Third place still counts as winning, right??

I've never been lucky when it came to winning stuff. I've won £10 on the lottery a few times, I think I even won £67 once, but my wins are few and far enough between that they are memorable occasions. I remember winning the 'Now That's What I Call Music 7" album and video in a branded carrier bag from a Smash Hits competition when I was at school. Until the lottery was launched, that was the extent of my winning streak.

As anyone who reads my blog will know, I'm a keen amateur photographer. We're lucky enough to have a garden which attracts a bit of wildlife, so I'm fortunate enough to be able to get some reasonable photos from our kitchen table. When I was living back in the Midlands, Garden Bird Supplies was one of my audit clients, so out of a somewhat misplaced sense of loyalty (the company was sold by it's then owners a number of years ago), I tend to stock the bird feeders with supplies I buy from them. I looked them up on Facebook a few weeks ago, and noticed they run a monthly photographic competition. By coincidence it was at the same time as all the snow was on the ground; I thought that might make for some good photographs. I looked out of the window and as if by magic, a flash of red flying past indicated that the green woodpecker had arrived. Taking this as fate, I grabbed my camera, zoom lens and ran down to the kitchen. I spent half an hour or so photographing the woodpecker, plus a robin, blue tit and a family of long tailed tits that turned up. With that I retired to my computer to see what my results were like. These were my favourite photographs.

I narrowed them down to three and sent them in to the competition, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. 

Fast forward to Friday. I logged in to Facebook and saw that they'd announced the competition winners, I wasn't optimistic as I'd seen a number of entries and several were more striking than my photographs. Suffice it to say I was gobsmacked that my green woodpecker photograph made third place! You can see the results here.

It's fair to say that this will only drive me to take more photographs, and see if I can make second place some time. That said, if I only win a competition once every 25 years, I may have a long wait!!

Enjoying the spring sunshine at Bristol Zoo

As we woke up yesterday to beautiful blue skies, it seemed rude not to go out and make the most of it. We've been members at Bristol Zoo for a few years, which means we can go for just a quick wander round, without feeling we've not made the most of the entry fee. We both took our cameras, Andrew took his macro lens and I took my zoom lens. The photos below are my favourites out of all the photographs we took yesterday.

At present there is only one lion on show at Bristol Zoo, Shiva. She had cubs before Christmas but they are currently being hand-reared behind the scenes following their father's death in November. The last two cubs, born in late 2010 have been transferred to other zoos as part of a breeding programme.

 

Despite the sun, it was a bit of a chilly day so we spent some time in the reptile house. Trying to spot the chameleons always passes a bit of time and the apparent smiles on the faces of some of the lizards amused us.

  

The red pandas are apparently one of the most popular animals at the zoo, which astonishes me, as they're normally out of sight or, as they were yesterday, thirty foot up in the air tucked up in a tree!

 

 The capybara is like a giant guinea pig, he seemed pretty displeased that there was so much mud between him and his food!

The meerkats had a huge crowd around them, partly as it was feeding time. I particularly liked the one who looked as if he was hiding behind a stone, worried about being crept up on!

The butterflies are both impressive and incredibly difficult to photograph. Although we got a few images, they really don't do them justice.

 Look out for more photos when the lion cubs are on display as I won't be able to stay away!

Did anyone mention that it's been snowing??

 

I grew up in the wilds of Shropshire and my memory seems to tell me that we had snow every winter, although that's probably not the case. I certainly remember many snowy winters, and once I was old enough to drive, remember struggling to get up the hill out of the village. The local residents used to grit the hill and then gather to push any cars up that were struggling.

It's now many years later and I've been living in Bristol for the last seven or so years. When I moved here I was told it never snows in Bristol, but I think this is now the fourth winter I've seen snow. I'm grown up enough now that it's a hassle, I don't have people to push me along the roads and I worry about damaging the car if I lose the back end, or myself, falling over on compacted snow which has turned to ice on pavements. This time was different though, I'd already booked the day off work and so had nothing to stress about. I went to sleep, excited, knowing I'd wake up to snow the next day. I did! I managed to contain my excitement until lunchtime, mainly due to the fact the the snow, rather uncharitably, was being picked up by the wind and coming down horizontally. At least there were a few brave bird visitors I could keep an eye on.

