GotPassion?

Spring Time

Note also photo 1, the ominous clouds meaning yet MORE rain!

 

 

 

 

Something Blue, Something New!

Sometime ago I had this idea to combine two of my passions in life, children and photography to be like a nanny photographer. This week as I have had work confirmed up to the summer holidays - I have been starting to consider finding work after that time.

So I have been working hard at creating a website geared at toward finding some nannying gigs, and it has been passworded for a couple of days. My friend Becky has been big help (THANKYOU!!!) but I thought I would make it public now so you people can have a look, let me know what you think etc, before I start promoting it to potential clients.

The Nanny Photographer

Enjoy!!!

Train Ride

All taken between Rochester - London and London - Basildon... A great way when you seem to spend half your life travelling somewhere or other on the trains!

 

 

   

 

Preparing for a Rochester Wedding

 

  

The Countries You Live

As I think I have mentioned before I use google reader to see where my readers from the blog are so over the last month this is where you are...

UK                                        France
USA                                      New Zealand
Canada                                 Ireland
Venezuela                             Phillipines
Australia                              Japan
Netherlands                          Germany

Off the top off my head I have no idea who lives in the Phillipines or Venezuela so please do let me know who you are, such cool to know I am being read in these in interesting countries.

Basildon, Wall-E and Eva

On Tuesday I took a most exciting walk in to Basildon town centre! A kind lady showed me the directions and I ended up walking with her and having a good chat. When I got to the centre the first person I saw reminded me of Peggy Mitchell but the hair was higher:) I took this one photo and then quickly put my camera in case anyone was watching thinking 'Why in the world would anyone want to take a photo of Basildon city centre, weirdo!'

 

One of my basildon boys loves this magnet game and we get in out when younger basildon boy has his nap. Having just seen Wall-E, Big basildon boy has decided his little magnet toy is Eva and mine is Wall-E and he sits there saying Eva, to which I reply Wall-E. Wonderful game, one day it kept him entertained for 1hour 15 minutes! Its rather funny when he starts calling me Eva though:)

 

As you can see from this next picture, big basildon boy has had chicken pox with a zillion spots all over all week so has not been at nursery, unfortunately little basildon boy also got it towards the end of the week and been a bit grogy but so far not as many spots...

Caught!!!!

 

I really like these flowers cos they look like bluebells and I love bluebells!

Guadeloupe, One Last Look

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

CassCass, Photographer, Aged 3.

 

 

 

 

  

Ste Anne

With the strikes and road blocks it made it a bit hard to get around the island with leisure, however on tuesday - the day before I left, we manged to make a visit. Whilst Mum stayed home to collect LissaLou from school for lunch and take her back again (LissaLou's 2nd day at school after a 7 week absence), me, Hevs, Alberto, Jojo and CassCass drove down to Ste Anne beach.

It is a beautiful beach and probably more of what I had imagined the Caribbean to look like from the photos than anything else I had seen... Heather complained of being cold and the kids' teeth were chattering... I personally think its the hottest sea swimming I have ever done.

 

  

 

 

 

 

A Taste of Pointe-à-Pitre

On my last Monday in Guadeloupe, Alberto took Mum and I for a tour in downtown Pointe-à-Pitre, the largest city in Guadeloupe. It is located it the middle of the island, when you think of Guadeloupe being shaped something like a butterfly, Pointe-à-Pitre is right where the wings meet.

The word beautiful probably could not be used to describe Pointe-à-Pitre but it certainly has a lot of character in its own way, especially if you look beyond all the numerous shoe shops! Although I am sure some might argue that the shoe shops help the character...

On this particular day we looked around, Guadeloupe was just reeling after just coming out of a 7 week long general strike. The streets were narrow and although there were a fair few people about but according to Alberto and to Mum it was nothing to compared to how it was usually, Mum said it was much much busier when she visited November 2008.

There were quite a lot of building works, some which didn't seem to be acheiving anything, quite possibly the builders hadn't got back after the strikes. Sadly these building works ruined the view of the street life a little. The achitecture was varied between modern and colonial. The colonial buildings were quite nice with their balconies, the 3rd pic down shows the colonial house Musée Saint-John Perse commerating a local resident, and the building is one of the prettier ones in the town with a rather colourful pink painting on the garden wall.

Photo no 6 shows the waterfront where the cruise ships used to come in, they have now changed to another port to come in which seems a shame as I thought this was quite a nice mooring for a cruise ship, where kids could come with their family, do some shopping and sit in the park whilst watching the boats come in. All that was to be seen at the waterfront on this day were a few market stalls clearing up and lots of old men sitting, watching and not doing much in particular.

One of my memories of our tour is the Haitian ladies selling their wares, there are the legal ones who can sit in peace, but the illegal ones keep a firm look out for the police and everytime they see them pick up their massive bags and walk along hiding in the crowds or hiding behind the cars. It happened so often it was a ridiculous sight that made us laugh, but it must be a challenge to get by like that day after day.

We finished off our trip with a snowball, kind if like a man made slush puppy... very refreshing after a walk in the sun and Alberto saw us safely back on to our bus before going to work. I would like the opportunity to see Pointe-à-Pitre on a busier day because I think what I saw and described above is not how the locals would see this town, I am not sure it could ever match up to the beauty of some of the other places on the island.