It’s just about the end of September, and apart from days out, as always I’ve been taking pictures of daily life. We went up to Edinburgh at the beginning of the month, as a new scale model show has started up there called Scale Scotland, and Phil was asked to do a demonstration of figure detailing and composition. The show was held at The Airport Hilton, which is a nice enough hotel, and it was cool to be staying in the same place as where the show was held, as we didn’t have to get up too early :). I got to try haggis for the first (& last!) time too. Packing to go wasn’t all that straightforward..

But we got there cat free 🙂

One of the organisers works for Lambourgini..so he had one parked outside the hotel

Our hotel room was nice enough..

Phil’s demo went well

and he also won some medals in the competition

I asked the organiser of the show if I could be allowed into the competition room during judging to take photo’s for the Tyneside Model Club web page which I run, and they said yes, so I got loads of pictures of all the models, unencumbered by the hoipoloi 🙂 these are a couple that won gold, great painting skills.

Phil’s Volksgrenadier won a silver which he was well chuffed with. We called him the mushroom man due to the ground work Phil did, he made mushrooms from plasticard, they’re really tiny. For scale, the chap is 12cm in height.

After the show the organisers and demonstrators all had dinner together and we sat with our good friends Hermann and Kristoff who were over from Belgium,

and the next day we went home.

Ah… home, or now The Menagerie. Phil’s son Carl and his family have had to move out of their house for 6 weeks while the council goes in and does a big renovation job. His temporary house is too small for his pets, so we are looking after Penelope & Rango…

They are bearded dragons, and have to be fed live crickets. I can’t watch, Phil has to do it, and though he didn’t like it, he’s got quite good at it.

We’ve had Cal & Liddy over last weekend..

Cal loves Storm..

We had a really odd sunset..

I watched Bryan Adams on the TV doing The Hyde Park Festival in London, he was great, I really like him.

I had some of family photo’s printed, they hang up on our staircase walls, so we can see them grow up as we go up

Phil had an old magazine shot of one of his favourite ever singers Paul Rogers and it was all scratched and creased and faded, so he asked me to do my faffographic techniques and get it up on a canvas..

this is the original ( wish I could find out the photographer to give him credit, but this was in Phil’s scrapbook from 1970’s so that’s not happening)

and this is it cleaned up and on our wall

Found some mushrooms hiding in the front garden when Phil was mowing the lawn..

I collected some acorns in my adventure hat..

and today I strung them together and hung them around our defunct bird feeder in the back garden as a weathervane.. apparently they open their spines in warm weather and close up in cold, though I have no corroborating proof of that and anyway I can just look up at the sky! But it was fun to do.

Phil is on the go with another tank..

Went into South Shields to go to the bank for work…

another sunset..

I discovered that Phil’s socks mysteriously clone themselves, he wears 7 pairs a week, and I do the washing on the same day each week but find between 10 &14 pairs come out of the washing machine..

I did some faffography for the Sunday Challenge group on Ipernity..

and yesterday had a go at an upside down shot, using the inverse glass of water technique!

set up shot….

The upside down finished article..

I hadn’t thought it through properly….removing the glasses afterwards wasn’t pretty.

And then there are the cute cat shots :).

But first have to say Storm’s trip to the vet did not go as planned. We went as she chucks up more than we consider normal, most days, (regular readers know this drives us mad!) and we thought she probably had an ulcer or some malabsorption thing and need medicine.  So they sedated her, took blood and did X-rays, and found a renal lymphoma, maybe one on each kidney but definitely one big one. So that’s a death sentence really. Even with chemo and radiotherapy the prognosis is poor, and we won’t put her through that.  The vet said not to leave it too long before we take her in for ‘the injection’, but I can’t do it yet.   We found this out last weekend, and are quite in shock and devastated, she is only 6yrs old and we’ve only had her 6 months.  She isn’t acting ill and is carrying on oblivious to her state, isn’t distressed or in pain, still eating and doing the other end well, so not yet. Not yet Mr.Vet. She is my special friend and this is breaking my little heart.

Skye is fine and just loves Phil to bits, won’t leave him alone when he’s playing his guitar/on the computer/having his brekkie/dinner or tea 🙂

I love it when they cuddle up, Storm always puts her paw over Skye..

Caught Skye on the speaker in the conservatory with a fetching piece of grass attached to her pink bell 🙂

and caught Storm looking regal..

and roaring..

I should think there will be lots of Storm photo’s to come, while I can still have her.

So that’s September just about finished. Next month have got a day out with Sophie coming up but not sure where we are going, and also a trip to Holland for another model show, and we’re going on a ferry to Calais, that should be interesting as Calais is having refugee issues. Back to work tomorrow, it comes round too quick!

laters gaters

😉