Discover Vintage at Ripley Castle

Last weekend I went to the beautiful Ripley Castle near Harrogate to catch the Discover Vintage event. So glad we made the trip as it was a great day out with plenty of my favourite things (shopping, vintage cars and great outfits). It was so lovely to see how many people turned up in their vintage finery to jive away on the green or enter the Best Dressed Contest. Here's a few shots x

My Favourite Images - India 2013

I’m working (slowly but surely…..) on editing the images from our India trip in Jan 2013. Life is hectic at the best of times and personal projects like this can get put on the backburner forever if not careful. So, it is my mission to aim and do a few each week until they are finished.

Here is one of my favourite portraits so far

Ashveena

I love this because I remember Ashveena peering at me from her house as I sat on my scooter pondering which way to go (I was out exploring the area with my camera). I spotted her and waved and she ran off laughing to get her mum and dad. I knew I had to take her photo as she had such lovely eyes and after a couple of false starts I got this one under some gorgeous top shade. What was really nice was that when I went back a couple of days later to give her a print of the image the family invited us in, shared some food and drink with us and with the help of an elder daughter who spoke some English we had a good laugh about how pale my skin still was despite being in the sun for a month...........how ironic I am called Melanie......

Meet Our Eric......

When you have owned a dog who is a great companion and part of the household, to suddenly not have them around is odd. Back in January our patterdale Smutty died suddenly at home, admittedly she was 15 and dementia and other problems had set in. However, I did really think we would have a few more months with her this year.

Fast forward five months and the feeling that something was missing hadn’t gone away. Going for a walk without a dog seemed a bit pointless and it felt sad that we didn’t need to go down the pet food aisle in the supermarket anymore.

So, we start to look at puppies. “Just looking”……. two days later we put our name down for a 4 week old puppy.

Meet our Eric. Another patterdale terrier, as once you’ve owned one you're hooked. He is clever, confident and super friendly. A bit of a handful but adorable with it. Makes us laugh and is a proficient escape artist. It’ll be interesting….

Here are a couple of photos of Eric at 7 weeks old.