Sunshine outside my window dear reader, excuse me if I get just a little excited about that, I've heard the temperatures might get close to dizzingly high (for March) today so I'm going to celebrate that, I've also just been informed that it's the International Day of Awesomeness today so go forth and be that my lovelies!

We haven't been feeling so awesome in the Charlton house unfortunately, I came down with flu for the first time since 2008, I am never ever ill so it was a bit of a shock to spend the entire weekend in bed and now Abigail has fully fledged flu, we are not amused, I am hopefully on the mend though.

So here's my weekly recap of what I've been up to personally and professionally.

On Monday I was just happy that it was springlike and sunny in the garden and everything seems to be green again which makes me happy.

I also noticed that it's my favourite time of year for really noticing the golden hour, it's around this time of year when although it happens all year round you really seem to notice it after bland winter days with no sunshine.  Obviously it's a great time to take a selfie ;)

On Tuesday I got very excited because of the arrival of this, sadly the arrival of the lens I ordered has been delayed until the 25th of March so currently I have my pile of new memory cards, batteries, a new double rapid strap, a whole new camera set up and no blooming lens, there are a couple of other lenses I want to add to the Fuji X-Pro1 collection anyway though so I'm hoping to pick up another this week, eventually it's my goal to have the 18mm, 27mm and 35mm which will sit nicely alongside my Canon selection of 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, I shoot all primes because they're light and they're fast glass, I rarely use f3.5 or above and most of the lenses I own will happily go to f1.4, I actually think if you're just starting out in photography the glass you buy is a lot more important than the camera body, you'll replace that many times anyway but your lenses will stay with you forever.

On Wednesday I met up with one of my best photography friends in the whole world Jamie and we had a mooch around the Baltic (there was nothing on at all) but we did go over to the Side Gallery and saw a wonderful exhibition about the fall of the Berlin Wall (sort of) anyway, I loved the images, I loved the black and whites and the juxtaposition of some of the images was beautiful, go see All That Falls while it's still on.

I also received a delivery from Amazon which was full of inspirational books, if you want to know more about the laws of attraction or if you practice them and want continued inspiration these are the titles to read.

Clearly there were a lot of hours in Wednesday as I also managed to go to see Looby horse riding in the evening, she's really confident now and loves those horses so much, apparently all we have to do is find some land to stable a horse and her granddad is going to buy her one, she's a lucky little girl, no one ever offered to buy me a horse!!

Thursday I went off to Saltwell Park to meet with my favourite Welsh clients, sadly I can't share images of their beautiful little girl because they want to minimise her digital footprint which is fine by me, my clients privacy is of the utmost importance!

So you'll just have to settle for my instagram, perfect photography day it was.

I also met with a couple planning their 2015 wedding and had a great meeting with a lovely friend who I hadn't seen for ages and there's a little wedding photography prospect in there too so Thursday was definitely a good day.

Friday I was feeling snuffly, little did I know that by Friday night I would be ill with a capital I!

I went to Tynemouth on Friday for a 1-2-1 workshop with aspiring kids photographer Stacey, I offer 1-2-1 workshops to help other photographers with the fundamentals of running a successful photography business, over the last 8 years I've dealt with most situations and I've also gone from a teeny tiny business to the behemoth it is today, I've experience in all areas and have coached other businesses on all kinds of things, my speciality is Facebook marketing and social media, if you would like to have a 1-2-1 session it's only £150 and I promise I'll add value to your business.

Here's one of the little models I arranged for Stacey on Friday afternoon

and finally here's what's happening next weekend and a few photos from last weekends sessions, if you would like to book a photo shoot with me or a 1-2-1 or perhaps meet me about shooting your wedding you can contact me through my website, email or my Facebook page

Whatever you get up to this week make sure it's a good one!

What we got up to this weekend...

It's Spring dear reader, did I mention that enough yet?  I adore spring, people start to come out of hiding, including me I must add, I am a virtual hermit during winter but now it's March I feel I have fully conquered SAD for another year and that alone makes me happy and delighted.

Interesting and wonderful things happened over the weekend, first and foremost I had a Saturday off!! That does not happen very often and so when it does you have to embrace it and grab it by both hands, usually I have my daughter Looby who comes out to photo shoots with me while Abigail goes off with Daddy and does the footbally sporty things!  This weekend Looby had a horse riding lesson booked so we swapped and Abigail and I had a mummy/daughter afternoon, she said she wanted to go and explore the charity shops in Hexham and so that's what we did, a whole £6.10 with our railcard on the train and we got some fab bargains in the charity shops, I shall not be complaining about a beautiful Per Una linen dress for £7.50!

I have some Instagrams to share from our weekend -

Claude is a famous Lobster Mobile, I've never seen him before, well until Saturday in Hexham, have you seen him?  I want to know just how famous Claude the Lobster Mobile is.

It's either horse riding or it's Lady Gaga's new fashion statement

Hexham was sort of springlike but definite touches of winter still remained!

Abigail in her £1 bargain hat

First day of sunglasses wearing this year!

Yes it was a very good mum/daughter day!!

Sunday was a portraits on the beach afternoon, catching up with old clients and new ones and having lots of fun with little people who all seemed to think that the sea was the place to be except that it wasn't really because it was very cold indeed and they didn't seem to be quite so happy 20 minutes later when they were wet through and a bit chilly!

Geek Alert, read on if you're a photographer, you care about camera systems or you're nosy, feel free to skip if you don't have a clue, haha!

This week is going to be splendid, I purchased a new camera, I've just bought into the Fuji X-Series after following the amazing and inspirational work of Kevin Mullins who I'm also happy to call a lovely friend of mine, being around him and his enthusiasm for the system as well as seeing the results finally got too much and I knew it was the camera I wanted, now I know that it's very much the photographer who makes the images and not the camera but in truth the Fuji X-Pro 1 is a complete game changer and it's half the weight and size of my Canon which means I might just avoid the claw the day after I've shot a wedding for 12 hours.  I think it's going to take me a stage further, it's going to be a path to somewhere new, I'll still have my trusty Canon with all of my favourite prime lenses but I'm excited to see what I can add to that with the Fuji X-Pro1, maybe nothing will change and no one will be able to see the difference and only I'll know or maybe everything will change and in a years time the face of my business and also the way I do photography will change forever, it's at the exciting start-line of the journey (I hate that word) and I can't wait to see what happens, I just wish I didn't have to sit and wait unpatiently for it's arrival along with the 35mm f1.4, except they're from different places so I hope they arrive at the same time, haha!

So that's it dear reader, another week commences and I'm a happy smiley Mandy, if you would like to talk to me about photographing your wedding or kids/family portraits then you can catch up with me on my website, via email or my facebook business page.