Saturday Sunshine

This morning I cycled to work in the glorious sunshine. Cycling from Chorlton isn't really a challenge as it's fairly flat. The problem is the traffic when you hit town. Busy busy!

New Vans to compliment Gino.

I printed up a couple of custom baby bibs and posted out an owl print commission.

Soya ink Risograph print on recycled card. Yum!

Oh, did I mention I personalise baby wear?!

I thought I'd put down some of my goals for the month, as writing them down in public might help me to achieve them!

Firstly, join my local running club, The Chorlton Runners. A combination of natural shyness and laziness has prevented me from going before now. I will conquer my fear tomorrow!

Secondly, do a Park Run. See above paragraph for excuses. Add to that working a lot of Saturdays means that it hasn't been easy to get to. Until next week when I will be taking part, no matter what! It's at 9 a.m at Platt Fields Park, so I should just have enough time to complete the run and cycle to work if needs be. I've just registered, so there's no turning back now!

My work-related goal is to have good photographs of my main products to start a website revamp by the end of the month. I made a start on this yesterday.

So now they are here in black and white, feel free to berate me if I fail!

Athletics and Androids

Hi there. 5k jog this morning, felt good, looked at my phone and it was exactly the same time as the other day when my legs felt crap! Hmm, puzzling. 

Penguins getting papped.

Got the tram to work as a treat and started playing with my new lights, borrowing lovely Liz's light tent for ease, it's identical to mine so was a good bit of practice.

Froggy in the spotlight

Another reason for getting the tram was going to the preview night of Android, an exhibition at Piccadilly Place. Really enjoyed it, thought the work was excellent and a few of my friends have pieces in the show, so it was great to see them and have a catch up. It's brilliant to see spaces like this being used for exhibitions too. It's only on for a short time and there are some performances tomorrow afternoon, I urge you to go if you can! I'm at the Craft Centre again so won't be able to go. Right, I'm off to watch Springwatch and drink a cold beer, bye!

Lung

Helmet

Groovy old signs

Casting great reflections in the summer sunshine!

Summer time skive.

I was naughty this evening and skipped yoga class in favour of a walk down the river and glass of wine outside the pub with Andrew. But that doesn't mean no exercise! I cycled to and from the studio today, it's about 5 miles each way, so I don't feel too guilty! Stupidly forgot my camera and tripod, so couldn't do any photography experiments, what a dunder head. Ah well, mañana.

As we were walking home, we both noticed lots of massive webs in the trees, at first I thought they had huge spiders in them, but they were actually full of tiny caterpillars, writhing around. Mmm, good old nature!

Hiya! 

Peaceful times.

Late summer sun on the Mersey.

Lovely pink hawthorns.

Creepy crawlies!

Extreme close up. Shame you can't see the writhing action.

Gotta make the most of summer days while they're here I say!

Wednesday Whizzy

After a slightly later start than intended (crap nights sleep) I chugged down some sort of super-smoothie and laced up my sneaks. I'd already mapped out an 8k route by the river, round Chorlton Water Park and back. I started out thinking, 'hmm, maybe I could just do 6k and work up to 8', but I kept going and started to actually enjoy it! Woo! My reward was spotting some little mystery fledglings, goldfinches and a heron! One of my personal favourites. I didn't want to stop running in case I crumpled to the ground, so no photos, but here are some snaps of things I've been working on. I'm excited to go to the studio tomorrow as my light tent and lights have arrived, fingers crossed for mega professional photos!

Monsieur Le Fox in printy progress

Monsieur Le Fox bibs

Printing up little robots

It's a...FROG!

Froggy bibs

Printing bunnies

Fox posters, freshly printed!

Darlo Days

Right, so I have missed a couple of days Juneathon blogging, but in my defence I've been away and still done exercise!  Had a lovely weekend in the North East.

Darlington has a proud railway history! Choo choo.

 Bridge over the River Skerne. One of the worst names for a river ever? Andrew makes everything look wonderful though.

A trip to Barnard Castle and obligatory photo of the silver swan! I recently read Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears, which made me see the automaton in a new light. The Appleby Fair is approaching, so we saw some amazingly mulleted youths racing through the streets. Unfortunately they were too fast for me to get a photo.

Half hour swim on Sunday morning at Bannatynes gym. Pretty luxurious compared to Chorlton Baths!

Playing with my Dad's collected of cameras, inherited from my Grandad, Victor.

 Tio Pedro! (note the bottle of tequila).

Hiya! 

Yesterday my only exercise was a scoot round the shops, that counts right?! I bought a watch so I don't always have to take my phone out running with me, plus I faced my fears and bought some new jeans! Why is it so hard to buy jeans?? This morning I did a crap 25 minute jog, my legs felt quite stiff, not sure why. I have an 8k scheduled tomorrow, so fingers crossed I feel better! I've also signed up with Runkeeper, not sure what I'm doing with that though, will figure it out later...

Juneathon No. 1!

 Good morning! Today is the 1st of June and thus the beggining of Juneathon. I saw it mentioned on Twitter and thought it seemed like a bit of fun (?!). Maybe I was still on a high after the Great Manchester 10k. Basically you do some form of exercise everyday in June and blog about it. I'm training for the Great North Run in September so it will hopefully spur me on for my first ever half marathon and also breathe a bit of life back into my poor old bloggy.

Beautiful day for it! I got up early and set out for my 5k route - walking 5 minutes from my flat to Longford Park. Not a cloud in the sky! I decided to run free and easy, with no headphones so I could enjoy the birdsong.

If only my legs were this long in real life. I headed up towards Streford to get onto the canal.

I didn't see my old pals/arch enemies the Canada geese this morning, so didn't have to fear ending up in the canal.

I always think this looks very British! Anyways, I popped off the canal onto Hawthorne Lane and through the ees then back home. An enjoyable 30 minute jog.

If you would like to sponsor me for the Great North Run, my Just Giving page is here. I'm raising money for Diabetes UK.

Off to Darlo today, as my Auntie and Uncle are visiting from Mexico! They only come over about once a decade, so I'm very excited.

Winners!!

Hello and Happy Friday! I picked out the winners of my give-away a while ago now, but then got too busy/distracted/lazy to post them. Sorreeeee! So here they are:

Cristina has won Mr Owl poster - hoot!
Danielle Wood has won the Lion - roar!
Dan Lord has won Tiny Tiger - grrr!
and Mammasaurus has won the Koala print! G'day mate!

Get in touch with your postal addresses via email you guys, I will send your creatures to their new homes! 

Thanks to all for entering and have a lovely weekend x