“Zimbabwe’s MDC party says it will carry out its own investigation into the cause of Friday’s crash in which Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife Susan died. But officials have said nothing to suggest they suspect foul play. US embassy officials say the lorry which collided with Mr Tsvangirai’s car belonged to a partner organisation of the US government aid agency USAID. MDC general-secretary Tendai Biti paid tribute to Mrs Tsvangirai, calling her “a mother to us and to our struggle”. On Saturday afternoon, Mr Tsvangirai, 56, left the Harare clinic where he was treated for injuries sustained in the crash.”

OK everyone if you can please donate as much as you can afford to Comic Relief. Either via the website or via text. Please visit the site above for more info.

Here is my list of favourite photographers on the photo sharing site, Flickr.  Some of these I might have listed on previously entries but these will be their Flickr pages.

And don’t forgot my Flickr photo at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/koltregaskes

The project is simply to audit all telephony within all of BBC offices in England. So there is a bunch of guys (and girl) going around every room of every floor of every building noting down every phone, fax or router they find with various details such as the user and type and features of the phone. They also have to note the phones on the floor plans and my task is to check then enter all this into Excel format in readiness to hand over to the BBC’s IT firm.

Sound simple enough but it’s been a bit slow since start due to various changes and us finding our feet. We’re in a better position now and I’ve organised the admin side pretty well. It’s a lot of work but not as bad as I thought it would be.

The commute is not great, actually it’s a right pain! I’m up at 5:30 in the morning and out the door at 6:40am. I take a long walk up to the town railway station which means I can hop on a direct train to London Bridge and avoid any unpredictable interchanges. From London I jump on a couple of Jubilee and Central tube trains and end up at White City. Luckily the BBC offices are only a few minutes walk away but from door to door the journey is 2 hours (4 when you add the return journey).

As I get in early I’m able to leave at about 4pm. I get to avoid the worse of the rush hour and arrive home just before 6pm. So it could be worse. But I generally get home knackered and can’t do anything more productive than check my e-mails, go through any post, pay some bills, put in my invoice, eat, wash and watch a bit of telly.

So basically I don’t get any time to work on the site or my photography during the week and lucky to do any during the weekend once I’ve caught up with things including sleep.

Saying this I’ve done lots of tasks today and intend to process a batch of photos tomorrow. It’s been ages since I last uploaded anything new but I have been out with the dog a lot recently (especially over Bank Holiday weekend) taking photos of Edenbridge’s nature in the Summer. So I’m looking forward to getting some new pics processed.

In regards to the site, I’ve posted some post-dated link round-up entries for you. This is probably the best I can do for the time being but gives you some good photography-related articles to read. I’ve also fixed the flash animation on the home page so you can again see my photos.

Until the next time.

It all starts on 21st Monday 2008 so will report back sometime after then. But it means that I’ll have less time to do this site and my photography.  Oh hum but it was eventually going to happen.  With this in mind I have spent a lot of this weekend updating it and hope to do the oh-so-delayed swap-over tomorrow.

Importantly, though, I’m back in work (at least for 5 months, well hopefully), back in London (so perhaps I’ll get out lunchtimes for a photography session somewhere ) and I’m back earning a bit of cash.  I’m actually looking forward to it.

Expect a report later.

My name is Kol Tregaskes and I’m 30something guy from the UK. I’m normally a quietsome sole who keeps himself to himself and generally get on with everybody I meet (and have met a wide variety of people along the way). I’m very friendly, helpful and reliable and if I start something then I do it an do it well. I currently looking after my poorly mother, her house and my lively dog, Kaz in Kent while also trying to pursue my huge interest in photography, looking for jobs and hunting for ways to make money to pay the bills. I currently contract for the BBC and my background is more IT-related then art/photography. The details…

Home-life

At the moment live in Kent, in a small town called Edenbridge. It’s my second stint here, first was when I was made redundant and moved out of my Croydon house, the second was when my contract job came to an end and I decided to move back to my parents home to help my Mum out with looking after my very poorly Dad. Sadly my Dad died in January 2008 and now my Mum and I have been left with many things to do and, as always, our lively dog, Kaz. As things stand it’s very likely the house would have to be sold but we’re not sure exactly what will happen yet. In between my two stints I lived in West Berkshire for 3 years. First in a couple of 2 small houses in Newbury then last in a town called Thatcham, just down the road. Previous to all this I lived in Croydon in the Surrey/South London area, where I was born and breed (for over 20 years).

