Our Viaduct

Here's the viaduct at the edge of our town. It's so high above the road. 

We were at a friends' house for lunch, so walked under it to get home. Just had to take a quick shot as we were walking with another friend, and I didn't want to stop too often just to get out the camera.

Obviously there's no trains going over it just now as the track's broken further down the line. They say it'll be 3 weeks before the line's open again, though I'll be very impressed if it can be fixed so quickly.

Also spotted this cool tree as we left my friends house. No idea what kind it is, but I loved the spreading branches.

Renfrewshire Wheel

We had nothing planned for the day, so me and Amy decided to drive up to my favourite shopping centre. It's about 45 minutes drive, and handily the route takes us past my parents' so I knew we could pop in for a visit on the way back.

When we got there we spotted a Ferris wheel outside, which of course Amy immediately wanted to go on. I went across to find out the cost, and was told that if I went into the centre first there were leaflets which would get me 2 tickets for the price of 1. I really appreciated that.

When we went on the wheel, we got a carriage to ourselves. Amy held my hand but loved it, even though it went so high. The view over Glasgow and Renfrew was lovely, as it was a gorgeous day.

I was amused though when I heard part of the voiceover, telling us that we were looking out over Great Yarmouth (300 miles away!).

Amy can't wait to go back on, didn't want to come off in fact!

Excitement in our small town

This is a shot of the news on the telly as obviously I couldn't get close enough to take a photo myself. This morning a freight train carrying fuel derailed just outside our village, and a couple of the carriages caught fire. Luckily no-one was hurt.

By the time I left the house today there was just some black smoke, but there will be some disruption to the road and railway line for some time as a bridge collapsed onto the road out towards Kilmarnock.

All you could see round the town was groups of people talking about it, nothing usually happens here lol.

January mantelpiece

I love the mantelpiece in our living room. I'll be taking photos of it several times through the year as the display on it tends to change. At the moment it's been taken over by Peter's Transformers and Star Wars bits and bobs as I've not got round to putting my ornaments back up since Christmas.

From L-R is Darth Vader Transformer in Death Star mode; Patrol Bumblebee; Thundercracker; a desk calendar; Cheetor; Yoda; a clock and Cybertron Primus.

Now you see why he doesn't mind me nattering on about my scrapping, he's had a space-filling hobby longer than me:D.

Magical Trevor

While I was doing my PhD we came up with many ways to waste some time between the serious work. One of our favourites was a website which contained animated songs including 'Badgers, badgers, badgers' and 'Magical Trevor'.

I'd forgotten about the site until recently when my sister got broadband at her house so could play on the web. I showed it to her and her flatmate. 

I was so surprised to get this toy for Christmas from my sister as I didn't realise there was one for it. He just looks so jolly on my DVD shelves.

Old Atheneum

We went into Glasgow shopping today. This building sits on Buchanan street, and was used as a theatre until fairly recently. I took a full photo of it, but like this one with the blue sky behind it. 

Glasgow's full of interesting architecture, pretty certain I could fill a 365 project just with photos of buildings in the city.

Thirst and Tawny

Was at my crop last night, so didn't have time for a blog post when I got home. My photo for yesterday is of Tawny, our tortoiseshell. She rarely stays still long enough to let us take a photo, but here she was sitting on the arm of the sofa and I was able to click before she moved. 

She's a lovely cat, if a bit demanding when she wants some attention, often pawing at your arm till you pat her.

Today we went to a local coffee shop, Thirst, for lunch with my friend and her little girl. It's a great place, with a couple of shelves of books, crayons and toys. There's an area at the back with gardening gloves/ seeds etc. Here Amy and her friend were putting all the packets of seeds (unopened) into a hanging basket, something that they do every time we visit.

Also got a cute photo of my dad and one of their cats, Kola. He's been staying with my parents, but is about to return to his owner. I think they'll miss him, though I'm not sure my parents' other cats will!

Mini muffin

We made these cakes this morning using a Fifi and the Flowertots cake mix. This explains the colour of the icing (not our choice), but we decided to add hundreds and thousands to the top. Think the icing had already set a bit as most of them just bounced off the top instead of staying on the cakes.

Amy's already realised that cake mixes are no match for the real thing. She pretty much only ate the icing on this, whereas the real fairy buns we made last week were completely devoured.

Green jelly

Or jell-o if you prefer:).

I usually forget to make jelly till after lunch so it hasn't set by dinner time, but today we remembered in time. Amy loved helping it to dissolve by stirring it.

I just don't like putting it in the fridge to set, as it tends to leave everything else smelling of lime/strawberry, whatever.

