A month off, siesta time, getting ready for the exhibition and Scottish referendum news

Its been a while so I thought I'd put pen to paper. I'm not sure I've been busy with large important things but time seems to have passed doing lots of small stuff. A friend of mine blogs about 'celebrating the small things' which always seems to be worthwhile, see her blog here. 
We've just come back from a week's holiday in Spain, which was a lovely rest. Amongst lots of sitting around reading, drinking and eating we had a trip out to the beautiful city of Seville where we visited the Alcazar Palace, originally a Moorish fort and then the home of Spain's Kings and Queens until Madrid took over as the capital. A delicious building full of ornate tile work and lovely Mudejar architecture which gives it a lovely middle eastern feel. A few of my pics of the place are below.

The writing has taken a bit of a back seat as I've been finalising images ready for my exhibition with two fellow photographers at the Alfred East Gallery in Kettering. Just need to finish off the final 4 pictures, label them all, make 50 greetings cards and get 100 postcards printed. So a busy week ahead. The exhibition runs from 4th October to 8th November, see the gallery website for opening times here. Here's hoping for a few sales, wish me luck.

So the Scottish people have had their say, and they said 'no' to independence, and Alex Salmond has hung up his political boots. I think the referendum result was probably the right one for all concerned. What it will do though, over the next year or so, is unsettle all our feelings about our regional identity in all four parts of the kingdom and all our regions. It will make for an interesting general election next year as the main parties set out to satisfy all of us all of the time in that regard - best of luck to them with that one!

P.S. My two short stories are having a free week on Amazon Kindle. Have a look at 'Answers from Ghosts' and 'Letter to Barbara' and download them for free!

World cup exit, photo exhibition, Channel 4 news and Iraq

Ah well, the fat lady is singing and the boys are coming home on this sad day for England football fans.  Actually the sad / frustrating day was last week against Uruguay, but that's another story.  My better half spurred us on by saying not to worry because we've got the European Championships to look forward to in two years time ..... oh bliss, more venting of spleens and commiserations.
Life does go on despite the horrible thoughts that we are terrible at football - we are also terrible at cricket at the moment according to Aggers on Radio 5 this morning.

We're preparing to invade France - just the four of us into Southern Brittany. Clothes are washed, lists written and cases are out of the loft.  The travel sickness tabs have been purchased for the Plymouth - Roscoff sailing - non of us are good sailors.  Really looking forward to a week in the sun lying next to a pool and the sea.

More preparations have been made for the upcoming photo exhibition in October at the Alfred East Gallery.  I've had the first six of the proposed fourteen pictures printed and mounted and I'm really pleased with the big ones. They're sitting in the lounge at the moment - they look so lovely I'm tempted to buy them - the idea is that someone else buys them, here's hoping.

Looking back at the news this week makes uncomfortable viewing, listening and reading especially where the middle east is concerned.  I like watching Channel 4 news, and love Jon Snow (I met him once and have his autograph) and I felt immense pride last night watching journalists in the Channel 4 newsroom and Jon Snow protested in silence with black tape over their mouths about the jailing of Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt for reporting the news.




The other bad news for the middle east is Iraq - who is going / able to save this country?  Religion certainly won't.

I've failed in my quest to perfect another short story for Kindle - ran out of time, but the other two are still up there. Why do I imagine the internet to be in the sky when its in a big building in a field somewhere - does anyone else do that?  For those of you who don't know about them here are the links to the stories - Answers from Ghosts and Letter to Barbara.

Elaine x