To me Croydon is a typical London suburb, very closely linked to London. I was much happier in West Berkshire which was more rural but at the same time still had some modern touches. Edenbridge is even more rural and I’m only minutes away from big fields and long countryside walks. It’s great for landscape and nature photography but not quite got that town/city feel that I still like. Saying that it can take just 50 minutes direct on the train to London. But I feel my potential home will be closer to the city and one day hope to move to somewhere like Teddington in the Middlesex area, which gives me great access to London but also very easy access to scenic places like Richmond Park. It’s also not too hard to get out of Greater London and to the rest of the country from there.

Work-life

My latest adventure was in West Berkshire while I worked as a contractor on various Vodafone projects. I was actually only supposed to be there for 2/3 weeks but the job just went on and on and I was there for a total of 4 years! I worked as a Systems Integrator for a large engineering company called Bechtel (on a Vodafone railway project) then as a Technical/Project Co-ordinator for Vodafone proper on several projects including one to implement broadband speeds onto Vodafone’s network (so you can now browse the Internet on your Vodafone mobiles much faster thanks to us )

I used to work in the computer games industry. My first ever job was as a games tester. It was brilliant, someone paying me to play, er, test games all day. I learnt a lot there, not just about testing but also about computer hardware and customer support. I soon moved into the IT side of things (so I’m a little bit of a techie/nerdy-type). 7-8 years I spent in games; I worked for publishers, Warner Interactive, GT Interactive, Infogrames and then the “godfathers of gaming”, developers, The Bitmap Brothers. I was with them for 3 years as their webmaster (I made their web site by the way) and administration manager before being made redundant. During my time in the games industry I met so many people from various countries and great characters and creative individuals. It was a brilliant, a wonderful experience.

But being made redundant twice in 3 years was a wake up call and left me with no confidence that a job is permanent. After being a contractor for 4 years I kinda like it. OK money at first glance is a lot better but there are many disadvantages, such as higher risk, large tax bills and more responsibility but that doesn’t faze me now and I hope I can contract for a long as possible. I’m glad that I’ve experienced the world outside games. I can’t really say what it’s like now as I’m sure it’s changed a lot but at the time it was a big culture shock when I started at Bechtel as things were perhaps more professionally done and more serious. Again, I learnt a lot with Bechtel and Vodafone and has put me in good stead for future work.

I now start a new adventure for the BBC. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be up to but it all kicks off this Monday (21st April). It’s a data entry/admin role (what I did when I started at Bechtel) so perhaps a little step back. But I’ve been out of work for over 6 months and these things are to be expected. Besides, something else might crop up during my 5 months at the BBC and I’m not too fussed anyway. What it also means is money in the bank and my return to London after a 6 year break. I’m really looking forward to it!

Interests

I guess I have quite a few interests. Of course my main interest is photography (see below) but I also love:

Music:
My interest covers many genres; dance, trance, trip-hop/downtempo, indie and rock. My only genres I generally don’t like are country, opera (not including classical) and blues/jazz. I don’t tend to centre on particular artists or bands, I find it very rare that I like a whole album or the majority of songs from one particular place. I’m always searching and listening to new music. But for a list of my top 12 bands and a selection of the rest of my favourites head over to my iLike page here (the first 12 are actually in order, Radiohead being my favourite band, beyond that it’s all a bit random). Also, if you are interested you can keep up to date on what I’m listening to on my last.fm page here.

