Out from behind the camera..

..but only nearly..this reminds me of that person who never allowed people to see the whole of him in his self portraits.. who was that?

.. Uncle Bill and Deborah on New Year's Eve, showing how you can dance in my kitchen!

The day job..

.. as if I had one!

Just found a lovely set of STS pictures in Uncle Bill's folder. He got a 'guided tour' of our workshops and took some great pictures, I thought it would give a flavour of 'our other life' to anyone who hasn't been here.. this show's my Col with our 'flagship' product' the drum trolley which allows people to move 45 gallon drums safely. 

We make lots of other kit now, ten years into the business, everything from pallet movers to drum and roll turners for paint and packaging companies.

We all pitch in and Zac works too when he's not at college (though we are in danger of losing him to the local paintball venue at the moment.... can't think why he'd find that more fun than cutting & grinding!)

 So here's the evidence that I do work and have other things in my head barring the new blog entry or layout!
I have the job of juggling all Colin's calls, he thinks I should have a bigger scaled map as he often drives 300 miles and demos to two or three customers each day, poor thing!
Good job he's my husband, not sure another wife would be impressed with the itinerary if she hadn't organised it!

We have a mixed bunch of people working, a couple of us token Cornish but also

.. our crazy Polish electrician Pawel (we went to his wedding two years ago.. and what a Polish celebration it was!) .. and then there's Rudi our South African workshop manager.... they always have something to say and smile about!
^^^(At this point Pawel was saying.. you do not want to photograph me, an ugly Polish man!!..really)

Maurice is our main stainless steel welder, he's such a star.. been with us almost since the start. He's off to China soon for his son's wedding, he'll sure have some good photos and stories to tell..

...last but not least Justin, who joined us just before Christmas.. and came on our Christmas 'do' his first night, talk about in at the deep end!

(apologies to the others who were on hols before U Bill arrived.. oops!)

If I was a salmon..

I think if Uncle Bill was our official photographer over Christmas, and for the fact, for most of my favourite pictures of last year, then I want to be his official scrapbooker!

Jordan just transferred the pictures to my house computer and it is such a joy to look at them all and relive the moments..all 395 of them.. should keep me in scrap photos for the year!

..so I thought I'd share a few with you..

first is a rare pic of me with Jordan, huddled up in the cold at the Minack..half a mile either side of there feels like where I belong, I feel so fulfilled when I go there..hard to explain but if I was a salmon that's where I'd be heading!

This one of Kate and Rob our mellow, gorgeous dog, he had been bathed in prep for Christmas, and Kate had also washed her hair and was caught here pre-straightening ....shaggy dog story?

I really like this one too.. me and my pal Noemi, we gas away like crazy when we meet up, only trouble is it never seems often enough! But at Christmas we always get together and her house (ala Christmas Cottage) is just soooo festive, so much food, always a fab (Polish) welcome, and so much to laugh about..love ya x

And just in case you think the photos are always of personal times.... he captures such beautiful Cornish moments too..
(PS 7pm same day.. this is what Uncle Bill told me just now about taking this picture...The picture of the Cornish sunset was taken from the local bus while moving between the buildings etc over my shoulder , to get behind Deborah, and with one hand. Two other photos had huge power lines running across the picture. Just shows you how much that photo wanted to be taken. )..Bravo!!

Ticking clock..

.. as we left our December Just Scrapbooking session Linda got us to take away some papers and set us the task of being her chief designers!  'Use the papers in any way you like, so I can post on my site as examples' she said..

Some of the papers were Christmas and I took two types, buying some extras so I could set to work on the accordian book I had begging to be embellished, since I made the Paris book (did I ever photograph that, don't think I did..?)

Luckily in some ways we missed our Jan meeting due to the snow, but I had nothing done by then... and now Linda has tweeted us to remind us that .. 'the clock is ticking!'  Col is away this week so quick teas and evenings scrapping could be the order of the day. 

Here's where I am so far..book pages and box edges inked, box covered in a fantastic bright Christmas paper..I am toying with doing one set of sides in the red / green bright papers, as per the box, and the other side in the more traditional Christmas, not sure if it will work, have cut out some of the sides and there's some nice potential.

