one of those days!!

Headed off into London today for a shoot in st John's Wood and just as I arrived something started to feel wrong with my car - the engine started losing power and the car was jolting around all over the place. I managed to park and and do my job, which was fine but not before noticing that the exhaust cat was glowing bright orange!!
Thankfully I had AA coverage and after a while a bloke called Paul came along and fixed it - eighty five quid and a new ignition coil later I was back on the road ..at least for a while after getting caught in M25 traffic for a good hour. Finally, after getting back to the studio around 4.30 I discovered an enormous spider (one of my worst pet hates) on the blind next to my desk. (Ok it was not exactly enormous but it was bloody big enough!) - now I am wading through tons of emails and trying to catch up.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!!

its been a while!

Must be a couple of weeks since blogging, and plenty has been happening. I kind of took a week off as my Dad came down from Staffordshire to visit. We managed to cram a lot in - a few nights in the pub, sightseeing in London and Sussex and I let him indulge in his hobby of trainspotting by taking him to the Bluebell railway. I did also take along my girlfriends Mum to keep ME company. It was very well laid out and definately a worthwhile place to visit - specially if you have kids (or trainspotting Fathers) He also had the opportunity to attend a Chamber of Commerce breakfast and meet a national celebrity so I think he had a good time. The Lego House has finally got underway with James May laying the first brick earlier in the week, the position of it is fantastic and I cannot wait to see the finished thing.

I met Toni Mascolo of Toni&Guy fame and his lovely wife Pauline the other day - he was a thoroughly nice chap and he even invited me along for a game of snooker!

Well it has been a very long three and a half weeks while my other half has been in Texas and New Orleans with friends. I am really looking forward to her iminent return and hopefully a few days off so it may be a little while before I blog again. Look out for the August Surrey Downs Magazine this month (I did the cover) and I have stuff in Surrey Life as well as the usual Ashtead and Leatherhead Local and Dorking Diary. Sadly nothing in Hello this month though!

I was also very saddened to hear of the death last week of Bobby Robson. I met Bobby at a Downing street reception and he was a lovely man, I am sure he has touched many lifes over the years - a great legacy.

Busy week again! I was at the Lego house launch with James May at the weekend held at Denbies Vineyard - hundreds of people turned up and it was brilliant. Cant wait to see how it pans out!! Sunday was cool too - this time at the Dukes Head in the high street where they were having a family day as part of the new friendlier pub image. It was really good and nice to see such a calm but jovial atomosphere.
all the pics are on my website as usual. I went for lunch with Angela Marshall my appearance management consultant too the other day to talk about future business collaborations - Angela is well worth talking to if you need to find out what really suits you, something I regularly get wrong but as part of my 'just turned 40 and sorting my life out' drive she is being a big help as is Greg Suart who is coaching me in buisness mastery and who is making me see things in a whole new light. At this rate I will be a tee total, vegan who jogs to work and does not suffer from stress.....I think I have a way to go yet but its a good start thanks to these guys.
It is also the end of the first week my girlfriend has been away and boy has it dragged! I have been busying myself with catching up on things I have been meaning to do for ages but I do miss her! Happy birthday to Joyce and John Frayn Turner - well known local artist and writer and make sure you check out what is on at Bartons Bookshop - tomorrow Simon Scarrow is doing a book signing in the evening and on saturday its the launch of Ember Fury by Cathy Brett so pop on down and give them some support!

aftermath!

What an amazing party on Friday night - these are just a few of the pictures - to see more just type the word moon in the password box on my homepage! - very simple but the running horse was the place to be - loads of friends turned up, I feel really lucky to have so many brilliant mates and it was great to see pals from the drama festival committee, chamber of commerce and my evening buddies all together having a laugh. OK, so my singing and dodgy stand up routine may have been cringeworthy to say the least but it was all in the name of fun. Sadly Hilde could not come for long as she was unwell but I am glad to say she is better now. It was a shame my good friends Andy park and Blue White could not have been there but it was an awfully long way to come. Thank you to everyone for coming and sharing it with me and thanks for all the cards and gifts, it was a night I will not forget in a hurry! Thanks too to the Running Horse, Colin the DJ, and the Dukes head for the 'after party'.

My reccommendation for the week is the restaurant in Cobham - La Capanna, I was treated to a lovely meal by Hilde's family there and It was superb!

