Berwick fuji's!

Work is rubbish. Wisdom teeth are rubbish... and so are antibiotics.

(they really taste bad, ick)

However, fuji's to remind you of a lovely weekend are good...

...which is good.

We love Berwick!

We're back and we are well rested (honestly, so relaxed right now!) A massive thank you to my GeeGee for guest posting whilst we were away - how cute were the lambs in her last post?!

I'm beginning to think that Thomas and I have a weakness for coastal towns in England - Berwick is the northernmost town town in England - with its beautiful coastline, interesting history and amazing architectural features. I easily managed take all 50 photos with the half frame setting on the Diana, hurray!

Unlike Scarborough the coast of Berwich was rugged, with isolated bays scattered between patterns of volcanic rock however it really suited the town and the atmosphere. We want to go back already!

p.s. the winner of the Studio MME giveaway is Christina, thank you to everyone who entered!

Castles and Bicycles…

This weekend was lovely, spent in part at the engagement party of a university friend (they had a Moroccan tent!), and in a park playing badminton and interrupting it with a picnic. Or the other way around – more picnic, less action.

One of the places we (and by we, I refer to by lovely boyfriend, often known as Bee, also a photoswapper) love to cycle to is Broughton Castle. It’s only 5 miles from our home, and while the first half of the ride is in town (and it’s where the horrid hills are), the latter half is stunning and nature is suddenly all around.

{Hello Mr Bee!}

I love our bikes! They really are my favourite mode of transport.
(and I’m being naughty – the photo of the sheep and bikes was taken with a film camera)

Thank you very much for letting me post, I hope you enjoyed reading from one of Rhianne’s friends as much as I enjoyed putting it together. And back to Miss Rhianne...

Alert: First time blogger (and she's a fan of digital photography)

Hi everyone, GeeGee here. This is my first guest blog post but I’ve been reading Rhianne’s blog for months now so I hope you forgive me for infiltrating her space.

As obsessed as Rhianne is with film photography, I’m similar with digital. We’ve (very) recently realised that opposites really must attract, as Rhianne has always admired precise design and one of the things she loves about her work is how accurate it must be, and yet she loves a medium that is so unpredictable.

On the other hand, I’m quite arty and messy yet I love the clarity and detail available with digital cameras, and since I bought my Panasonic Lumix camera a couple of years ago, it has been permanently attached to me.

The first photo is probably my favourite photograph I have ever taken, because it shows a little snippet of nature we can so rarely see in person: as the bee drinks from the flower. My own little Planet Earth moment!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Some amazing projects and links!

Thomas has dubbed today as Thursday/Friday... you have to say it really fast.

It really makes me laugh when he says it.

Anyway, we are going away to Berwick-Upon-Tweed* tomorrow, just the two of us (finally!) so today is indeed Thursday/Friday. I can't wait. I have cameras at the ready!

As I have a couple of guest posts lined up by one of my besties GeeGee (who you may have seen around leaving comments or taking part in the photoswap) I wanted to share some amazing things I've seen in the blog world lately today as I won't be here tomorrow.

First up is the 'get perspective' project from Lindsay at Shrimp Salad Circus.

Here's the idea in Lindsay's words: for each installation of the project, I'll give the contributors a single word or phrase. Each contributor will submit a single picture that best represents that word or phrase for them, and then we'll see what we come up with. My idea is just to see how differently different people see and interpret the same thing. I think that this will be a really fun project, and I hope that it will grow and evolve with time. I'm thinking of one per month for starters, just to see how it goes.

How exciting does this sound and apparently it was inspired in part by me and the photo swap, how cool is that? If you love my photo swap then you will love this, I do!

Sign up here.

Next up is the Alphabet Walk Blog Hop, from Piper at One Sydney Road.

I saw this on Katrina's blog as she also has the bunting clip art featured on the image above available on Piper's blog - I am all over that one!

What the Alphabet Walk Blog Hop is in Piper's words: you’ll choose a letter of the alphabet, grab your walking shoes and camera, and find a spot where you want to take pictures of things that represent the letter you chose. (ex: “a” could be an apple or abstract or even the letter “a”).
then on your designated day, you’ll post the picture (or pictures if you want!) of your letter on your blog. then we’ll spend the week “hopping” around to see everyone’s interpretation of the alphabet! (click here to see what i did on my walk)

Another fun idea, I love it!