Will get Jordan working up the photos, we relied on Uncle Bill as chief photographer so there should be some nice angles to choose from.

Last but not least...

.. must add this photo of Kate's feet, wrapped up cosy in a pair of flight socks Uncle Bill & Deborah left in their little pile of goodies when they left.. courtesy of Virgin Airlines.. complete with little plane..

Sadly we are flying Monarch when we go on holiday in March, but despite that we're really looking forward to it. Kate has made a tear off set of paper pieces with a date on each one, so we can count down..but she has a birthday first.. always something to celebrate here.  (and don't ask about the diet..the homemade shortbread, chocolate cake, apple crumble etc. at our Mevagissey scrap day have not helped at all!)

Phone grumble!

... this should be one of the labels at the bottom of my blog entries as I'm sure I have moaned about it several times before.

Back in the summer I got an LG touchphone, meant to be very like the iPhone...it looks nice and when it works well I love it .. but when it's being tempermental I want to throw it at the wall..the camera has lots of lovely functions, like make your pictures sepia etc, but what the hell's the point of making a snapshot which took so long to take the moment was lost, being made sepia I ask you!

Anyway, I had issues getting the computer to even recognise it, seems the lead may be dodgy... but now it keeps freezing if I try to connect it to download, so I have to remove battery and reboot...bah, humbug...trouble is I can't really be bothered to get something different as I hate the transition period when you feel like a stoneage person presented with a car before the wheel was invented.

Needless to say I don't feel this way about new phones...(thanks Jordan..so cool, and I love the coloured bands..x)

PS.. feeling a little guilty now.. (as if a phone can do this to you..?) but holding it gently in my hand, it connected and I downloaded my latest photos..it lives to ring another day!

And this is an example of what it can achieve on a good day..

Ross' day job..

..trying to give a nice flavour of what we all do every day, Ross sent me this picture of one of his after school study support sessions at the Pirates.  The kids really enjoy the teamwork, meeting rugby players, working with computers on newspapers and animations and generally learning in a totally different environment to school.

Don't you just wish your school had mega-beanbags like that when we were there?

Tomorrow I get to play Nan for a few hours in the afternoon, it's always fun to realise just how at home I feel pushing a pram... for me it's like riding a bike even after you've grown up... something that just comes naturally!

Deviant Art.

My JB has been really enjoying her drawing this past couple of years and is having fun with the graphics tablet she had for Christmas.. she recently joined the Deviant Art site which she loves and every day adds some more drawings or images ... and she's so excited when she gets comments..

She and Ross are trying doing their bit to supply me with the daily picture but sadly I'm not being quite so good at keeping my blogging side of the deal..

Linda and I liked the thinking girl, thought the patterns would make a great patterened paper.. or maybe I could use the whole thing as the basis for a layout.  (ideas on a postcard?)

The other is a great drawing Jordan did for Taylor at Christmas.

(...just hoping Kate will eventually be as creative  with the notebook she had, though not sure My Face or SpaceBook are great training grounds for genius!)

Ross' dawnies...

My Ross just sent me this gorgeous picture of the sun rising this morning, taken from Penzance Jubilee Pool...no surf but the sunrise made the effort of getting himself out of the house about 7.30am well worth it!

This one from the Hendra end of Praa Sands....

This has made me look at some of the blogs which post an image every day to show a little of your life..and several people I know are following Dolly and her 52 layouts in 2010 (52 in 10) challenge.  I wonder if I have the stamina for it, well maybe I should start with a layout for each month of the year...

I sorted out my albums yesterday while the house was quiet, and in fact I have a good view of how last year went, even with scrapping February snow in October!

Moments..

...moments captured so much better than just a bunch of photos on the computer...also you can remember the fun you had with friends doing the project.

Sounds like the best explanation so far for scrapbooking!

Tidied my scraproom over the weekend.. yes, really! (only way I could get to find what I needed for next session!)  And last night I was putting a few things away at bedtime and Kate came in and we got out the album from last year, took it in our bedroom and spent a lovely half hour looking through the pages....everything from Zac's paintball days to Kate's trip to the ballpool with Lilly.. all great moments made special again when you see the layouts and the comments..ahhhh

Looking forward to seeing some of the people we met at Mullion back in October next weekend at Mevagissey...