Movies:
I rarely go to the cinema now, too expensive, but have an annual subscription to the DVD rental site, Lovefilm. So I get to watch 3 or more movies a week. I like plenty of genres, horror, science-fiction, action, thriller and comedy and especially like movies with a twist or a great ending. I generally hate bad acting or a poor storyline but that occasionally is ignored for some spectacular special affects movies. For a list of my favourite movies check my Flixster page here.

TV:
OK not a big interest as most of it is trash nowadays but I though I’d list what type of things I do watch on the box. I mainly watch documentaries. It doesn’t really matter what, so long as it’s not too dumbed down. I also watch the odd comedy show like Have I Got News for You and dramas like Waking the Dead and Messiah. I don’t watch any reality TV apart from the Apprentice, which is great and extremely well created. I also watch boring things like Newsnight and Question Time, oh and any England, Liverpool or rugby matches that are lucky to be shown on terrestrial TV.

Sport:
My favourite sports are rugby, football (I’ve been a supporter of Liverpool FC since I was 4 years old), tennis (I hope to get to Wimbledon every year), motorsport (Formula one but mainly rally car which I would love to see a lot more of). In the past I was good at athletics and ran for my school in a county championship. But was a pretty fit then and also cycled a lot and played football every weekend. In the last few years I’ve started cycling again (mainly to get around and get to work) but I don’t do enough exercise but want to combine cycling with photography in some way. I can be tempted to play the odd snooker or pool game and I guess if you pushed me I could play squash but have done neither for a looong time.

Computing:
I’ve used a computer in some form since I was little and now that computers are everywhere there isn’t a way to get away from them. I’m always finding new software to try and use and I’ve been involved in technical support and PC building at work.

Computer games:
Since I’ve worked in the games industry it probably goes without saying I like games. But saying that I’ve not played a game in any shape or form for several years and don’t have and don’t plan to have any of the new consoles. I find that you could lose so much time with games, time I don’t really have now. I still keep one eye on things though and have many friends still working in the industry.

Web development:
Perhaps it’s evident but I’ve created this site myself (well with the help from services on the web and friends). I do enjoy it though and spent a long time producing and editing sites for work. I’m no expert, don’t really know much about HTML, but pick things up very easily and generally work it out in the end.

The Internet:
Well of course; there is so much on the net! I’m always browsing for new sites and keeping up to date with news. Always downloading and trying out new software and ways to make things more efficient and easier. It’s a great resource and a lot people take it for granted now. There is a lot of articles and tutorials to be had on the Internet and it’s constantly evolving.

Art:
I have been known to draw in my time. Well I was a very keen artist when I was young. I drew all the time during my school years. But after school I stopped. I’m not sure why, though I feel it was something to do with feeling I had reached my best and finding it wasn’t that good. I can happily draw with a pencil, the problem is I’m pretty awful with every other media and so decided against art for college. Instead I went for a more technical drawing course but it turned out to be not at all what I was expecting. I failed this course and have never drawn since. But I feel it will come back and plan to combine my pencil drawing skills with my potential photography skills. As with photography I would like to take a course so it’s just a matter of time (and money). In both I feel I need to be learn the techniques better than I was ever taught at school. As an observer I of course browse photography but I’m also interested in digital/computer art and used to browsing CG sites every day. Luckily I have a few friends from the computer games industry who are great artists.

Comics:
This relates to my art interest. Sure I read them if I can get my hands on any but it’s the artwork that interests me the most. I mainly read big-name US comics (which are not so easy to get hold of in the UK unfortunately). I think if I had any spare money it would be spent on buying comics. As I don’t have any spare cash and don’t think I will for a few years comics are firmly sitting on the backseat for the moment.

Science-fiction:
Love it, this and futurism or whatever you want to call it. I love reading it, I used to love drawing it and I love watching it (TV shows and movies). I guess I wish I could live in some of these worlds or be able to experience the future but, of course, this is not possible and I’m content with the fiction.

