Happy Valentines & Photolog

First and foremost, I think it's time to mention the love of my life. I've posted a few times and always managed to leave him out. Poor boy. Well, seeing as how it's Valentines day, I think now is the appropriate time for a mention. I'm not sure how to describe him really... He's handsome and funny; lovely and supportive; smart, sensible, ridiculous and wry; he's the perpetual sunshine that brightens my daytimes and he's the cosiness that warms me all through the night.

Turned into a bit of a poem, there. How corny. Anyway, he really is bloody fantastic and I don't know what to make of a world that doesn't have him in it. For Liam:

I also found, along with these photos of Liam's feet, a few more photos that I forgot I had. They aren't the main purpose of my post, but I'd like to put them up and I think they also fit in the theme of "people/things I love". So here you go!

My lovely best friend/sister-type, at one of our sadly-infrequent catch-ups. The fact that I don't get to see this lady more is one of the reasons I hate living in Brighton. I miss her company a lot, and hope that one day I'll live close enough so that I can see her loads and loads.
I took this photo in Garfunkel's in London, where we had an absolutely massive dinner. I think I had spare ribs, and she had some kind of... food. I don't remember what, I only remember that my ribs were yummy! We spent ages deciding where to go, as my coeliac disease kind of limits the places available to me. Eventually we decided on this place, because it was right around the corner from Topshop (which is where we were at the time), and it turned out to be a pretty good decision. I'd go there again, but I wouldn't sit near the door so all the cold air could blow up my back.

This is the pumpkin I carved the halloween just gone, when we had the kids round for a slumber party. It was really good fun (more putting it together than the actual party, which was fun too, if not a little crazy towards the end. Eight year olds, eh. Don't know how to hold their lemonade). I was most proud of my pumpkin carving skills, and can't wait for next year when I'm going to go all out on millions of insane pumpkin designs.

This is a picture of a cat... I thought it was cute. It's Rhi's friend's cat, and it was incredibly hyperactive for the ten minutes I was at Rhiannon's house. It kept hiding behind the books on the bookcase, and then coming back down again for some attention, then going to hide again. It kept trying to swat the camera with it's paw when I was trying to take a photo of it too!
This was the same evening as Garfunkel's, and also the first time I ever went to Brixton and was offered drugs at a cash machine.

I took this photo of the scary snowman on Brighton beach way back in 2009, when everyone was excited about the snow. Now everyone just grumbles at the prospect of it, because we all know it means half a day of lovely snowiness, and then a week of slush and ice. There are a few optimistic folk who still get excited when it snows, my love being one of them. Bless him. But no, really, unless it's going to snow until it's two feet deep and stay for a month, I really don't want to know.

Last one, and another one of the beautiful Rhiannon. I think this is my favourite of the whole bunch!

And with that, I am going to go and play some guitar, or maybe some Dragon Age. Not decided yet...

Dads are awesome.

Here are two of my favourite pictures in the whole world. They're pictures of my Dad, from a day he came to visit me in Brighton and we got ice cream. They always reminds me how silly and fun he is, and how he never fails to make me laugh.

Going through all my old photos has inspired me to start getting out there and making the most of the world again. You don't always have to have something out of the ordinary to take a photo of... even the normal, day-to-day things that you really cherish make wonderful shots. Probably moreso than odd and curious things. It's the humble joy that you find everywhere, no matter what's going on that is so much more meaningful to document.
Oooh, deep.

Achievements so far...

Today I had my induction at the gym- it's just around the corner from work, so it's really handy, and the people there are very friendly. I enjoyed it, and I'll be going again tomorrow. Hopefully I will be super-fit in no time. I used the cross trainer, the stepping machine, the treadmill and an exercise bike. Quite a good workout; the stepping machine was by far the hardest of them all!

A few days ago I made some cupcakes for a cake sale at work, the proceeds of which were to go to help with the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I was going to make about 30, but instead only made 16 because I spent ages and ages on the icing. They weren't perfect; I know that with practice and some better ideas (more planning) I could do some really interesting things, but they were good enough.

I've seen some incredible cupcake designs on the internet, the most notable of which were these Super Mario Bros ones. They had all sorts of Super Mario related shenanigans, and I really wanted to try and make them myself. I didn't quite have all the icing colours I needed, and I certainly don't have the skill yet, but when I have the time to master such an art I will most definitely post pictures of my results.

My favourite of the cupcakes I managed to make was the flower one (middle of the picture above). It was really easy to make and I thought it looked like the prettiest. I think I'd like to make a whole batch of those! The star shaped centre really brought it together, I think. The purple icing is also pretty cool, I made it by mixing red and blue together (very proud of my brainwave there). I really love making cupcakes, and should do it more often. It's quite time consuming though, and with all my other commitments at the moment it just gets put on the backburner... ah well!

I'm so tired after the gym, I'm going to have to go to bed...