Teeny snowman

Today it snowed a bit, so we played outside for as long as we could stand the cold. Amy loved throwing snowballs, and squishing them in her hands. We built this tiny snowman on top of a basin that sits on the patio. Used a stone for the nose, and tiny brads for the eyes and mouth.

The hat came with an Innocent Smoothie bottle I bought a few months ago. It's something they do in association with Sainsbury's each year. People knit these hats, and money is given to age charities for each bottle sold. I remember it looked so cute, all these bottles on the shelf in the shop wearing woolly hats.

The snowman was partly inspired by Lindschick's cute tiny snowman from earlier in the month.

LOs for week 2

I'm loving Moriginal's template no1. Think I'll use it for the whole of January. After that I may change to one that has more space for journalling.

Supplies used: Papers - Mindy Terasawa;  Ali Edwards 31 days circle number set; Katie Pertiet Glittered Botanicals.

I'm so glad I'm doing this digitally, there's no way I'd be keeping up if I had to print out the photos before I could do anything. That's what scuppered the Scrap the Day project for me.

Where did you get that hat?

Had a busy day today, went swimming in the morning, I'm glad Amy suddenly loves the water (though still not in her eyes!). Then onto Granny and Papa's where Papa had been kindly replacing the glow plugs in my car (those pesky things had caused the error shown in my earlier photo).

He was also kind enough to add more RAM to my laptop, now it's got 1.5GB instead of 0.5GB, should help with running PSE.

In the evening Auntie Val came over, and Amy brought out our hat collection for us to model. Think she looks cute in a hat, though it may be a tad too big for her!

Our street

Went for a little walk this morning, but as Amy wanted to wear her big girl pants we decided not to stray too far from home. On the way back I let Peter and Amy go first, while I popped into a couple of shops. 

I thought I'd take a couple of shots of the High Street as the weather was good, and it'll be good to look back on in years to come.

Now it's a Saturday night, so we've opened a nice bottle of wine, and will settle down in front of a good DVD.

Amy's art gallery

Had fun today visiting my parents. My mum's had a bad cold for a couple of weeks, and we've missed seeing her. Amy got hold of a Post-it pad, drew on several pages and had fun sticking the results on the living room door.

Also, after my photo the other day about my car, well the garage had a look at it today, found an error code but couldn't find what was wrong with it. They were nice and didn't charge me anything for that. The warning has come back up now, but dad reckons it's a glow plug, so he can fix it himself, yay!

Well-needed cuppa

I've had a busy day, with people on the phone (who I loved chatting to), and a 2 year-old behaving like a, well like a 2 year-old!

I was ready for a cuppa by the time Amy decided to have a nap about 4 o'clock, and I like this mug. We got it from a website where you can get personalised mugs. It's a joke on the old Physics school textbooks called 'Physics is Fun'. 

Heron and snow!

   Today we went up to bother Peter at work, as Amy didn't want him to leave in the morning. As we walked through Kelvingrove Park I spotted this heron in the pond. I couldn't get too close as that would mean walking towards the play park which Amy would then want to play in, and DH was late enough. 

   As I took the photo, my camera warned me that the battery was flat, so I didn't get to take any more through the day. That's a pity as we met up with my friend and her dog in the afternoon. 

   When we got back to the station to collect the car, it had been snowing, and my camera had just enough energy saved up for me to take a quick pic.

Jan 1st-7th LOs

Here's my LOs for week 1. I've used Moriginals great templates. Supplies used: papers by Andrea Victoria (blue) and Lynn Grieveson (kraft) ; numbers by Ali Edwards; and glittered botanicals by Katie Pertiet (all from Designer Digitals).

Old life/new life

I saw this arrangement sitting on a shelf, and for some reason it appealed to me. The large black book is my PhD thesis (Development of an ultrafast nanobolometer cooled by electrons if you're interested!). On top is the Cinderella/Prince Charming from Amy's Cinderella Aquadraw and one of her dummies.

Just liked the idea of all these toddler things replacing what I used to do.

Poor car

   An early post from me today as I knew exactly what I wanted to take for my photo. My poor car started giving me this warning on Thursday. I haven't driven it since, but the garage can't take it till Friday, so it'll have to sit till then. 

   I asked my dad what it could be, he doesn't reckon it's anything serious. He did ask if the light went off when the engine was hot, but I didn't want to drive it that far, so I've no idea.

   I don't drive it much during the week anyway, but it's a trusty friend, my diesel Scenic.

   Now we've been to toddlers, and up to a friends for lunch, so Amy's asleep on the sofa and I'm getting 5 minutes to do this.