Sign up here.

And here are some amazing links for this week:

1. Totoro cupcakes - I want one, I love Totoro.
2. Eadaoin's gorgeous wedding on Dandelion and Grey, hurray!
3. Beautiful picnic polaroids
4. A lego camera and amazing polaroids from Diana
   (or just check out her whole blog :D)
5. Vintage photo envelopes.

Look out for GeeGee's posts tomorrow and Monday and I will be back on Tuesday hopefully with more photos to share!

p.s. don't forget about Megan's amazing giveaway, I just realised I won't be here Monday (duh Rhianne) so the closing date is extended until Tuesday!

I love the beach!

I also really love that hat, paddling in the sea, shadows on the sand, viewfinders that look across the sea and my diana mini, hurray :)

p.s. I'm even rather fond of those shorts...

Successful diana mini half frame photos!

After I managed to break the first film that I tried using the half frame setting on my Diana Mini, I was a little anxious to try it again and despite the fact it took me ages to use up the whole film

(50 photos is alot when you are used to 24 )

I absolutely love it!!!

...and taking photos of Harry, especially ones on the beach is my favourite!

I can't wait to share more! 6 down, 40+ to go, ha!

A celebratory giveaway - Closed

400 followers!
I'm excited

I love having a good reason to celebrate on here!
Hurray and happy dances!

A massive thank you to everyone who reads my blog, whether I read yours or not, you pop over and comment or whether you just hang back and enjoy, thank you! You keep me inspired to keep posting random things, to keep taking photos and to keep trying to stay positive and not let negative aspects of my life bother me too much. This giveaway is for you!

I'm hugely excited that Megan has once again offered to help me celebrate with her amazing work - I think I can safely say we've both come a long way since last August when we first worked together.

As well as being a talented photographer and a great blogger showcasing amazing etsy work, the processes of her work and snippets of her life, Megan is an amazing illustrator focusing on fairy tales and victorian ink work. I am still completely smitten with everything that she does.

So you can win... A 5x7 print of your choicefrom Studio MME

::How to enter::

Giveaway now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered.

It's nearly the weekend!

Me and my Dad's feet from our mini holiday in April - I wish I was seeing on him Sunday for Father's Day, I miss him, but we did get him an amazing present and I'll see him soon, so its ok.

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut (finally) and going for lunch and shopping with one of my favourite girls... I can not wait.

I've just got to get through today first.

Happy weekend!

p.s. the photoswap will be closing later today, so if you want to take part now is your chance - I have an odd number of people!

p.p.s. Can you see his Mr Men socks? Ha, love it!

Imagine this is a compelling blog post title...

Sorry for the unplanned blog disappearance but I got pretty sick over the weekend rather than just being under the weather... I'm back to work today but honestly, I'm still exhausted. This year has finally caught up with me and I'm worn out... I probably shouldn't have tried to fight it so hard all year last week... I think it hit me harder because of it.

We have so much coming up as well for the rest of the year and just thinking about it makes me even more tired - I'm really looking forward to it but right now I need some sleep and a cup of tea, preferably with a giant cookie, with chocolate chips or maybe even some cake. Cake would be good.

Anyway, I'm so behind on everything now - work, blog reading, photoswap emails, finishing that roll of film in my diana mini (taking double the photos with the half frame is actually quite challenging when you're only used to 24 photos...) so if I'm not around your blogs much, its because I'm still catching up (or I'm asleep...)

p.s. Hi to my latest followers, I have no idea where you've come from but 399 is pretty ridiculous/amazing/overwhelming/fantastic/exciting, I hope I don't disappoint when I'm feeling better, eep!I better start planning a major thank you giveaway for you all :) exciting!

Thank goodness its Friday!

Honestly, I've never been so glad... the week did not start well and it went down hill from there. We don't have much planned this weekend other than the football, I'm oddly excited about it this year...

I completely missed Lauren's fill in the blanks last week so I decided to do them this week, here goes!

