Flashback.

New toy, new toy! I am stupidly excited. I bought my friend's Canon 50D body, along with a 430ex ii Speedlite flashgun and diffuser. I have no lenses yet, so today's Blip has been taken (by Dad) with my Leica. Tomorrow Dad and I will go into Harrogate and buy a lens; there's a good wee second hand shop there, but also a Jessops if they have nothing suitable.

I spent all morning at work FIDGETING until lunchtime, when I ran into town and met G with some cash. He handed over the camera and we had a wee natter about photos and travelling (he has an awesome blog; he uses mainly film cameras these days and takes the kind of shots I really admire).

Got back to my office and spent an hour chatting to my boss about lenses (honestly, we do work sometimes) and his photography expeditions to America with his wife, and how he has to bribe her to stand on precipices to have her photograph taken. He's away to Florida next week, so I hope she's been taking her anti-vertigo pills.

After lunch, I got on a train back to Yorkshire to see Mum and Dad fpr the weekend; during which I tried to work on my report but mainly spent my time devising an equation to explain why the same journey can feel longer or shorter depending on a number of factors. I came up with:

perceived length of journey = miles travelled x (density of other passengers^10) + noise level of carriage / 'shugglyness' of train.

When I got home, Dad took this photo of Molly and I in my favourite armchair (when I was little, Dad wouldn't let me sit in it. Now I'm taller than him so I think he's too intimidated to ask me to move). Note behind my shoulder the photo taken of Molly and I two years ago, in my flat at Chestnut Row. I remember that day so well; Mum and Dad came up to help me move in, along with M's Mum and Dad. The flat was lovely and it only took one day to unpack all my stuff and make me feel at home. I remember M was away in Norway at the time and I was missing him like crazy, but it made me feel so much better to do my new flat up. In the evening we all went out to an Art Show before Mum and Dad drove back to Yorkshire. I remember being a bit tearful when they left as I was going back to a completely empty flat for the first time in my life, ever (I'd always had flatmates who I knew were coming back at some point). That year I grew up quite a lot. It was the year M was away on boats, while training for the Merchant Navy, and the sadness of that coupled with the stress of my final year at Uni tainted my lovely little flat so that I remember it as quite a sad place - it's nice to look at that photo and remember that feeling of being a grown up for the first time. Funny the effect photographs can have.