Reading:
Perhaps not as interested in reading as I was, it’s still an interest nevertheless. As mentioned above I tend to read science-fiction but I guess I’d mention I read newspapers, science magazines and of course anything relating to my interests (mainly photography). I do have a dream I will be writer when I’m old and wrinkly but I haven’t the first clue about writing so doubt it will happen.

Sci-tech:
I really like science and technology. I used to subscribe to a science magazine and it become my favourite mag. Science documentaries are perhaps one of only a few reasons why I still watch TV. And there is tonnes of it on the net.

Space (Exploration):
Did I dream of being an astronaut? No, not really. But I’ve always been interested in space – I read lots of books when I was young and always watch documentaries on the TV.

Dogs:
Well Golden Retrievers definitely. I love my dog, Kaz and my previous dog, Max. They are just fantastic! I will miss it when I won’t be able to take Kaz out every day when I’m back in work. I’m sure I’ll make up for it over weekends though. I do dream of being a breeder at some point. It’s expensive initially and time-consuming but it looks very enjoyable and I always signed up to be a dog boarder this year.

Walking:
I’m a keen walker (well I don’t have and don’t want a car), but I’m no rambler. I’ve walked plenty round Edenbridge and can walk for hours and hours. It’s great being outside and you can capture some good photos along the way.

Cycling:
I used to cycle to work every day when I lived in West Berkshire. While I was living in Thatcham I could cycle along the canal from my house all the way to the Newbury high street – it was great! I’m a beginner but would love to go out trekking in the future.

Social media:
At the bottom for a reason, I’m putting this down to it being a fad. I started digging and stumbling only recently but I’m kind of hooked. I mainly use it for finding interesting articles (e.g. for photography) but I get to see some fun sites and pics along the way. Including all my interests above I also look out for world news stories, big events, fun/viral sites and pictures, and any kind of list or graph (yeah a strange one I know). I have to say that I’ve tried out a load of other sites and updated all my profiles recently but I don’t really use them as they are very time-consuming, But where can you find me, well check any or all my main pages below (full list is here):

Photography

Oh yeah I’m interested in photography too.

I don’t think I need to go into too much detail as the pages here and posts on my blog have explained it but I’ve had a camera for eons. I decided to upgrade from my compact in August 2006 when I got my first digital SLR camera. I’ve not looked back since and my interest ahs grown and grown. I upgraded again to a semi-pro camera in December 2007 and are slowly making the jump from happy snappy. I’m always looking on the net for articles and tutorials to read and got tons to learn. I subscribe to several photography/Photshop magazines and get out and photograph as much as I can. I have no particular main genre(s) so will try anything at the moment. But I would like to go professional one day and hope this site demonstrates what I’ve done so far. I nearly got a temporary job photographing for the Edenbridge Town website but alas nothing really materialised. I would like to try being a photographer’s assistant, I think that would be a good step to take first.

For more information check the web site as I’ve added bags of info.

1. Up on the farm (no border), 2. Winter leaves, 3. A morning walk in Kent (no border), 4. Rural scrawl, 5. Into the light, 6. Fence post, 7. Web strings on branch, 8. Wimbledon Tennis Championships 2007 (Brandon’s Painting Tool), 9. City Hall (revisited), 10. Kaz at sunrise revisited, 11. Le Tour de France London Urban Acid, 12. Wimbledon 2007, 13. New Forest donkeys

1. The daily digest of my diggs appeared only on my feed. So if you were reading my web site you wouldn’t even know about the digg digest.

2. I digg about all sorts of things and not just photography. So having it automated was not the best option for a photography site.

I wanted a very easy process that allowed me to post my relevant diggs as a daily digest to my blog. So this is what I’m trying:

Thanks mainly goes to Liam DelaHunty for this. Liam set up a Yahoo Pipes ‘pipe’ that creates a feed of your diggs with URLs linking directly to the web page you’re digging about (instead of the actual digg page). I’ve cloned Liam’s pipe feed here and now subscribe to them via RSSFWD as a daily digest. What RSSFWD allows you to do is receive any RSS feed you like as an e-mail, ie. directly into your inbox instead of your RSS reader. So what I’ve done is subscribe to my 2 pipe feeds and set them up to be sent to me each day as a daily digest.