1. My dream vacation would be travelling around Europe and visiting everywhere. I want to see everything.
2. The best trip I've ever taken was Edinburgh. It was our first trip together away somewhere amazing and I want to go back!
3. The most important items to take on a road trip are I mostly agree with Lauren – good music, snacks and plenty of water.
4. The next trip I'm looking forward to is KRAKOW!!!
5. If I had to pick one CD to listen to for a long road trip it would be probably one of the ones that Thomas made me.
6. The biggest disaster I've ever encountered while traveling was we were in a bus crash at school, it wasn’t really that bad though, I haven’t had many travelling disasters luckily.
7. My favorite traveling memory is always going to be travelling to my Grandparents at Christmas when we were younger, we used to have a competition of who would see the most houses with Christmas lights. I always loved Christmas at my Grandparents.

And here are some amazing links from this week.

1. Kat's thursday treats - honestly every link is a gem - especially the yellow and the balloons. Happy sigh.
2. An illustrated stroll through Paris.
3. Some rather amazing black and white photos
4. Gorgeous sketchbook pages
5. and some fun cat pictures

Is anyone doing anything excited this weekend? I can live vicariously through you :)

Happy weekend!

Lost in tumblr...

I've been feeling a bit under the weather for the past couple of days but after reading Cassie's Tumblr Tuesday post I've been cheering myself up looking at different tumblr archives.

(especially this one, this one, this one and this one)

I set a screenshot of my June archive as my google homepage today - how great does it look. I keep forgetting I set it though so everytime I open google it's like a little treat just for me.

Holgas from Malham...

Can you believe that other than Kay's wedding this was the first time I have taken Helga the Holga out to play this year? I feel so bad... I think I need to set up a camera rotation system...

We were so incredibly lucky to go to Malham on a gorgeous day (which is rare, the rain here today is awful!) so pretty much all of the photos turned out lovely, I always forget how much Holga's like the sunshine.

We took Harry on the sand train...

along the beach and we think he liked it...

Much love Monday...

After an amazing weekend with my family, a lovely evening in yesterday with Thomas and lots of sunshine, I've been absolutely miserable sat at my ugly desk back at work...

However I remembered today was monday and that I had a fun picture to share with Anna and then I decided to write a list of things I love to cheer myself up...

So, today I love...

~memories of sunshine at the beach~

~winning giveaways~

(Thanks Diana and Joanna!)

~my new hat~

~amazing photo blogs~

~my new stamps above~

~ready salted crisps~

~ waiting to develop my diana mini film ~

~pacman 2p machines~

(I spent quite a bit on them at the weekend, oops)

~bingo~

oh and I love that my little sister got engaged at the weekend...

knowing that she's happy makes me feel happier.

Hurray its Friday!

{photo taken in Scarborough}

...and I'm not at work, the sun is shining and we're off to see my family!

(including the little man. excited!)

I hope the sun is shining wherever you are...

if not then here are some links to brighten your day :)

1. Cats with mustaches... enough said.
   (actually check out her whole blog, it is amazing!)
2. I've seen these all over tumblr but only just discovered who did them.
3. A post about cameras - because I will never get bored of them.
4. I really really want to go to Brighton!
5. Some rather pretty illustrations.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Oh my...

I'm beginning to think that Cassia is a lady after my heart...

Not only does she take the most amazing photos (a number of which I have framed in my house), but she has been incredibly supportive of my blog and now she has opened a new shop, Violet May

featuring the most amazing collages.

I feel a little silly as I didn't realise at first that it was her shop - I just stared at the amazing colours, the delightful poses and wonderful simplicity of her work.

I am totally smitten.

{all images by Cassia can be found in her amazing shop!}

Luckily for us, Cassia is having a giveaway of one of her prints on her blog at the moment, as well as a photography giveaway! It's all far too exciting!

I wish we were back here...

The weekend seems like it was such a long time ago...

{photos taken with my yashica autofocus}

Alice I Have Been review...

The good news is I managed to finish this book for the Slow Readers Club.

The bad news is that I have mixed feelings about it...

**there are definitely some spoilers in here if you haven't read the book**

Also, this is a fairly long review - I couldn't seem to stop writing...

I've never been a big fan of Alice in Wonderland - I always found the Disney film quite scary when I was younger and I have never had any intentions to read the book since. I didn't even see the new Alice film and I love Tim Burton... As a result my knowledge of Lewis Carroll a.k.a Charles Dodgson and Alice was pretty minimal and I didn't really have any expectations before I started reading.

