Breakfast at the bakery in Church Village. Starting to get back in to work after the Christmas and new year break – a fairly quiet day though making a few more updates to the web site and a few software upgrades.
A quiet Tuesday
A very relaxing day. I made some changes to the look of this blog and added a mini flash slideshow at the top of the side bar.
Bank holiday Monday
A quiet and mainly relaxing day although I did update some code on my website. David called over.
A new year
Blwyddyn newydd dda – Happy new year.
Lunch at my Mum’s, home cooked lamb with all the trimmings – delicious!
The last day of 2005
It’s been a very mixed year!
Business has been very good, lovely couples and weddings and bookings for next year are higher than at the same time last year.
Personally it’s been a mixed year, David passed his driving test and has been consuming significant amounts of petrol from my spare can ever since, Paul is much better organised and apart from a few breakdowns caused by a failing battery hasn’t needed to ‘call me out’.
However it has been a very difficult year since the tragic death of our eldest son James in a motor bike accident in Norwich in July. The support from our family, many friends and photographers both in this country and across the world has been tremendous. I was very fortunate to have such great support both from the local members of the Master Photographers Association and the international group of wedding photographers that I’m a member of. I had numerous offers of business help but fortunately I was able to carry out all the scheduled work without external help but it is very comforting to know that such great and generous help is there if needed.
We’re hoping that personally 2006 is going to be a much better year!
A wet Friday
The snow has turned to rain, rather a lot of rain! A trip to the bank and then the local do it yourself store to pick up some brackets to make some changes to one of the shelves in a kitchen base unit. Cordless drills are great tools, made the changes to the kitchen unit in a couple of minutes.
A very cold Thursday
A heavy frost overnight outside it looks almost like we had a mild snowfall. Quite a thick layer of ice to scrape off the cars this morning. We had a refuse collection today, the wheelie bin was certainly full with all the extra Christmas waste. Called in to see my cousin Glen at his garage, as usual he’s snowed under with work. Wandered around Leekes in Pontyclun, didn’t buy anything, except lunch. Some light snow here this afternoon.
Wednesday – holiday over?
I guess today is when things really start to get back to normal although a lot of the photographic labs, album manufacturers and photographers take an extended break at this time of year. The end of the year and January are generally a fairly quiet time for photographers, although we often tend to book a number of new weddings in January. I have quite a lot of albums to make up in January and as soon as the albums arrive from Australia I’ll be fairly busy. I tend to use the odd quiet time to catch up with minor enhancements to the web site and computer systems.
I’ve completed the upgrade to WordPress version 2 for this blog, most of the changes are in the processing and look and feel “under the bonnet” rather than the presentation to the viewer, everything is working – as far as I can tell!
Completed my tax return this afternoon and filed it on-line – before the final deadline, I must be getting more organised. 🙂 Another task completed on the to do list. I need to file my latest VAT return this week using the eVAT system, my accounts are currently all up to date, one of the many benefits of using a computerised accounts system.
A relaxing Bank Holiday
Well almost – I’ve just upgraded this blog to WordPress version 2, it will take me a little bit longer to get it back to looking the way I’d like though 🙁 other than that a fairly relaxing day.
Boxing Day
Seven of us around the table for lunch today in addition to Chris and Laura we were joined by my mum and my sons Paul and David. Here’s a photo I grabbed of Paul taken with the Fuji F11 digital point and shoot.
and here’s one taken by Paul of David trying to find a cheaper on-line car insurance quote.
Chris and Laura left after lunch to drive back to Norwich.