Good news!

I got some good news through the post this morning. I got a letter officially offering me the Team leader position I applied for at Co-op. The induction takes place at a store in Basingstoke on 13th April and I start in my store the following day where I will learn how to do everything from serving people to cashing up and closing the store.

coop letter

I really am looking forward to starting this job. Not only is it a higher position than what I would have normally applied for, it also pays more than what I currently get for cleaning the store. I’m also loving that I will be able to work many more hours than what I do now, meaning more money which makes me happy!

Learning how to ride

We took Chloé out for the afternoon to teach her how to ride her bike with out stabilisers. I found a nice stretch of path near the St. Catherine’s Park and ride car park that gets hardly used.

She’s had a while without them by herself, but I thought it was about time to actually teach her how to ride a bike properly. So I packed it in the car, picked Kate from work and headed down to the Park and Ride.


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Donington Race Circuit

Last weekend I got invited up to Castle Donington in Derby, to Donington Race Circuit so be with some friends on a track day. Everything was arranged for us to meet up at 9am, so I got up at 5am, had a bath got my stuff ready and made my way up there.

After a lovely 3 hour trip I finally arrived at just gone 9am. I was expecting my friends to be there. No such luck. I got a call about 10 minutes after I arrived to say that my friend had been in a car accident. I panicked a little and hope he was ok. I didn’t get any more information from him until they arrived at 10:35am.

Turns out my friend blew shit out of proportion and made it sound a lot worse than it was, as most people do these days. He arrived with a little dent and some scrapes down the side of his car, what a tit. All cosmetic damage – panic over!

After getting all registered to either go out driving on the track or being a passenger ( me ), we headed back to the cars and the track day began. Sadly the photos I took haven’t turned out so great, because they were through a wire fence, but here are some photos of the cars:

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Do I have it?

Potential – Having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future.

Do I have potential? I would certainly like to think so. I’m certainly trying to better myself; I’m currently studying Maths and English at college; I’m developing my skills as a photographer; I have the need and want to learn more, to do more. Does this qualify me as having potential?

I currently feel that I’m stuck in a rut with my job. I feel that I have the potential to do more; to earn more; to further my career. I believe a job change, to something that has more hours, is a start in the right direction. I have taken steps to try and sort my “dead end job” issue; I have applied for several jobs. Sadly I have not had the pleasure of a single response from any of the employers that I applied to. I will however, keep applying. In the interim, I will apply my time and effort to schooling and developing my skills as a photographer.

Have a photo of a Meerkat.

Catching up

It’s been a while since I last updated, because I really haven’t know what to write. The odd thing is, it’s not as if nothing has been going on either; loads of stuff has happened.

My niece turned two on November 7th. We travelled down to my sisters in Kent, the weekend before her birthday, to spend some time with her and give her the presents that we bought.

While down in Kent, my sister asked me to try and get some photos of her and her new boyfriend, Jake. The entire family ventured out to Leybourne Lake Country Park for the afternoon; it was absolutely freezing! I did however, manage to get a nice shot of them both.

On the Sunday, the slight cold that I had for a couple of days, decided to take a turn for the worse. I started to have hallucinations and ran a really high temperature. One minute I’m boiling, the next I’m freezing cold. It was horrendous. Thankfully, I started to feel better to drive home on the Monday evening. We finally made it home at just gone 1am.

The following week, 14 November, it was Ryan’s birthday; he’s now seven years old. We had a set budget of £200 for his birthday. That £200 would pay for some presents, a trip to the zoo, a movie at the cinema, dinner, a birthday cake and celebrations with his cousins and aunts. for a seven year-old, he does pretty damn well out of us!

A more permanent home

I decided a while ago that I needed a more permanent home for my photos. I tried something on here; Tumblr and a separate WordPress blog for it. Nothing really worked too well for what I wanted.

I came to the conclusion that Facebook was a good idea. Its nice and easy to manage; I can share my photos easily with my friends and family, and everyone can see my photos; even non-members.

The easiest way to keep up to date with my photos is to like my Facebook page. Click here which will take you to the page, then simply click like!

If you’re up for it, some feedback on my photos would be really appreciated, and by feedback I mean the type that will help me get better at photography, not the type that trolls seem to love to give!

My new, new car!

As you may know I won a car back in March of this year. A brand new Fiat 500! By winning that car, it encouraged me to get a driving licence and learn to drive. I achieved my goal on June 13th. Ever since I passed my driving test I have been almost non stop driving about in that little Fiat. Until last Tuesday!

Last Tuesday I approached Ford in Winchester to find out how much my car was worth. To find out if it was viable for me to sell it and get a bigger new car. Ford offered me £6,500 for my Fiat! I was ecstatic when I found that out! After offering me the £6,500 I soon enquired about buying a new car from Ford.

Two and a half hours after walking into Ford, I walked out being the owner of a brand new Ford Focus Zetec 1 Litre 999cc Turbo 125BHP car just sky of £18,000.

I picked her up last Tuesday, with 36 miles on the clock!

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A New View

If you have been keeping up with me on Facebook or on Twitter, I recently bought myself a new lens for my camera. I have been wanting a new lens for a long time now. Specifically a telephoto lens as I want to be able to capture the kids much better while they are playing with out intruding.

I finally got the go ahead from Katie to buy my new fantastic lens. The Nikon AF-S VR 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED. I picked it up from Jessops on the 7th September as they price matched the lens down from £439.99 to £419.99 for me, which was an awesome surprise, as I was going to be spending £421 buying it from Amazon with the next day Saturday delivery, so it ended up being cheaper!

Over the past few weeks I have had a good play with it. It’s extremely heavy compared to what I was used to, but is well worth the aching arm. I have captured some stunning photos of the kids and some wildlife.

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Geohashing 27-08-2012

I do love geohashing. Today I decided that I wanted to go and get myself the sunrise geohash achievement. As Kate and the kids were coming with me, they had to be up at the same time as myself. I’m not sure they were prepared for the time that I said!

4.20am we got up this morning. Got our stuff ready and headed out to Kingsmere to Whitehill viewpoint. I set up the sat-nav to take us to the WhiteHill viewpoint. This was not an easy task and I had to scroll over a map, which looked very different from the one I was looking at on my phone. Once I found where it was that we needed to go we headed off.

Around 30 minutes later we arrived and gathered our bits. The sun is just starting to light up the sky. I checked the GPS on my phone and proceeded in the direction that I thought we had to go. It was a nice 15 – 20 minute walk later that we found ourselves at a gate that I had to climb over. I got over, the kids then climbed over, and then Kate was the only one left. Before she attempted to climb, I noticed that the gate had a latch, and it could be opened. It turned out that no climbing was needed after all!

We proceeded to walk a further 3 – 4 minutes and finally reached the hash point. I took some photos of the sunrise and of us. Unfortunately there was nothing around for us to make a marker to say we had been there. So we just headed on back to the car after around 15 minutes of photo taking.

When I have some free time, I intend to go back there and explore the area some more. It looks amazing and deserves a proper investigation.

Check out the photos below of our geohashing experience!

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