Happiness

Happiness is being let loose for an hour or two in a second-hand bookshop, with nothing but a determination to find something groovy.


Happiness is doubled if the bookshop in question comes with bonus ladders for customers to continue searching by the rafters for the book of their dreams.

Happiness is finding a Graham Oakley book that is affordable, a Daphne du Maurier with an interesting cover (it will be the subject of a book worm review one of these days when I get my act together!), a 'photo-mag' of The Beatles filming 'A Hard Day's Night', and a 1959 edition of children's book The Borrowers Afloat.


Happiness is my cat Ginger, a beautiful boy with soft fur who likes his creature comforts as much as he likes his dinner. He is very sure of himself in the world as long as he gets regular cuddles. He has the loudest purr in London. His nickname is Mr Big Paws (AKA the Ginger Whinger).


Happiness is my cat Abigail, a beautiful girl with an inquisitive nature (see her staring past me at the window) and the gentlest paws. She goes into raptures of delight at being the highest in a room, preferably balanced around my neck. Abi is my little shadow, and where-ever I am in the house she loudly brings me her favourite toy, a long snaky piece of fluff we call The Wiggly. Her nickname is the Naughty Tortie.


Happiness is exploring somewhere new, preferably somwhere with a classic plane/car show. I will examine every car, nodding knowledgebly but if coaxed into conversation will reveal that I know nothing about cars, and my only scale for car liking is whether it will suit a wicker picnic basket. Deciding which classic car best suits a picnic basket is something that I will happily ponder for hours. I also rather like pointing my camera in the sky at these things, as you can see.


The reason for the watermark is I am debating doing something 'proper' with my favourite photography - more than likely some sort of mixed media collage thing as a bit of an Arty creative diversion when the book is done. Gosh - when the book is done! Oh fateful day!

Winter in London

London is a lovely city in which to point a camera. All these photographs were taken on Saturday 9th January 2010.

On the ball

Sometimes, you find things on the Internet without even trying. Today I wasn’t even looking for local London magazines; I was after a magazine called The English Garden to see if they might be interested in my photographic services.

Did I tell you I can be rather nifty with a camera? But then again, cameras are so good these days aren’t they – nearly everyone can be nifty I think. You just have to get your composition spot on, or see the quirkier things in life.

I have digressed haven’t I? Right, Internet. So there I was, hunting The English Garden, which is published by Archant, which recently acquired a LOT of local London mags. I knew this, but obviously I had been as blind as a bat when I last flew into Archant’s website, as they have www links for nearly all of their publications, which includes editorial contact details. Oh fool that I am! But will I email or phone them? Hmm… See, it is tricky. As from experience in editorial, the phone is a constant annoying interuption from work. Yet emails can disappear very quickly down a big black hole, especially if they are a generic email eg to editor@...

And is Friday a good day to pitch? Liquid lunches, looking forward to the weekend, you get that whole 'I will deal with it Monday' feeling and by the time Monday rolls around there are hundreds of emails that have come in over the weekend for the busy editor and your Friday email will have fallen down the plug hole.

Or I am making yet another plausible excuse? Hmm, maybe I should be in politics.