I can now copy the contents of these e-mails into a blog entry, easily remove my irrelevant diggs and post them here each day. If this works well I can remove the automated diggs feeds from FeedBurner and continue to post the relevant feeds in the fashion below. My next task is to do the same but not just for digg, ie. find a easy way to produce a link round-up of anything I find.

My social media bar:

Above are my main sites (which I’ve marked my main sites in bold below).  Pandora would be one of my main sites but alas it doesn’t work outside the US any more.   Full list is:

30Boxes

AIM

Amazon Wish List

AOL Pictures

ArtLimited

Aviary

Bebo

BlinkList

Blogger

Bloglines

Blogvine

claimID

CNET Community

Dark Matter Magazine

Deezer

del.icio.us

deviantART

digg

Digital Camera Magazine

docstoc

DropShots

eBay My World

Eventful

Facebook

Fark

finetune

Flauntr

Flickr

Flixster

FriendFeed

FriendsReunited

GameSpot

Google Reader

hi5

Hubdub

ICQ

IGN

iLike

ipernity

Jaiku

Last.fm

LinkedIn

Live Spaces

LiveJournal

Mashable

Metacafe

Mixx

Mobygames

MP3.com

MyBlogLog

MyShutterspace

MySpace

Naymz

Orkut

Pandora

Photoblogs

Photobox

PhotoBucket

Photoshop Express

Picasa Web Albums

Plaxo

Pownce

Propeller

Radiohead w.a.s.t.e. central

Reddit

Slashdot

Slide

SmugMug

Sphinn

Squashy Frog Photography Blog

Squashy Frog Photography Photoblog

StumbleUpon

Tabber

Tapatap

Technorati

TripAdvisor

tripconnect

tumblr

TV.com

Tweetburner

Tweeterboard

tweetpeek

TweetStats

TwitPic

twitter

twittervision

Twitxr

upcoming

Webshots

WetPaint

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo! 360

Yahoo! Live

YouTube

Zooomr

For the micro-blog sites I use Hellotxt to post my status updates. Hellotxt allows me to post to Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Tumblr, Bebo, MySpace, Hi5 (and more) from one page in one click.

• A gallery is definitely needed. So far attempts to add a Gallery2 gallery to the WordPress site have failed and for the moment the site only has the not-so-great alternative in the way of the Portfolio pages.
• The dreaded adverts. Yep I’m planning to add some, though I hope to have relevant ads and they will only appear on the blog page. I already have Google Adsense ads on the RSS feed page and the previous blog site, and I’ve used Amazon Associates links to CDs, DVDs and books both here and there.
• Externally I need to reorganise my deviantART store page. I’ve enquired into whether they can bulk change things but apparently this is not possible. It means a tedious job of deleting virtually everything that is already there and added the rest of my portfolio photos. If too tedious then I’ll go elsewhere for my store facilities, but we’ll see. (any suggestions on this can be posted here). I plan to upload the bordered versions only for the moment. I will, however, add a comment to each photo saying that if you would like a non-border version please let me know and I’ll add it.
• Again externally or perhaps as an alternative to above I would like to set-up a stock photography account somewhere. I have a list of companies I’m considering: PhotoShelter, Fotolia, TriggerSnappy.co.uk and iStockPhoto. I have already signed up on PhotographersDirect and awaiting feedback on my first 2 submitted photos (but I’m happy just to been granted an initial account). Tips and advice on stock photography is most welcome.
• Small things to be done such as signature bar (to include my important social media links), business cards, letterheads and more important to all these a better logo. I’m no artist, well no digital painter, and so hope an old artist friend can help me out here.
• What site doesn’t have an FAQ (frequently asked questions)? Mine for a start! I have a hidden page already in place and will add to that when/if questions roll in but I hope to have a page that is linked off to articles, such as how I created the site, how I go about taking photos, etc.
• It’s a long way off, if ever, but I might be tempted to add a forum. The Revolution theme comes with ‘free’ one so it’s very possible. But there is no point until there is (if at all) a large amount of readers. It’s currently marked as a ‘nice-to-have’.
• The biggie is, of course, is the photography. I have tons of photos to process, I have plans to go out to events during the year (June to August being the busy time if I can) and I need to carry on reading through and performing all the articles and tutorials I’ve saved (for photography, Photoshop as well as web site, blogging, marketing, advertising, business and social media). I will continue to write up and blog background details on my portfolio photos, continue to participate on Flickr and my other photo-sharing sites, continue to digg and stumble, and of course continue to learn and enjoy everything along the way.

