Sarahmade

There is no need to mourn the loss of polaroid anymore. Via the power of the Poladroid you can now see your holiday snaps as polaroids without having to carry the camera with you. I fear my Sunday might disappear playing with this.

I had a very special birthday this year, not due to me being a special age but due to me getting some very special treatment. It was a surprise trip. I didn’t know where we were going up to the point Tom walked me down the platform at Euston to the last carriage of the Caledonian sleeper train to Fort William. When we got in the cabin I found our luggage which had been deposited in the left luggage the night before, along with a tailor made mini bar and a leaflet describing the weekend activities.

It was one of the most amazing weekends I have ever had. The weather was perfect with full sun and snowy scenery the whole weekend. We had cable car action, walks, drives, lovely food, monuments and castles.

Here are my photos and here are Tom’s photos. I won’t bother giving a full account of the weekend because Tom’s promotional leaflet (pdf) does the job.

It was also good to know that the anticipation reached facebook. Here is just a bit of the response to my live updates in the lead up to getting on the train.

Sarah …waiting to see what happens on Lexington St

Sarah Have been deposited at AMT at Euston station with tea. Told to listen to ipod so can’t hear. Tom disappeared to don’t know where.

There were 51 comments to this update and here are the edited highlights – note most of these people have never met.

Jenny at 20:44 on 06 February
I’m on the edge of my seat/bed……

Jenny at 20:45 on 06 February
Do you think you’re going to Northampton?

Rosemary at 20:46 on 06 February
oooh how exciting!

Penny at 20:47 on 06 February
How exciting!!

Susan at 20:47 on 06 February
Oooh it’s so exciting – only tea though, where’s the champagne? What’s AMT?

Nicola at 20:54 on 06 February
Hurry up, Tom!

Susan at 20:57 on 06 February
This is too exciting for words!

Jenny at 20:58 on 06 February
Maybe Tom’s gone to Inverness and Sarah is going to Northampton!

Susan at 21:03 on 06 February
It’s almost getting too late for Inverness – unless they are just getting on the train, but I think that’s the favourite

Nicola at 21:06 on 06 February
I hope it’s not Watford Junction…

Jenny at 21:12 on 06 February
Hope she lets us know before the train gets to Inverness, we’ll be here all night! Sing song anyone?

There followed lots of discussion on songs about trains and Thomas the Tank Engine in particular

Thanks Tom!

It is all a bit naughty because I opened my birthday present 5 days before my actual birthday, which is this thursday on the 10th.

Thanks mum and dad (and thanks me too). It is very very nice and it is so great to be able to take photos again, other than on my mobile phone. I haven’t really taken any photos yet although I did just take one of a robot.

Scientists have created a 2.5 gigapixel digital panoramic photo in the Netherlands. I would post it here but I don’t think I’d do it justice.

Here is the photo. With the controls at the bottom see if you can find the fire extinguisher in the office corridor and the people on bikes going over a bridge.

hmmm actually I have just spotted something interesting. If you zoom in to the left of the stadium, to the left of the white, round thing and then to the zebra crossing to see the blonde boy. What has happened to his feet?

I can’t begin to describe how amazing bonfire night in Lewes is. You could start by reading this article.

We arrived about 4pm on the kind of day bonfire night should be on. So clear but with the hint of bonfire helping to create amazing sunsets.

We drank a pint as the pubs were calling last orders at 4.30pm. The whole town was boarding up its windows. Even Argos shut early.

As we walked round a corner six men in black and white jerseys came walking towards us with flaming tar barrels.

They waited there for a while talking about feeling nervous and that when they finished the race they would probably be sick.

We heard loud speakers telling the crowd to keep back. The hundreds of spectators went quiet and then giant burning crosses appeared over the small bridge under the ‘No Popery’ banners.

The procession went by and the men with the burning barrels made their way to the top of the bridge. We followed them and then heard the man in animal skins and antlers telling everyone to put their fingers in their ears. The loudest bang you have ever heard followed by a burning barrel race, three a breast to the end of the street. It laughed in the face of health and safety regulation and it was fantastic.

The processions got steadily more exciting with burning crosses and barrels being thrown off the bridge, lots of firework throwing and moving war memorials. The walk back to the train meant avoiding the piles of burning rubble in the street.

