I met up with Denise and Steven this afternoon on a scorcher of a day down at St Marys Island which for anyone who doesn't know is just outside of Whitley Bay on the Beautiful north east of Englands coastline.

There's something about Denise and Steven which makes you instantly want to spend time with them, they're such a great fun couple and a wonderful match for each other. I honestly got so many great photos from this session it's probably one of my most favourite sessions of the year.

so I bet you want to see some photos?




Dancing on the beach, they dance at home all the time they tell me!



Nice Dip Steven!!



Awww!



They really are a gorgeous couple.



This one is just a little more urban but I loved the Green door



This one was down a set of quite steep steps, worth the walk down them though!



Ok, this one is my quirky shot of the day, lying on my back (in a dress!!) with my camera upside down, I really wanted to get the whole lighthouse in even though I was right next to it, well I think I managed it!!



This one, well it's one of the most beautiful photographs ever because it's just filled with love.



and another wonderful moment, these 2 wonderful people laugh all the time and Denise told me that one of the reasons she's marrying Steven is because he makes her laugh every day.



Awwww again, I love Romance!



The groom to be practicing for his wedding day.



Denise, this pose is going to look fabulous when you have your wedding dress on!!




I'll end on this dreamy dip which surely deserves to be on a 6ft canvas ;)

Denise and Steven, I really can't wait to shoot your wedding in August, you two are a unique and wonderful couple, thanks so much for sharing your time with me.

Quick post before the weekend.....

Friday is upon us again and for me it's been the busiest day of the week! I have a weekend ahead of meeting new clients and having photoshoots with some of my favourite clients, well you're all my favourites of course for different reasons!! On Saturday I have Denise and Stevens Pre-wedding shoot, really looking forward to that and then on Sunday I'm off up to Linden Hall to shoot Adrian and Stephanies pre-wedding shoot so I'm crossing my fingers for more of this gorgeous weather and the photographs should be completely spectacular!!

So I'll end the week with a dreamy photograph of Looby I took in the park the other day, Happy Weekend everyone :)

The National Media Museum

In Bradford is lots of fun for parents and children alike, obviously I was quite attracted to the fact that the Henri Carter Bresson exhibition was on and it did not disappoint and neither did the Imax 3D presentation of Space Station. It was the first time I had seen a 3D Imax movie before and I was blown away by it all! Can't wait to see another really!

So onwards with some photographs from the museum :-




Iain was delighted to have photographs with a Dalek.




He also tried his hand at reading the news.




Ok this one is a bit of a dodgy photo but I love it, Looby was on a blue screen with the teletubbies and here she is watching the tv which showed the Teletubbies with her, she was a little confused as to where they were.


Standing against the blue screen.




Iain with his 3D glasses on waiting for the movie to begin.




What is hubby concentrating so hard on?




Why he's colouring in a monster of course!!



The original cast of Playschool



Gordon T Gopher, one of my favourite TV icons!

and ending the day and the story of our holidays with who else but....



George and Zippy of course!

So Monday night and we returned rested and relaxed, we crammed so much in and had the best time ever, I love holidays. I've hardly seen Paul since we returned as he's so busy with gardening that he's actually got someone helping him at the moment.

I really can't wait until our next weekend away, when will it be and where? Well I don't really know but you can guarantee it will be fun, fun, fun!

The Secret Nuclear Bunker

Ok, so on Sunday the weather was Wet, Wet and even more Wet, we decided that going to some water gardens probably wasn't the best idea and Paul really wanted to go to Hack Green, a disused secret nuclear bunker. Now being that I am a total Pacifist the whole place freaked me out and the thought of enjoying a mock nuclear explosion really didn't turn me on!


So I only took 3 photographs and got out of there as quick as humanly possible, Paul of course enjoyed it immensely but it made me feel really uncomfortable, well you can hardly feel at ease when you're surrounded by Radiation signs can you?!

We decided that the rest of the day would be spent at Bridgemere Garden World, Europes biggest garden centre, so big it even has 6 acres of gardens to walk around. It was dreek though so I ended up buying a huge golf brolly, actually though the day was really for Paul we all enjoyed ourselves and Paul and the girls all got new hats.



Abigail also practised at being a new variety of butterfly.




Iain also had lots of fun wandering though we did have a crisis when he tripped and fell tearing his knee open, you'll have to ask him about his wailing and the resulting limp!




The six acres of garden there really are gorgeous and it was wonderful to see all the tulips which are of course one of my favourite flowers.




Apparently 4 gardeners planted 400,000 bulbs each.



I loved all the tulips and only wish I could have brought some home.




Oh and this folly really got my attention



I did think one of the locals though was a bit green and stiff


We even climbed up to the top of Bridgemere mountain which wasn't all that tall really and calling it a mountain was a slight stretch of the imagination. The kids though loved ringing the bell at the top!




another fabbo day was had by all and we returned to the hotel with slightly tired feet.

