April’s offerings

So, a whole month since my last post. Can’t imagine where the time goes. I guess my time-management skills need a bit of an overhaul!

A number of things have happened this month, including quite a lot of work for Neil Warnock, Leeds United manager. This included downloading some images from his iPhone, printing a few, framing some of them, and some images being  made into placemats. Also, he wants Keith to frame some signed football shirts, of which he already has two to start on. One needs to be viewed from both sides, and so is a more complicated technique than simply having glass on the front, and has necessitated much research on Keith’s part. He thinks he has sorted it now. We collected the placemats last week, but the quality of the images was very poor, so they are being re-done.

We also discovered that there was a Saturday food and craft market in Holmfirth (location for Last of the Summer Wine). They can’t take bookings – you just have to turn up and hope there is a space – so we turned up quite early last Saturday morning and managed to get a stall. There were a couple more photographers there, but we still did very well. As a change from landscapes, I had printed some floral images and Keith made some ‘shabby-chic’ type frames for them. We sold four of them, so this looks like a good alternative to our normal offerings. We will be having another go tomorrow and see how it goes, but this could become a regular thing. I will have to drop Keith there and leave him to it for the morning, as I have my reflexology class, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing with this anyway.

Having discovered that the reflexology course would not lead to a qualification, I did some research into what I would need to do to proceed to a qualification. The training centre can offer us a basic level 2 diploma added on to what we are doing now, and charge an extra £125, but we would only be able to offer reflexology for stress relief and relaxation – and not proper treatments. To do this, we would need to add anatomy and physiology qualifications, which I’ve discovered would be in the region of £400. I contacted the relevant examination board and was told that this would still not lead to being a fully-qualified practitioner. The only other option is a level 3 course lasting one year and costing over £1000. I was told that the level 2 qualifications were being phased out this summer, so would not be worth doing anyway. I might leave early from the course tomorrow and bid farewell!

We’ve had a couple of trips in the month since my last entry. In the quest to get some images that might be more local and therefore relevant to the fairs we are doing in North Yorkshire, we visited Brimham Rocks, which is a short drive from the Harrogate area. The weather wasn’t that great, so to counteract the grey skies I have converted most of the images to black and white. After a wander round the rocks, we continued on to Fountains Abbey/Studley Royal, although we only stayed to visit the tea room as it was late in the afternoon and not worth the entry price at that time of day. The rocks are definitely worth a visit in better weather.

When we took Neil Warnock’s images to the printers in York to have the placemats printed, I didn’t have my camera with me, but the daffodils around the city walls looked amazing. So when we went back to pick the placemats up, I took my camera and we had a little stroll around. The daffs were starting to get past their best, and they had disappeared altogether from Clifford’s Tower, so I didn’t get many shots. I also wanted to get some new bluebell images, and a woodland just on the outskirts of York was said to have a good show, but it proved to be a little early. There were a few out, but mostly Wood Anemones.

There are a few more local woods to look at, as found on the Visit Woods website, and I think the bluebells will be starting to look good very soon.