Not much to report on the work front except I did a great Surrey Life shoot with a thoroughly nice chap called Greg Manchester yesterday, He was located up on Ranmore Common and we had a great time with his dogs and his son Jack snapping away.

So now I am 40 I guess I had better grow up a bit and act my grand old age.....nah! no fun in that. Besides, I have to keep my youth for my lovely girlfriend who is a little bit younger than me although sometimes she is the more sensible one in the relationship. She is in Texas at the moment and I feel like I have had an appendage removed!!

OVER THE HILL AND AWAY WE GO!

Wayhey, I am 40 - cannot believe I have made it to this grand old age. They say life begins at 40, er, well, bring it on!
I will not be in the studio tomorrow as I may be a little hung over!!
hi to everyone, other news: Photographed Mick Hucknall this week at Sandown Park - nice chap, he spent some time with some of the kids from the Childrens Trust and was happy to be snapped with them along with the rest of the band. The concert was good too!
mind you - my era, I have to confess I was a fan of theirs, and Queen, spandau Ballet, The pet shop boys etc etc etc ......

Just got back from a really cool day in London at a music video shoot with Shola Ama the singer who had lots of hits in the late nineties and early noughties and who is relaunching her career! The video included a cameo with Jack Tweed who was well down to earth and had a good laugh doing his thing! Shola was a pleasure to work with and it was a great experience watching how it is all done. Lots more been going on over the past week or two - last week I had a work experience lad with me - Luke who spent the week learning Photoshop and editing. I finally got on top of a ton of bits and peices and am in the middle of another busy week. anyway, more next time but now its late and my eyes are starting to struggle! till then!

Facebook Frenzy

Ok so finally after avoiding it for too long I have embraced the cultural phenomenon known as Facebook. It is strabgely addictive, suddenly I have this new realm of communication and already I am keeping in touch with pals I have not had time to be in touch with, so far so good. I officially have friends now, there is something quite disconcerting about a statement that says - you have 1 friend which is what it said for the past eight months since I sort of signed up!
Anyway, finally I have had a quiet week and was able to catch up with some housekeeping and editing.
This week consisted of a total of ten meetings of varying types, two shoots and lots of screen staring. One very positive aspect of the week was my sessions with Greg Suart from Ultimate Goal who is helping me to re focus on my business aims and is so far very enlightening. Sometimes you just have to see things from a different perspective and this is what Greg does. It is like turning a light on in a remote corner of your head and discovering that actually, there is some sense in there! I will keep you posted on progress but for anyone who is needing a help in the right direction then this is the man for the job, for more info go to www.ultimategoal.co.uk
So, what else? like I said, a quiet week so not a lot! Only two more weeks till I hit the 40 mark and so far I still have not decided whether a party is going to happen yet although I am sure there will be some sort of event involving alcohol and falling over, we shall see!

Looking out of the window, the rain is lashing down and it feels like Britain again! Lets hope that this is just a temporary thing as I was quite enjoying the hot summer weather, made a nice change!
The events are still thick and fast - I even went to a christmas event - a preview at Denbies Vineyard - at one point we had santa jumping up and down between the vines in sunglasses - quite surreal! The Swing and Pop events at painshill were fun and the weather did them proud. The highlights were of course the fireworks at the end of the evening and spectacular they were - pics available to see on my home page!
The Duck race too was a huge success with over £2000 raised and a riverside full of kids and families brandishing duck whistles - a great family atmosphere. For me that preceeded a superb night in Hyde Park with my old pal half pint (aka Andrew Gordon), as we watched the Boss in all his glory on stage at Hyde Park Calling. I have always been a Springsteen fan and this is the fourth time I have seen him perform. For a sixty year old bloke to keep going like that for two and a half hours is pretty amazing - I would be knackered after ten minutes! My reccommendation music wise is his latest album - 'Working on a Dream', and look out for the first track - 'Outlaw Pete' - awesome!
Last week I was in London a lot, for various commercial projects and sweltered on the tubes which I really don't enjoy. I did drive one day and seriously regretted it after getting stuck on the Kings Road for I don't know how long!
Last Thursday I was working for The Children's Trust again covering the Guy Portelli Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Guy won investment from Dragons Den to put on the exhibition which was very good and made even better with support images of Iconic rock and pop stars by famous photographers. I met photographer, Nobby Clark there too whose work is well known and who informed me he had photographed Springsteen (pah!) - For me it was quite an honour to meet one of my contemporaries and to actually have approval of my techniques by him (ie. no flash and prime lens). Amongst the guests was Prince Harry's friend Astrid who was really pleasant too.
Somewhere between all this I managed to go fishing with my girlfriend but it was too hot to catch anything, although it was a beautiful location and it was great to relax in the sun!
After such a hard week sunday was truly a day of rest and it was spent walking with the dog on Leith Hill and watching films, just the ticket.
It would not be right to let the week pass without mentioning Michael Jackson. What a shame and such a musical genius. Once again the press had a field day with an average of six to eight pages per paper dedicated to him for the most part of the week. This I disagree with as he is just one person in a world of billions and whilst he was a superb performer and unique in many ways he did have his dark side and it was obviously his dark side not his music that gave him so much coverage - what a sad world we live in. Nevertheless he was one of those artists who left his mark in some way on most people. I myself won a Michael jackson dancing competition when I was nineteen and recently at a party I relived the experience (after a few jars of the brown stuff of course!) I hope that there is not one almighty battle now for his kids, for their sake . ...and boy, how quick did the jokes start! I bet the phone companies made a fortune on text messages.
Happy birthday to my Nan who was 86 on the 4th July, bless her and my brother Christopher who died when I was younger would have been 37 yesterday, I cannot even imagine what he would have been like but I still miss him so much.
and finally, as Trevor would say, hello to Kristin who is in Namibia at the moment eating crocodile kebabs and doing canyon treks, - it sounds like 'I'm a celebrity....' hope you are looking after my camera, I dont want it coming back covered in elephant dung.
...till next time, I will try not to leave it so long!