At the start of the book I loved Alice - I loved her spirit, how she viewed everything and her enthusiasm for the things that she liked. Her outlook was refreshingly honest amongst her stiffled surroundings and she reminded me of other strong characters from books such as George from The Famous Five and Jo from Little Women who were stubborn yet passionate about their life and complete individuals. Initially I thought that her relationship with Charles was quite sweet, she obviously craved to be understood and he treated her kindly and more importantly accepted her for how she was.

I was quite surprised when the book jumped to further along her future and honestly a little disappointed/annoyed that her relationship with Charles Dodgson was consequently unexplained - I guess I'm a little bit of a romantic as I didn't necessarily see him as a threat to her and I would have been happy for him to wait for her, for her to stay true to herself and for them both to be happy... but things don't always work out that way, especially when based on historical events.

For me, the rest of the book was almost like reading a different book and character - all of a sudden Alice was older, her past was mysterious and her character had been stifled by her upbringing and her surroundings. The introduction of Leo was sudden and unexpected and knowing what I do of English High Society at the time, I knew there was no way that they could have been together...

However, my heart completely broke for Alice whilst I sat on the train crying as her love left her, her favourite sister died and her Mother uttered the worst phrase that any child could hear... whatever had happened in her past I did not feel that she deserved to suffer like that.

If you had asked me as soon as I had finished reading the book what I thought, I would have told you I really enjoyed it, however I think that really I just got caught up in the story. This itself tells you that the book has merit - the plot is interesting enough to keep you reading and you do want to reach the end. However after a few weeks thinking on it I am not sure I would read it again, or even recommend it to someone, as in the end the book was heartbreaking.

Alice lost her passion, her love, her sister, her family and she lost herself.

It also left many unresolved issues that once I started to do a little research just left me feeling confused. Some of the plot seemed a bit far fetched (mainly everything including Ruskin) and although Alice and Charles's relationship was definitely odd and at times quite uncomfortable, I never imagined there to be any horrific intentions on his part. It was only after researching a bit more that I found out about certain suggestions towards his lifestyle and his photography... maybe I just didn't want to see it that way.

In the end I think it's the historical uncertainty and the unanswered questions that leave me with an overall unsatisfied feeling rather than the story itself.

It's a Photo Swap 2010! Entry now closed!

I'm delighted to say that I think the photo swap in 2009 was a success and even though its been a long time coming, I am just crazy enough to host another one!

It all started when the lovely Susannah posted a link on her Twitter about disposable cameras way back in 2009 and I started to think how wonderful it would be to take photos to then

send to someone else to develop!

I love photos - I especially love photos taken by film cameras and I love the anticipation of waiting for my own photos but waiting for someone elses with no clue about the photos would be beyond exciting!!

Each photoswapper either takes a roll of film

or buys a disposable camera

it has to be something that you develop

and they take photos just for their swap partner,

then send the cameras/films to each other

and develop the other persons photos.
(and posts them on their blogs for everyone to see of course)

{click on the photos for each persons blog}

Entry for this swap is now closed!

If you want to put the banner like the one at the top of this post on your blog then here is the HTML code to do so:

<a href="http://fortheeasilydistracted.blogspot.com/2010/06/its-photo-swap-2010.html"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SwS0hAdsc3xwr40ollvhYgNrkDYH2_FbSMWU_-btWjNco-lLxxmSzSh2CEP86X6LyYAUoelWYVtrPuliaQxni0lLGxNo6ylru2o7wxIinSOU6JDEOgY5Zuapg6eVG5JFuEk5c2Z5Ebuu/s1600/photoswap2010banner.jpg" /></a>

If however you fancy a smaller button for your sidebar like this then use this HTML coding:

<a href="http://fortheeasilydistracted.blogspot.com/2010/06/its-photo-swap-2010.html"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vsV-ulXps74/TAThy3K06HI/AAAAAAAAChw/aNsvZSwg-Bk/s1600/photoswap2010button.jpg" /></a>

Also if you wish to twitter about the photo swap then please use the hashtag #photoswap2010
I have also created a shorter link that can also be used to link to this page
http://bit.ly/dAgfIJ

I hope that you are all as excited about this as I am - the results from the last photo swap were so amazing that I can't wait to see what we get this year!

If you think I have missed anything or just want to ask me a question then please email me on rhiannelouise@gmail.com


p.s. Thank you to everyone who have volunteered so far, Cassandra who helped me with making HTML coding visible on posts and in the sidebar and also Katrina for her wonderful tape which I've used everywhere!