Expect updates to this list in the future.

I know this is not the most appropriate place to put this but there you go. If anyone is interested in a 32in TV head over to the eBay page below. It’s a seller collects so check the details:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=330220742725&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

I’ll be adding lots more, like mini hi-fi, CDs, games, DVDs, books and all sorts of other goodies.

http://www.e-lusion.co.uk/old/

What you will find at the normal home page at e-lusion.co.uk is a blank WordPress template site. This is in preparation for an overhaul which will see the old site be replaced with a brand new site and all the content updated. What you will find on the new site once completed is basically what you see on the old site; my favourite websites, my ‘essential’ software, articles such as Internet security, PC buying advice, plus top 20 lists and links to all my ‘social-media’ and ‘social-networking pages which you’re free to take a look at. The site will hold lots of other handy info, so will be a great general resource.

I’m expecting the site to start to form sometime after Squashy Frog is complete in about 2 or 3 months time. So sorry but don’t hold your breathe on it.

And these were taken when we were going around:

You could use this as a guide to the City of London. If you click on the thumbnails above and then the link to the Flickr pages I’ve added lots and lots of note boxes to the photos to list what everything is. Anyway the trip…

We went up to London Waterloo for a mid-morning timeslot and walked along the South Bank to the Eye. We got a snack to eat in Country Hall as we were a bit early. We then collected our booklet from the desk and joined the queue. The timeslot didn’t seem to matter, we probably could have queued straight away. It was a fairly long queue but moved steadily. After a security search we stepped into a pod. Now you would have thought it would stop and let you on. But no it continuously spins so we literally did hop on (when it lined up to the floor for a mere few seconds!). About 15 or so people got on and the door closed behind us. Then we were off!

The trip around was steady, you weren’t tumbling around the pod but you wished it lasted a little longer. Of course the best bit was when we were at the highest point. I think you get an idea from the photos what you can see. But I reckon if it was a clear day you could see a whole lot further. The weather wasn’t great but the ride on the Eye was amazing!!

We thoroughly enjoyed the day and recommend it to anyone. Tip though, try and go at the not-so-busy times else get a fast track ticket so you don’t have to queue. Expect to have your bags searched before you get onboard and be prepared for it to be busy as the Eye and the surrounding area are very popular.

I hope to go up on the Eye again one day, perhaps a night trip next time.

More photos are of the London Eye from this trip and others are here.

Well I had an interesting day yesterday (as did many others in the UK). I was working out of the Newbury Business Park [West Berkshire, South England] yesterday (not my usual place of work). It had been raining (and raining *hard*) since I woke up at 5am. News filtered through the office at about 1pm or a little earlier that Vodafone’s HQ [I used to work for the telecoms company] had been evacuated as it was flooded and had lost power. People were being sent home because if they couldn’t get home now they would definitely not be able to later.

So I decided to bugger off once it was likely that everyone would be sent home. I stood at the bus stop for 20mins waiting for the VF shuttle bus but nothing. I could hear police and ambulance sirens going back and forth but couldn’t see the road. I overheard form his phone call that the guy next to me had been there for 40mins so definitely something was wrong as shuttles are normally bang on time. The rain stopped just before 2pm so I chose to walk to the train station and by just walking around the corner I could see why there were no buses – cars, lots of them, not moving at all and all the way down the A4 road! I carried on towards the station, on route to Newbury station a colleague walked by saying Thatcham station was completely under water [the station near my home] so I headed for Newbury station to check if I could get home but found this…

You can just about see the track, so that’s a whole lot of water. Guess what, I had to walk home.

