Weekend Snapshots ~ 8: New Camera!

I finally bought a new camera today and I’m having lots of fun playing around with it and setting it up.  I love the way it feels in my hands and I just love how it functions too.  I went through last Sunday morning to Jessups in Bluewater Mall and immediately rejected all of the cameras that had been on my shortlist as they just didn’t feel right.  My friend had a Canon that I had been playing around with a short while ago and so I settled on the Canon 1000 D with an image stabilising lens.  I went back again this morning and picked it up.  I’m quite looking forward to going out and about in the next couple of weeks and trying it out.  For now, I present my menagerie:

Josey (born 18 January 2004)

Molly (born 23 January 2004)

Seth (born 4 September 2006)

Summer (born 4 September 2006)

I could do with some happy thoughts on Thursday! I’m writing my first exam but have no doubt I’ll pass.  I was ready to write about three weeks ago.

Weekend Snapshots ~ 7: A Whirlwind Tour to Manchester

Mister Emm is a Manchester United fan but I know most of you will be kind enough not to hold that against him (or at least leave me out of it!)  After three years in England, he decided to splash out on a season ticket for Old Trafford this season.  Now I know that the very astute amongst you might have noticed the flaw here.  Yes, that’s right, we live in London.  Suffice to say, Mister Emm spends every other weekend driving up to Manchester for matches and he drives back down again the next day or even that same evening.  We are very lucky to have friends in Manchester that don’t mind him camping out in their spare room nearly every weekend!

Last weekend we rushed off to Manchester for one night.  We were meant to leave at about 7am but as you can imagine, I need my beauty sleep and we only left around 9am!  Lucky we left that late too, otherwise we would never have had the pleasure of getting stuck behind a serious accident for nearly an hour!!!  When I took this photo, our engine was off and very soon afterwards, all these Manchester United supporters were getting out of their cars and socialising.  My contribution to the cause was to sit on Twitter and complain. 

We got to Old Trafford just in time for the game and Stephen had to kick me out of the car and rush inside.  This was the only photo I managed to get of the stadium before hopping on to a bus to Piccadilly.

I am not sure if they have completely refurbished Piccadilly but it looked nothing like I remember it.  In fact, I thought it was quite pretty and it had a super vibe.

It has definitely made me want to visit Manchester again in the near future (I have to confess to avoiding it like the plague in favour of Liverpool.  I met up with my Dad and step-Mum at their hotel and we went off to do some shopping and visited some pubs.

This plaque was just under the Primark and reads “The Football League was founded here on 17th April 1888 at the Royal Hotel which stood on this site”. 

My biggest problem with Manchester is that this huge grey cloud seems to be permanently located above it.  There is a lot of encouragement from my friends and family to move up there but I’m just not a big fan of Manchester.  I think I’d have a problem living in Liverpool and that was my favourite city on Earth (before I visited New York and Novi Sad). Perhaps if I visited in the middle of summer I would see something different?  What is your least favourite city and why?

Anyway, it was lovely to see my Dad and step-Mum and once the game had finished, Mister Emm joined us for an eat-as-much-as-you-like Chinese buffet.  Yum!

Weekend Snapshots ~ 6: A Balmy Sunday in the West End

I usually try to do these ‘Weekend Snapshots’ posts on the actual weekend but I wanted to write up my review of the play that we saw last Sunday first.  Some of you might have noticed that posting the review didn’t go too well and I had to delete and repost it more than once on Sunday and Tuesday.  Sorry, I was just having a momentary case of the blogging blues!!

The West End is what most of you will know as the Centre of London and it has all the shops, theatres and major tourist attractions.  It includes Oxford Street, Leicester Square and Covent Garden.  I tend to hang out more in the City or Bankside near London Bridge and Waterloo but the area I really want to spend more time in is the Marylebone and Mayfair areas.  Because 36 hours a week is evidently not enough, my colleagues and I decided to meet up in Leicester Square last Sunday to watch the football and attend a play.

