Started early today by 7:45 am I’d checked my emails and had a quick surf on the professional photography forums, they are really great for keeping in touch with other photographers around the world, keeping up to speed on the latest techniques and trends and helping each other out with technical and business queries. I guess as I work from home they’ve become my ‘virtual water cooler’, the place where in a conventional office job you have a brief chat with colleagues as you grab a drink. Many of these ‘virtual’ colleagues around the world have become close personal friends over the years. It’s been some time since I worked in a conventional office environment. I spent many years working in IT for major corporates and really enjoyed the challenges of the various roles from project management through to technical support but being self employed and doing a job that I really love is priceless! I still manage to keep in touch with a number of my former work friends, it’s amazing the different things that some of them are doing these days as an example Dee and her family are now in Spain running a cafe and holiday accomodation and Sue recently emigrated to Canada with her family.

A nice cheque in the post from Lloyds TSB, half year share dividend – a bit like Monopoly but with real money!

Trip to the bank before lunch to pay in a batch of business cheques, a lot of customers now pay by debit or credit card but some still pay by cheque, the only down side of cheque payments for me is that I have to drive to the not so local bank to pay them in – but it gets me away from ‘real work’ for a little while!

Received a text message from Julie (my Welsh tutor) to say that she’s suffering with a cold so the Welsh Class this evening has been cancelled.

Made up a pair of Jorgensen Parent Albums for one of my customers, the finished albums look great – instant job satisfaction for me!

“I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse.” – Diane Arbus