I’ve walked home before with a broken bike and also along the canal (there and back) and normally took an hour and a quarter but this was something else. The A4 was only slightly moving when I returned to it to get home. The side coming from Thatcham was fine but heading towards it was near-static. I decided to go down Lower Way [road] as it’s a shorter route to my home near [Thatcham[ station but this was one of the pics I took while going down it.

Basically most of the lower part of Lower Way was like this. People had to walk up on the hill and on the grass to walk along the road. Cars were being turned back up and onto the A4!! A few cars and a van has been abandoned, stuck in the middle of this. It didn’t help that water was furiously gushing down from the hill in 2 or 3 places and that this was all right next to the sewage works (my soaked-through work shoes went straight in the bin when I got back). I had parts of my journey where I was walking in water well over my ankles.

It didn’t get much better once I got off this road and onto Station Road. This and roads off it were totally water logged and you could see people had just given up and parked their car anywhere they could and walked the rest of their journey. I think ti was 2 hours later (could have been a lot more) by the time I came up to my house. I was fearing the worse, thinking my house was flooded but thankfully it wasn’t and have to admit being one of the lucky ones

I didn’t go down to see but Thatcham station was supposed to be even worse than Newbury station. Going pass it this morning it was OK but the grass area at the front of the pub near it had 2 mini swimming pools in it. Parts of roads in my residential estate were still flooded and you could see a few houses with piles of rubbish from their homes sitting outside their doors.

Wow that was some rainfall!

(both these pics were taken with my N73 mobile phone)

UPDATE:

It was a terrible day and we are now told to expect this on a more regularly basis. I was told that Thatcham was one of the worst hit and aerial shots appeared on the BBC news the following days. When I left Vodafone in October I think the HQ was still not fully operational so that shows have much damage that day made.

Country-wide there are still people living out of caravans or temporary accommodation, flood precautions are still not in place in lots of areas but luckily we have not had a day like that since.

My brother and I went down to Goodwood Festival of Speed 2007 near Chicester for the middle day (Saturday 23rd June 2007). We were up early as we thought we’d either get lost like we normally do or we’d get stuck in major traffic. But the journey down was a doddle (apart from a little tour of a roundabout or two) and it’s was dead quiet. The flyer said to look out for signs to the event but we couldn’t see them though we did work it out in the end and rolled into the field/car park close to the top and thus the entrance. So a good start.

We timed it well as behind us we saw the masses starting to come in. After a quick sort around in the car (Neal eating a bit of left over pizza, yuck, and complaining he was cold) we walked up with tickets in hand. Going through the ticket barrier we walked up (there is a lot of walking up) and thankfully got to a food store where we had ourselves a small meal and drink. As soon as that was down us we carried on walking up and came to the old cars section. Great cars but some were still covered in rain spots, tsch.

Hidden nearby (though you could hear them from miles away) were all the cars getting ready for the day. We had a wander and saw old cars and some spectacular supercars. I’m no car enthusiast but this was great and the noise was fantastic!

It wasn’t long before a few started going out for their first runs, we were up close and personal at this point as they drove by and disappeared down to the start.

Eventually after watching some cars race up the hill, itt all cooled down so we carried on walking, yes you guessed it, up! Here is where all the exhibitions were, as well as a skate/BMX board, mini-concert stand (where all the food stands are – naturally we got a bite to eat, well a hot chocolate drink, and I mean hot) and the F1 paddock (which we somehow completely bypassed all day ). The main showpiece, though, was from Toyota. It was pretty amazing to see the set of cars hung up in the air like that.