The Odeon - Leicester Square

One of my favourite places on Leicester Square is the huge Odeon cinema.  You see, that is where it all began as that is where I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which was so good that I rushed out and bought the Harry Potter books and that is what started me reading again after about 15 years of nothing but academic texts.  I digress…

Ruby Blue Bar - Leicester Square

I met my colleagues at the Ruby Blue Bar in Leicester Square.  We had made a booking during the week and were intrigued that they had not asked us for the standard £25 holding deposit so it was no surprise to arrive and find out that not only was there no booking but the restaurant was closed too.  Thankfully they were serving bar snacks in the main bar which were so good that we forgave them for their booking mistake. 

We all watched the England game and we were one sorry bunch of co-workers when we left the pub after England were slaughtered by Germany.  Well, to be honest, they were sorry – I was gleeful!  I’m not an England sports fan but I’m sure you won’t hold that against me!!

Leicester Square Station - Charing Cross Road

After the game, we walked on down to St Martins Lane to the Duke of York's Theatre to watch the play Ghost Stories.  If you click on the photo above, you can see why I liked that scene so much.  I loved the old-fashioned London Underground roundel with the old looking Charing Cross Road sign too.

London Coliseum

Opposite the Duke of York’s Theatre is the London Coliseum which is the home of English National Opera.  I just love that globe at the top!

After the play, we made our way down to Trafalgar Square.  I’m not sure how evident it is from the photos above but it was hot on Sunday.  Nevertheless, my long suffering husband and one of my colleagues indulged me while I took photos of Yinka Shonibare’s “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle”.

Nelson's Column - Trafalgar Square

Yinka Shonibare’s “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle”

It was really very hot indeed and there were a lot of really drunk football fans all over the place. 

 
Fans in the Fountain at Trafalgar Square

That included, of course, in the fountains at Trafalgar Square.  The police were Not Amused™ but they also seemed a bit scary so I decided against taking their photo!

Weekend Snapshots ~ 5: Sunday in Southbank

Southbank is one of my favourite places in the whole of London as there is so much to do and see there.  The best thing is that even if you have no money, you can just go and take photos of all of the exhibits and people and that, of course, is free! On Sunday, Stephen and I caught the train to Charing Cross station to meet up with my old friend Gavin.  Gavin and I met at university in South Africa and he now works for a super big company (not sure if I can name it!) in Seattle, Washington.  In the past couple of weeks he has been to Johannesburg, Warsaw, Milan and Sofia and was just stopping off in London for a couple of days before heading out back to the States.  I quite correctly guessed that he must have been tired of travelling by now and ready to go home!

We walked over the western of the Golden Jubilee Bridges but unfortunately, I was just so happy to see my friend that I didn’t take any photos of the bridge or from the bridge.  Bad Tourist!

I was absolutely thrilled to finally catch up with the Elephant Parade.  The Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign that seeks to educate people about the plight of Asian elephant which are endangered.  There are over 250 brightly painted elephants around London and they are absolutely gorgeous.  The elephants are for sale through auction but if you don’t have a spare £500 lying around, you can buy mini elephants from Selfridges and Greenwich Central Market or at the elephant parade online shop. 

I’ll utter the understatement of the decade here and say that I want one.

Of course, I got to see two of my very favourite London landmarks too.

The London Eye and the Houses of Parliament

I love the fishy details on the lamp posts in this area of London. 

It began to rain quite heavily at this point so we scuttled off to Ping Pong dim sum restaurant at Festival Terrace for some delicious dim sum, sticky rice parcels and rice bowls.

Ping Pong has an awesome set up and you can just keep ordering food until you are all full up and you can split the bill nicely too.  I think it is the perfect location for groups of people who like to share their food.  The interesting aspect is that they like to seat groups of people at tables together which is always interesting but we had no table mates on this occasion.

Once again, I was a Bad Tourist and was having too much fun catching up and swapping music recommendations to take photos of the food.  Gavin is one of the few people I know who is as obsessed with music as I am so it is always fun to chat.

This was the view outside of the restaurant while we were eating.  Poor elephant!  And yes, that is a fair idea of what May looks like in London.  There is a reason for the old proverb: Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.

We had a lovely afternoon but it was all over too soon.  Hopefully we’ll see Gavin next year in the States!