As soon as the wind dropped, I wrapped myself in my coat which has the same level of padding as our winter duvet, and I was out with my camera to capture how the estate we live on was coping. It's amazing how everywhere looks better with a layer of snow.

This morning we decided to venture out again, as the snow didn't seem to be going anywhere. We went a bit further afield this time and did a four mile walk through the parkland and down to the Frome Valley. There were plenty of people around, walking, sledging, cycling and running. Some of the pavements were resembling ice rinks as a result of the footfall compacting the snow, so I'm impressed with anyone running out there!

 

Whilst I love the snow, the weather forecast suggests that it won't be going anywhere anytime soon. I'm sure I'll be feeling less excited about it when I'm slipping on it on my return to work on Monday. Until then, I think I'll wrap up warm indoors and go back to keeping an eye on the bird visitors.

My favourite photos of 2012

It's become a bit of a tradition that every December I make up a calendar featuring photos we've taken of the year. It sits on our desks at work the following year reminding us of our adventures and the reason why we go to work! I've now been doing it for eight years and they're great to look back on. Initially I'd dig out twelve photos for an annual calendar, but I now have to find more than 52 as a weekly calendar seems to be the best way to keep us tapping away at our keyboards at work.

Whilst I don't want to bore you with the whole set of photos, I thought it might be nice to share some of my favourite photos of 2012. I've picked out my favourite photo from each month, as I've not always been so diligent at getting out and taking photos as I'd hoped, some of them were taken on my iPhone. None of them are going to win any prizes, but they all bring back memories when I look at them.

 January 2012

We're fairly frequent visitors to Bristol Zoo and when it's cold or rainy, the reptile house is one of the best places to be. This little gecko seemed to agree, and couldn't build up energy to do much in the heat.

February 2012

I took hardly any photos in February, the only one of any interest is of a fire drill at work. I only took it as I couldn't believe how many people work in our building. Nice to see us segregated along the street into our little work groups!

March 2012

 I'd had a macro lens for Christmas and the advent of spring meant that I took a lot of photos of flowers and insects in March. However, this is the photo that makes me laugh when I look at it. We have a long-running fued with the squirrel, frequently chasing him off the bird feeders, sometimes mixing the peanuts with chili powder to put him off. He always comes back though and secretly I admire his persistence. This is his look as he realises he's been caught in the act again.

April 2012

This photo was taken on a day's geocaching walk around Colerne and Ditteridge, east of Bath. After starting out from the village at the top of the hill opposite, I was very glad to reach the top of this next hill and took this photo of the meandering countryside whilst catching my breath.

May 2012

We went to Iceland in May 2012, I've already blogged about that holiday and posted a few photos and so don't want to be repetitive. You can read about that trip here. When we returned we took a trip to the Midlands to see Andrew's parents, it was only when we arrived that we found out that they'd got a new dog. She's called Bramble.

June 2012

We'd gone over to see a friend in Chippenham for the day, and hadn't realised it was the folk festival that weekend. We spent a good couple of hours wandering around and enjoying the traditional English Morris dancers.

July 2012

 We went to Jersey for a long weekend in July to mark my birthday. The last bit of sightseeing was a trip to Jersey lavender to see how lavender is grown, harvested and distilled.
 

August 2012

Bird activity went a bit crazy in the garden in August, but our greater spotted woodpecker kept visiting despite the influx of smaller birds. He can normally hear us in the house so it's difficult to photograph him, but I struck lucky in August.

 
September 2012


We did a day trip to Dyrham in September, I've already blogged about that here and so won't include any photographs from that day. We were volunteer marshals at the Bristol Half Marathon at the end of the month, this is one of the photos that I took on the day.

October 2012

I spent most of October suffering with sinusitis and so didn't get out much and took few photos. That said, the weather didn't help!

November 2012

 We did a short break in North Norfolk in November, I've already blogged about that here but my favourite photo is one of Andrew that I didn't include in that blog. He was picking up things from the cottage and mucking around with them and I managed to catch him in the act.

December 2012

The weather was awful in December, with rain most days and so my photos aren't very interesting. This is a shot I took of Andrew on Christmas Day with one of his gifts from his boss. He really is one of the cleverest people I know!

I've really enjoyed looking back over my photos for the year. It's made me realise that we've had a lot of laughs, seen some great sights and done some awesome things. I just hope 2013 is as good, I must remember to take more photos as I go along!