I apologise in advance...

...for the birthday card verse I wrote—it's a right groaner (you can avoid it by reading no further!)

From a Pretty Pink Princess to her Mummy

(or Mommy)

I love my Mummy because...

She helps me play dress-up, I get to use makeup,
We giggle and laugh a lot.
She chooses the dresses, the shoeses and tresses,
And ties up my hair in a knot.

She's now my hand-maiden, with eyes of black raven,
And maybe a hint of a witch,
In dreamland at Camelot, I rule and I'm Queen a lot,
With Mummy to see there's no hitch!

Copyright 2010 HightonRidley

What did you think of my cheek, rhyming "shoeses" with "chooses" and "Queen a lot" with "Camelot"? Anyway, here's the card I wrote it for:

And while I'm on about my Zazzle store, I did another Potato Patch character - Spudpeep Paddy, who is the first aider there. If any of the other Spudpeeps have an accident, he sorts out any cuts, bumps and bruises.

see all my Spudpeep Paddy items in my Zazzle store

You may now punish me in the comments for my dreadful rhyming!

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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A group shot in the potato patch

I think this was their New Year Party!

Spudpeep Group Shot

Here's the Spudpeep folk so far, hanging out in a corner of the Potato Patch where they live.
From left to right we have Spudgirl Daisy, Spudman Yeehaw! and Spudpeep Bounce.
I think Yeehaw likes Daisy. What do you think?

See the kids gear, gifts and cards they appear on over on my Zazzle Store

If you leave a reply, do you mind being both brave and honest? If that's ok, rate them on a cuteness scale of 1-10, ten being puppy-cute and one being "stick to photography"!!

comments / feedback always welcome and actively sought :)

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Funny or not?

Well, I thought I'd share this one with you... it made me laugh!

New poster for sale

I think you might like this one... freshly added to my Zazzle shop.

i iz snoozin poster by HightonRidley
See other posters from zazzle

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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Man in the Moon's girlfriend

Just for a bit of a laugh, I found this in Google Earth ages ago and thought I'd share it here.

He can see her from the moon

Oh dear, she seems to be preggers! ...but happy about it, so that's ok :)

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Pilgrim's Point — a rare one in colour!

Well, here's a bit unusual for me, a colour shot!

Pilgrims' Point, Mayflower Steps, Plymouth

Background and funny story behind the shot

I had received a cheeky request from a print magazine for photos of Plymouth they could use (unpaid, mind! but at least they did say they'd credit the photographer).

Well, I haven't taken any touristy colour shots for a long, long time and I thought I should brush up my skills a bit. I don't live more than a 15 minute walk from the Barbican so I headed down there to shoot the arch and point.

Although it was a sunny day, there weren't that many folks around. I waited until the area was clear and tried a few angles, positions. While I was checking out this, my final selection of viewpoint, a German couple showed up in my viewfinder, within the area set off by the handrail.

The chap, I'll call him Hans, was armed with camera and video recorder. To understand what followed, you must realise that I am British, with all that means with regard to queuing, a sense of what's, well, fair, combined with a stoic but non-committal silence when faced by breaches of what should be the adopted etiquette — "when in Rome...".

Hmmph!

So Hans took his time over a bunch of photos, with his misses kinda staying in the background, maybe trying to keep out of my way? But not Hans. Oh, no, out came the video camera and, again, he took his time over it — setting it up, videoing this and that. Then it was a slow walk round while videoing the handrail (it's engraved with pictograms and text explaining the journey of the Mayflower). Then he videoed first one plaque, then the other — from this angle and that. Hmmph!

Cheeky %&^@* !!

Every so often, he glanced down at me (I was on the steps below, looking up, extra low spring tide lapping at my feet). He could see I was waiting patiently to take my shot (still!!!) and then you know what finally happened? The blighter had the cheek to start videoing me, looking up at him!

Revenge the British way!

Well! I did what any British gentleman would do, I gave him the sternest of my mild surprise looks, tinted with just the merest traces of annoyance and scorn (like feather daggers they drifted his way to pierce his karma). Hans has never had the privilege of being oblivious to such exquisite subtlety of mildly-pained-and-slightly-surprised expression before. That'll teach him, thought I!

I think it must have worked on some level of Hans' subconscious because, not too long after, he stopped videoing me, took his time putting his kit away, and without a backward glance he and his lady were off.

Now, I started by saying I'm sure they were very nice people and all that, but you know, come on!

About the shot... I intend to revisit it in the digital darkroom because I stupidly didn't pay heed to the chromatic aberration (the magenta edging to the lhs of the arch) - until the end. Darn it!

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