Weekend Snapshots ~ 3: Dartford

I went to the Dartford Library yesterday morning to attend the monthly meeting of the West Kent Book Club.  It was so nice to sit down and chat with a group of likeminded book lovers and I will certainly be a regular at the meetings.  This month’s book is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro which I’m quite excited about as I recently read his excellent book When We Were Orphans and I really enjoyed it.

Like many towns in England, Dartford’s high street area has seen better days and there is a lot of degradation in the area.  Despite that, Dartford has some really beautiful and historic areas too and naturally, I choose to photograph and focus on those.

Dartford has a huge park called “Central Park” which appeals to the New York-obsessed Emm and I cannot wait to explore here in the summer.  The gardens are really well kept and I appreciate the effort taken by Dartford Council.

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You may have noticed the slightly less frequent posts on Emm in London.  There are a couple of very good reasons for this which I thought I’d share:

• Friends: we were very happy to discover that our sister-in-law’s cousin is also staying in Dartford and we saw them last weekend.  This weekend, we visited my friends Gyda and Kenneth whose wedding we attended in South Africa last year.  Now that we live in Dartford, they are just up the M25 in Harpenden and it is much easier to pop over to see them.
• Outings: I’ve made a promise to stop being such a recluse and to start going out to see actual real live human beings.  So last week it was the photography course and this week it was the book club.
• Family: I’m going up to see my dad and step-mum in Liverpool this weekend and of course, I see a lot of my brother and mum now that they no longer live with us.  The trip to Liverpool is unfortunately not going to be an occasion for the Eternal Tourist as my aunty is very sick and we’re going to spend time with her.
• Work:  year end was crazy this year but it did work out easier than the previous two year ends and thankfully, it is all over.
• Health: I got the weirdest flu last week!  I didn’t have a head cold but I had an incredible fever and was hot and cold for two days.  Luckily I got over it but this weekend I had a sore throat and I slept most of today.  This year is a million times better than last year as I am far more healthy and I don’t have winter blues.  Nevertheless, I have learned to listen to my body and I have heeded the signs to rest and not blog this weekend!
• BlogCritics: having said that, I was accepted as a contributor on the BlogCritics team and so I have been whipping up some articles to earn my place there! 

All of these factors have resulted in slightly less time for Emm in London but I do hope to get back up to three posts a week soon.  Have a good week everyone!

Weekend Snapshots ~ 2: London

Yesterday I went to The Crosse Keys Pub in the City of London for a Camera Settings Workshop.  Run by The Photo School, this was the second of their courses I’ve done, the first one being their Creative Composition Course back in August 2009.  The course was only £30 for three hours and I really learnt a lot about what my little point-and-shoot camera can do. As you’re encouraged to really play around with your settings, the photos tend not to be as creative as the previous course.

The Crosse Keys

I learned to play around with the ISO settings on my camera and am finding it much easier to take photos inside or in artificial light.

Leadenhall Market

I'm also finding it easier to bring out the colours in dull light or cloudy conditions.  Which is a good thing if you live in the Capital of Unsunny.

The Crosse Keys is such a gorgeous pub, I’d really recommend that you take a visit up there if you are ever in the vicinity of St Pauls or Monument. As I had gone through Leadenhall Market and around "The Gherkin" last time, I headed south toward Monument this time.

I spent the rest of the practical time playing around with the white balance and programme modes on my camera and trying to capture a little of the essence of London for those who have never visited here before.

 

Not all black cabs are black…

 

...but many of the buses are red (playing around with motion and the Sports mode).

Just what is the essence of London?

The essence of London is not limited to one area or place.  It is something that can be seen anywhere in the city but which is so unmistakeably London.  London Underground roundels, black taxi cabs, red buses and the bollards.  I love this city.  Red post boxes are unmistakeably England though, aren’t they?  I must take the time out to capture a red telephone box as well one day.  Although they are less common these days, you can find them if you look for them.

After the course, I got really, really lost trying to find my way back to Cannon Street Station.  That’ll teach me to be lazy!  I know the way back to London Bridge which is where a non-lazy Tourist would have been walking.

  

It was only when I found myself outside the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England that I realised I’d taken a wrong turn and so I ducked past the London Magistrates Court and found my way back to Cannon Street.  Not a moment too soon either, it was rather cold yesterday!