonnie down to the Thames. It is about a 20 mins walk for me to the River - but it is not a very pleasant walk. There is a path, but it is very lonely, no-body ever seems to walk there, and the bushes/undergrowth is very very dense, creaking. It freaks me out and I'm not easily scared. there are a few fields with horses in the middle, so that is a bit calming, but apart from that... I like it down by the river. It was on low tide. I was a bit scared Bonnie might decide to jump into the River - but she didn't. She isn't overly keen on water anyway, would just go to the edge and drink. There was also a lot of (manmade!!) mess, e.g. rubbish / flytipping everywhere, from plastic drink bottles (sooo many, everywhere) to 3 piece suites! Disgusting! I walked back home in a loop a different route, which is not much better, because there is a motocross-track and a shooting club - the noise! And cars were going up and down on the path, I felt like on a Motorway. As much as I like it down at the River, I don't think I'm going back soon there.

Beacon Country Park

I took the maps out again, and looked on the Internet - and came up with another country park near to Dartford. I wonder why it never occurred to me before... So, on Sunday, I went with Bonnie to Beacon Country Park in Bean/Kent, which is a lovely small village outside of Dartford. The park is, in my opinion, the best one I've visited so far. I found it very easily (it was indeed signposted with one of those brown signs! - very helpful), and parking was straighforward. Near the car park, there were already plenty of dogwalkers, but Bonnie was well behaved. The woodlands are mainly birch, and quite dense. There are walkways, some with wooden boards, and I would probably feel a bit awkward to stroll into the denser wooded aeras. And there was indeed a sign in the car park 'Do not pick the mushrooms' LOL. I did let Bonnie off for quite some time. There were so many different paths to choose, and I was really surprised that at the end, I ended up indeed again at the car park where I started - I just sort of walked into the general direction of a loop.

Bonnie, Ruby and me went to Darenth Country Park today. It's just on the outskirts of Dartford, about 10 mins drive from our place. First we couldn't find the car park - if it is not absolutely clearly signposted, I'm not good at finding places - stuff like that annoys me. So we just parked in the middle of the housing estate behind the park which always makes me slightly nervous. (sort of think people in the estate will realise there is a car which does not belong there!)

Anyway, we walked back from the estate to the park. Despite the rather dull weather (at least it was not raining) there were plenty of people around, with and without dogs. So Bonnie only came off the lead occassionally, unfortunately I still cannot rely on her being 'good' with other dogs - she will run up to them, bark und 'circle them', and there is no way she will listen to me shouting to come back.

Parts of the park are large fenced fields (for horses I guess as a riding centre is part of the park). But there is also a wooded area which we walked right through. It is not large, but that was my favourite bit. I'm looking forward to coming back in Spring and Summer when there will be more plants to see - and in autumn for fungi possibly!

I picked Ruby up from a sleepover at a friends house today. Her friend recently moved to an area called Joyden's Wood, just outside Dartford. Joyden's Wood is an acutal woodland, managed by the Woodland Trust. I took Bonnie along with me and thought I could take her for a walk in the woods. Didn't quite know what to expect, I don't quite trust it when they call it 'woodlands' here, sometimes I found that th ey mean an area of about 10-20 trees arranged in a square - I guess I'm used to different woodlands from Germany. But Joydens Wood was loveley - gosh, it almost reminded me of Germany, like a 'proper' woodland. I've made a promise to myself to come back to this place more often, can't wait for spring to start. And just think of autumn and fungi foraging! Acually I should make more of an effort in any case. I live in Kent, and all I ever see is the area close to our house. What have I got a car for - I should use my weekends to explore around and hopefully will make a start next weekend!