At the beginning of December, some friends of ours from the Oxford Operatic Society put on a concert, ‘Stages’, to raise funds for the Feldon Stroke Ward at the Royal Lemington Spa Rehabilitation Hospital. They sang many numbers, including songs from musicals such as Mary Poppins, The Lion King and Grease, raising over £3500!
The aim of the concert was to raise money for essential speech and language therapy equipment for the ward – and I’m sure this impressive total will help a great deal…
On the morning of Saturday the 19th of November at 8:02, Amy and Craig had a beautiful baby girl, Lauren. Barely a week old, Clare and I popped down to Southampton to meet Lauren and take some photos. She’s so small! She really does sit in the palm of your hand and she was very, very cute…
It’s been a couple of months since my last post here, for good reason! Last month I married my wonderful fiancée, Clare – who I am now delighted to call my wife!
We had an amazing wedding, shared with friends and family on a beautiful sunny October afternoon. Everything we had planned turned out perfectly, though sadly it all went by in a flash. Before we knew it, we were jetting off on honeymoon with champagne in hand…
Here’s a good one! The wedding of Susie and Rob, which took place on a gorgeous August afternoon in full sun. A photographers dream! Clare was one of the bridesmaids, so having left work early, I got to the venue just in time to see her and the other bridesmaids walk down the aisle, followed by Susie and her brother, who gave her away.
It wasn’t long into the ceremony that we had to stop for a flypast that Rob had planned (or so he told us!) and soon enough, the couple were wed…
This post is a special one for me – the wedding of my sister and brother in law to be, Kate and Rob. Since I met Clare, both Kate and Rob have always made me feel like a part of the family. And when they announced their engagement last Christmas, I was excited at the prospect of having my first big family wedding!
I spent the morning with Clare, who had been with her sisters (Kate and Hannah) at her mums since the night before. When I showed up at 9am, Dave and Paul were out front preparing the VW Beetle ready to take Kate to the church. Kate arrived back from the hair dressers and the girls got ready for the big day – I, of course, spent the morning behind the camera…
Our very good friends, Amy and Tony – aka, the Jackalloys! Got hitched at the beginning of the month. Clare and I set off early Saturday morning for Stratford and found our good friend Locky in the pub, so we joined him for a Gin (or two..) before heading onto the church for some pre-wedding singing rehearsals.
The wedding was beautiful from start to finish. The happy couple had added lots of personal touches to the church and reception venue, which really made the day for us…
Last weekend Clare and I went to Morton In Marsh for our friends wedding, Fran and James. Apart from Fran’s Hen weekend where the girls went to Liverpool, we hadn’t seen each other since September! Since then, Claire and Tim have had a gorgeous little girl – Isobel and it was already her second wedding this year!
As soon as Fran appeared and walked down the isle with her father, the girls started to well up. It was a very moving ceremony, with a lovely reading by Fran’s father…
We’re back from our first wedding of the year, the wedding of Chilina and James in Sorrento, Italy!
Clare and I flew out on the Friday and met up with our friends, most of whom had flown out the day before and were already on the sea front. We spent the afternoon having a lazy lunch and several beers, before heading back to the hotel to meet the others and venture out for dinner…
This week, Gary asked if I wanted to accompany him to the British Airways Training Centre at Cranebank, near London Heathrow. Obviously, I jumped at the chance to spend three hours in a Level-D full motion, ten million pound flight simulator!
We arrived an hour before and met our supervisor, who was currently on maternity leave from flying the A320 – a couple of times a week she helps out at the school for external visits such as this. She soon established that Gary and I probably knew more about the Tripple Seven than she did and that it was probably best just to let us go flying…
This May the Oxford Operatic Society staged The Mikado at the Oxford Playhouse. I had been asked to take some photos of the rehearsals earlier in the year, and wanted to accompany the show’s official photographer and friend of mine, Ian Bateman, to the dress rehearsal. It still amazes me how the show comes together on-stage having only rehearsed in various halls for the past four months…
This weekend Clare and I attended the annual Abingdon Airshow. The good weather encouraged a lot of people to attend, with plenty of snack-bars and stalls to keep people entertained. The airshow kicked off in the afternoon, consisting of mainly single-piston aerobatic displays, with a couple of fast jets…
On Bank Holiday Monday, Clare and I headed out to Day’s Lock, near Dorchester-On-Thames for a few hours in the afternoon. The Lock lies to the north-east of the small village Little Wittenham on the River Thames, and just north of the Wittenham Clumps. The Lock was built here in 1789 and is the main gauging station for the measurement of water flow in the River Thames. Every year, it hosts the World Championship Poohsticks competition on behalf of the RNLI – this year won by a local nine year old girl…
Our good friends Dave and Libby hosted a Vintage Garden Party this weekend for Libby’s 30th, with everyone (well, most people) turning up in 30’s-50’s attire. As most of our friends are in the Oxford Operatic Society, we have quite a number of these elaborate parties – which are always great fun…
After missing some photo opportunities on our visit to the river Thames last weekend, Clare and I cycled down again this Sunday to get some photos of the swans that gather on the river and in the fields around. There are around thirty swans and signets that gather on this stretch of the river, that appear to spend their day between the river and a crop field a few hundred yards back from the river bank. …
I’m pretty sure that this time last year everyone still had their central heating turned up, and we were all riding out another wet April here in the UK. This year, things changed – and with a week of hot weather forecast, it felt like everyone headed out to make the most of a weekend in the sun…