This time of the year is all about events and this year there seems to be more than usual.
On sunday I was at Wildlife Aid in Leatherhead for thier open day. It was a little lower key than usual but a fun day with all the usual hilarity from Simon and Vernon the extremely funny and near to the mark compare! That was the second visit for me last week as the centre had a visit from Chris Grayling MP too. For more on wildlife aid and the series Wildlife SOS, visit the website at http://www.wildlifeaid.org/
In the evening I went to see musical version of The War of The Worlds at the O2 - superb night and well worth going next time if you missed it. Also last weekend was Ashtead Village Day which was a big success as usual. This year I did the chopper ride, just to get some aerial photos of the area which you can see via the link on my homepage. Not brilliant due to the weather but everytime I go up and look down on surrey it amazes me how green it is, especially around Ashtead.
This weekend is no different with 4 events on in all. Dont forget the Duck Race on sunday - should be a good day if the weather stays good.
For some reason I am on a downer at the moment, whether it is just because I am knackered from working too much or the annoyance of finding Mr tax man being the only real person that benefits from it all at the moment I dont know, it just seems to be a bit like being on a treadmill at the moment! I'm sure it will lift.
....or maybe it is the thought of turning 40 next month, yeah, that must be it........

Oops, I am getting behind with my blogging - pressure of work you see! This last fortnight has been a pretty hectic one - I was up north last week, sadly to attend my Uncle George's funeral in Barnoldswick although he had lived to a ripe old age and was a real character so it was a celebration of his life rather than a morbid affair. I have been in and out of London for concerts, events and PR jobs all week and am just about to go and climb on the roof at Denbies to photograph their Atrium. Never a dull moment!
Happy birthdays go to fellow photographer Mark Lewis - who was about a hundred and four last week. I caught up with him briefly at Silvermere where he was a little worse for wear. Also to My friend Andras who is 29 today - I believe he is at Thorpe Park today with his new squeeze Vicki.
We had our Chamber of Commerce Focus For Growth Conference on Tuesday which was a great success - the speakers were all very good and it was nice that they were largely Chamber Members so they will get a lot of benefit out of it. Thanks to everyone who supported it.
Hilde and I went to the new restaurant in Cobham - Strada, the other night which used to be Dawson Strange, where I used to work. I have to say I was very impressed with it, the food was very good and the service excellent so that is my reccommendation for this month. However it was a little weird being in there and brought back a few memories of people I used to work with.
It is a little sad that it is no longer Dawson Strange which was there for donkeys years.
....what is going on in Cobham these days by the way? knifings on the high street and bodies in bins, you dont get things like that happening in Leatherhead!
Congrats to Blue's daughter by the way who just passed her PHD much to her Mum's delight.
and hello to all the models at Leatherhead Food International - I am still wading through the editing now!!