Wiiiiiii

Here's what's been competing with flickr/blog hopping in the evenings for my time. I'm enjoying Lego Batman at the moment, all the Lego games have been fun. I did have to sacrifice a touch of realism for this photo. I had to leave the nunchuk on the floor as I don't have three hands and can't take a photo with my teeth (yet).

After Amy wearing all my bangles earlier in the week, we took her swimming today. We got her first pair of armbands and she LOVED it. Wanted to go back in the afternoon. I did try to take a photo of the armbands, as I couldn't obviously take any of her at the public pool, but they didn't come out right, they're just too orange.

Tickle session

Here's Peter and Amy having a tickling session, wish I could add sound, I love the giggles that were accompanying this!

Later Amy spotted my camera sitting on the table, and wanted to take a photo of me, so Peter helped her by holding the camera and she pressed the button. I like it.

My 365 technology

Today's photo shows the technology I'm using to take my 365 pictures. Most important obviously is my camera - a Canon Ixus 950IS. I love it, don't think I'm ready to try a DSLR camera, but I like playing with the settings on this as a trial run.

Next is my Motorola V3 phone, can be used if I forget my camera. It's a couple of years old, but the photos turn out surprisingly well, I've even used them on LOs before.

Last but certainly not least, my beloved Mac iBook. I love it, would never go back to just having a PC. It looks so cute and works so well (especially after this weekend when I'm having its RAM increased to cope with PSE better!).

I converted the photo to b&w using Photoshop and the urban/snapshot setting as the screen was too blue in the original.

Tawny did turn up to help me with the photo, this may be as much as you all get to see of her, she doesn't stay still long enough for photos.

Lastly, after a request from Pam, here's a close up of Amy's arm from yesterday so you can see the bangles more clearly.

Armbands

Here's Amy wearing just about every bangle I own. She insisted they were armbands and wanted to go swimming. I eventually worked out she meant she wanted to play in a paddling pool. 

Only two problems with that, 1 - the weather is freezing, and 2 - we don't own a paddling pool!

Ball pool!

Yesterday we went to a soft play centre. Although I'm now 31, I still can't resist a ball pool, and it's great now I have Amy as an excuse to go lol.

It was fantastic, we got there 10 minutes after it opened, and had the place to ourselves for half an hour. Amy was still a bit scared to come down the huge slide on her own, but didn't mind coming down on my knee.

Willow

Today's photo is the first of probably many of Willow. She's our 12 year old cat, who spends most of the day sleeping. I tried in vain to take some good photos of our other cat, Tawny, who's a tortoiseshell, but she moves too fast.

Here Willow is displaying the typical cat expression of 'Wot u looking at?', but in a nice way of course.

Bubbles!

Today we spent some time playing outside after Amy found her bubble blower. We could only play for a short bit at a time before it got too cold and we had to come back inside. Luckily we were also making some cakes, so that worked pretty well.

I must have taken dozens of photos of the bubbles, and narrowed it down to this few.

For this one I played in  Photoshop with increasing the saturation, I like the effect.

Physics Stairwell

I love the back stairs at the Physics building at Glasgow Uni, all wood panelling and bannisters. It's just a pity the bottom of the stairwell is filled with junk from when they emptied out one of the workshops.

We went up today to spend some time in the West End, and so Peter could take things up to his office. Amy loves the stairwell too, as it has a great echo, though the one at the other end of the building is even better.

Mmm marshmallows!

Today we spent some time making these little marshmallow top hats. Amy loves them, and I love how easy they are to make. Luckily she and her dad went out for a walk so I was able to take a photo before they were all scoffed!

Rockcliffe

My photo for today was taken on the beach at Rockcliffe, on the Solway Firth. The weather was glorious, and I liked this view of a tiny island between the rocks.

I took several more photos at the beach. I love this one, and the one below shows Amy playing at the water's edge with Val and Jeanette.

Jan 1st photo

I love the start of the year when the new calendar is put up, all those blank pages ready to be filled with visits/ friends meet-ups/ dentist appointments etc. Here's my new Dodopad, my mum buys me one each year. It's got enough space for a column each for me, Peter and Amy with a couple left over. I also like the jokes/stories/general nonsense spread through the pages.

Of course, in my case the calendar tends to get filled up sporadically. I remember one week in 5, then try to remember what I've done over the previous fortnight lol.

Welcome

Hiya, I've decided to do project 365 and take a photo every day of 2009. The easiest way I could think of keeping up with a project of this size is to upload the photo each day to this blog, much as I was doing to my main blog for December. My plan then is to create a double layout every week, possibly digitally as I've got a couple of templates for that.