Tom was a bit cross (eek sorry):

Continuing my theme of meeting VIPs today I met the new Education Minister Kim Howells. I wasn’t really meant to meet him, I was just there to blend into the background and to take pictures. However when waiting in the corridor with the other VIPs due to meet him he strode up with his entourage, shook hands with VIP no.1, then turned to me and shook my hand. If I had a reason to meet him I would have given my usually strong handshake but I’m afraid to say it was a bit limp on my part and I mumbled my name as if to say, “you are really not supposed to be meeting me, please turn to the other important people you are supposed to meet and who are now looking at me too wondering who I am”.

I was then outdone by the other photographers there who had cameras four times as big as mine. We’ll see who has the best pics. I have one of kim’s face reflected in a piece of science machinery and it looks like he is in a hall of mirrors. I bet they didn’t go for that angle.

Today I had to take a picture of some radio people in the centre but one of us noted down the wrong date and there was no one there to take a picture of.

So I decided to take some general pics of Bristol in the sun for work and got on the boat home. There was a foursome on the boat, two girls and two boys, probably late 20s. One very buxome lady stood at the front of the boat and took her top off and waved and screamed almost the whole way back, showing the world her white lace bra. She was modest enough to cover up at the SS Great Britain but then whipped the top off again. Imagine the surprise of everyone on the boat when a gust of wind caught her top and dropped it in the water. Imagine my surprise when she said to her friend “I can’t go in the pub like this” and her friend whipped her own top off and gave it to her, revealing an even more risky lace bra.

Then I got chatting to a man with tourrets

My brother got married this weekend which means I am now a sister-in-law. I will find out tomorrow when I download the pictures if it was wise to be sister of the groom and the chief photographer.

There was lots of lovely wine and great speaches. There was a new generation of uncle dancing at the wedding disco. There was lots of fending off of comments like “taking notes then?” and “giving you any ideas is it?”.

Tom and I pilfered buffet food and bottles of wine and sat in our tent at 1.30am drinking the wine and eating the buffet and breathing in helium. I suspect the other campers really enjoyed our high pitched giggling.

Tom presents our holiday in pictures

I had a dream that Kate from work was marrying Jonathan Creek in a big Jewish ceremony. I was wearing an electric blue, oversized, dynasty style jacket with a tapered brown, on the knee skirt. I was the photographer and had no battery power, or memory cards. It was pouring with rain and we came under attack from Iraq.

1. Manhattan Sunset from ferry
2. Skyscrapers at night from Empire State building
3. Hot fudge sundae
4. Kate
5. Autumn in New hampshire

I have just developed ten films and realised just how many holidays I had last year.

1. Crackington Haven cliff, Cornwall
2. Roman theatre in Orange, France
3. Mont Ventoux, France, memorial for Tom Simpson (and my favourite mountain in the world)
4. Venice, Italy just before Christmas
5. The west pier, Brighton

ooohps sorry too late……

1439 Email from stu…quick Boots.com are offering 50% off EVERYTHING if you register as a new user.

1442 I’m going to buy a digital camera….mmm look Nikon coolpix FOUR MEGA PIXELS for £130 down from £260….oooh look Kodak one for £85….down from £169

1448 hmmm I don’t know…this is really spur of the moment but I’m going to get one…it’s just which one do I get?

1455 chosen nikon coolpix, register, delivery address? hmm

1458 no think about this….read reviews later

1515 leave work to take picture of some scientists in a jungle

1705 Coolpix out of stock…

1707 buy kodak

1709 sorry you promotional code isn’t valid. We only offered 50% off up to 4pm. You can still claim 20% off.

1709-1910 reflect on the benefits of spontinaety.

Remember this pic of the WWF men?

Well about 50 copies of it just came out of my printer at work when I hadn’t even viewed the pic for months. A woman in my office found them and I think she was a bit embarrassed and though it was some sort of gay thing and said something like “I won’t ask….whatever you’re into that’s fine”…..cringe

Are they trying to escape or does it sound suspiciously like a virus?

I thoroughly recommend a look round Justin Quinnell’s site it is brilliant. I particularly like his attempt to photograph famous buildings, such as the Empire state building through a polo mint.

You should also look at the best photograph of the World Trade Centre I have ever seen, The World Trade Centre with Bubble Gum.

Hillary Leads a Group, Everest 1953
George Lowe

Atlas Gallery

Funny that the mountains are completely timeless.