As we carried on walking up we caught a few of the cars coming down the hill at incredible speeds. But the giant haystacks that protected us from the cars crashing into us were so high we couldn’t see a great deal. Tip: spending extra on stand tickets might be a good idea, though the tickets in general are very expensive. Saying that, we weren’t sure, but it did look like there was a free-entry stand. Unfortunately we didn’t investigate further.

We didn’t take the option as we went up, but at a certain point you can hop onto a tractor shuttle service that carries about 20 people a time up and down the circuit. It starts from about half way up then takes you all the way to the top where you’ll find loads of food stands and the start/finish point of the forest rally. What we did instead was walk it and found small pockets where we could see the main track (and the supercars) a lot clearer – so was worth the effort. We kept going until we go into the forest… and the rally.

For us this was the highlight of the day by far! I’ve never really watched rally car racing but we came away as massive fans! It was fantastic!! We found and stopped off at several points to watch the cars come down. The speed was amazing, the way they skidded around corners, dirt and rocks flying everywhere and all in the middle of a forest. Loved it!! This is where I captured the best photos of the event, the Sun was creeping out a lot of the time but overall it’s pretty dark though the pics came out well.

Sadly, though we of course didn’t know it at the time, it was one of the last times people saw Colin McRae race. RIP. He saw him fly past us at least twice – very cool!

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We eventually got up top, had some lunch, be it with a bit of rain, and watched a few cars come through the start and finish gates. One or two of them show-boating at the end there.

Then we had to think about heading down (as that’s where our car was that would get us home). This time we did take the shuttle and it’s one of those more interesting rides in a vehicle. The seats weren’t too comfortable, the track was, of course, dirt track and bumpy but the journey was fairly slow and painless. A different way to see the forest methinks.

We were trying to get down the bottom in time to see the Red Arrows. We did but a few minutes before they were due we had a massive downpour of rain!! – I was so glad Neal brought his big golfing umbrella else we would have been soaked. It went on for several minutes and thought the Red Arrows would be cancelled but amazingly it stopped and actually started to clear. It wasn’t long after that the Red Arrows came out and did their stuff. Great display. Though it was cloudy and a lighter day would have helped see them, having them on a background of white cloud helped a bit with their smoke trails. Another tip, make sure you’re not standing behind a big tree, some of the display was lost as we were low down, we moved up a bit which helped a lot but positioning is key.

We thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, especially the rally cars. I hope to go again and to see more rally rally. We were planning on going to the Wales World Rally Championship (the final round of the WRC) but we ran out of money by then (late November/early December and so it was canned. As for the FoS, we were there for the middle day, so we didn’t get to see the final rounds. Plus the likes of Lewis Hamilton popped up on the third and final day, so perhaps a 2/3 day ticket is needed next time.

More shots are here.

Goodwood Festival of Speed web site is:
htpp://www.goodwood.co.uk/fos/

I’m sure we’ll be there for the 2008 event.

Eventually I plonked myself in what I thought was a good position, a clear view of the riders coming round a bend with a bit of straight before me. Yep it was good, got a lot of good shots of riders practising. But I later found I was right next to the hospitably area and once the procession (a load a French cars and float-type trucks coming down the road at 100mph throwing all sorts of promotion junk at you or some nice ladies dancing for you – see below ) and the time trials started I saw very little. Hiding in their posh exec room they all flew out and completely blocked my view of the bend and straight.

So I was left with small gaps in the crowd, hence why my pics are of the cyclist side-on. I had to time my shots very well to get anything. And the resulting images are just a “handful” compared to what I did take – I got so many photos of just tiny bits of the cyclist in shot where I was either too quick or too slow with the release button. It was a good test though and luckily we had a nice policeman nearby and people seem chatty.

I didn’t stay all day, my legs and feet were aching from standing in one spot for hours but it was very cool and hope they do it again at some point.

Quick tip to the organisers though: more bridges over the track. I had to queue to walk over one and was there for 25mins!

More pictures came be found here.

Tour de France:
www.letour.fr/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France

Tour de France London:
www.tourdefrancelondon.com/