Tommorrow look out for my post about our journey home and trip to the National Media Museum in Bradford.

Ooh Ooh Ooh - We're Going To The Zoo!

So, Saturday and we decided to make a 40 minute journey from our hotel down to Chester Zoo, wow that zoo is awesomely huge and not only does it have fabulous animals it also has fantastic gardens so you would think everyone would be happy and delighted all day long, well Abigail being Abigail we saw an awful lot of these faces all day -





I think secretly she loved it but she does have the attention span of a Gnat and I think she would have enjoyed it more if she could ride the animals rather than just look at them!!

I had a brilliant time and particularly loved the Giraffes and Elephants as they're my favourite animals anyway,




I wish I could have got up close and personal with a Giraffe!




aren't these baby elephants just so adorable.

Oh and the Meerkats, I could have photographed those all day because they're such great characters.




There were also lots and lots of baby animals enjoying the first real sunshine of the year.



Looby as ever had a lovely time and her prize winning smile was present for most of the day.




I loved this Ostrich





Oh and the kangaroo




and what could be a better way to end a blog post than this happy accident of a photo, slightly blurry but I adore it.





So if you're dying to see more animals then do click through and enjoy a whole album of them, they're all going to end up in a coffee table book as soon as I get the time to make one.

Stay tuned for the next exciting post as we explore the wonders of a secret nuclear bunker and gaze at the beautiful gardens at Europes biggest garden centre

I'm back..... and this time I have photos.

After 4 fun packed days away we finally arrived home 45 minutes ago, thankfully the house was still in one piece although Paul had to say RIP to his laptop as apparently one of the cats had we-ed on it Euwwww, just as well I carry mine everywhere really!

So I'll try and give a brief recap of all that we've done but spread it over the rest of the week to try and stave off the boredom!

If you are desperate to see all 150+ photos though please do click on any to be transported to 3 albums full on Facebook!!

So anyway, I was telling you we went to Southport which really is a lovely place but seems to close at 5pm, we were half way along the pier and told we had to turn around because the pier was closing!






The pier is the second longest in the country but I did think it strange that it doesn't really go very far into the sea, it's sort of in the middle of the town, hmmmm



Thats the long end, and the one to which we never quite made it, ah well maybe next time...




So a couple of my captured views of Southport which really was lovely though as I previously mentioned closed at 5pm, I kid you not dear readers for when we returned to the park and ride car park we found it closed and we were locked in, EEK, i hear you say, well lucky after a man with a Rottwieller (sp) approached us he offered to find us a way out and after navigating some paving and gaps in the metal bars we quickly made our escape. Apparently the place to go is Pleasureland but although it was open only a couple of the rides were and it was so dead I was a little perturbed!!

I can heartily recommend the fish and chips though which we had at Silocks, Silocks it seems must own Southport as their names seemed to be on everything and come to think of it they own quite a bit of Blackpool too! Talking of Blackpool, when we were on the pier we could see Blackpool tower and the Pepsi Max at the pleasure beach, Iain asked why we had never seen Southport from Blackpool but I said probably because we didn't know it was there!!

On the lake/river/islet/inlet? we watched some fabbo goslings and their parents for quite some time enjoying the unseasonably actual nice weather.





Funny that I forgot my coat but didn't really need one all weekend (I did though resort to buying an enormous Golf Brolly yesterday!!)



Southport also had quite an impressive bridge




Oh and the highlight, a lovely portrait of them all!





OOh, in the amusements the children (and Paul) had quite some fun with our hard earned pennies! LOL I love this photo of Abigail.





Right, thats enough for one day, stay tuned for my round up of all the goings on at Chester Zoo!

I have a gazillion things to share...

OMG, I have so much to share but since my wifi connection is a little dodgy I'll try not to make it too long for fear I'll lose some of it!

So, Friday and we came down to our favourite hotel The Sporting Inn, in Leigh, we came here last year for Abigails birthday and we love the fact that they have family sized suites and also the fact that you buy 2 nights and get the 3rd free!! Plus they have a poll and so the kids love swimming!!

argh and gadzooks, I forgot to export Fridays photographs from Lightroom or rather I only converted 1 of 33 to Jpeg so you'll have to wait till tommorrow for photos as I don't want to post the days out of order!

Anyway I was going to tell you about my trip to Southport and how every house I saw I wondered if my lovely friend Ellie lived there and how I was tempted to knock on every door just so I could give her a hug.

Pauls dad is staying kitty sitting in Newcastle, teehee, tommorrow I'm off to see the Henri Carter Bresson Exhibition at the National Media Museum, cannily I have told the children we're going because of the Imax theatre they have, mwahahahahahaha.

Didn't get to go to Liverpool again though as Paul thought the traffic too heavy to park, I did get to see the Liver building though and I'm definetly going to make Liverpool the destination of our next short break!!