Hello to you all on another snow covered day in Durham. However the great thaw has started. Today it’s a balmy 4 oC, rooftops and cars are starting to emerge. But before I bore you to death with another blog on snow I realise I haven’t yet written my blog post on the Kreativ Blogger Award which Katie McCullough nominated me for just before Christmas:

“I nominate Helen because I’ve never seen such an eclectic bunch of posts on one blog. You name it she’s got it; politics, writing, photography, lifestyle, …

Unless the predictions are wildly off, this Thursday will see three weeks of snow in Durham. Although I’ve been away for half that time I have been assured (moaned at) by plenty of people that the snow hasn’t disappeared from the ground throughout this time. When I returned on New Years Eve it did look like it might be making an attempt to thaw, but I woke on Sunday morning to a new thick blanket of soft snow. And it is proper powdery snow. The small amounts of snow I’ve …

Today’s ‘Five…‘ is photography. At the end of 2008 I bought a DSLR off one of my very best friends, @pirateboots, who decided I would make better use of it than she would. I added a Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens to my kit earlier this year and with the help of @GraemeWatson have developed (excuse the pun!) my skill and love of photography.
Narrowing it down to my five favourite images has been tough. It’s nice to have so many images that I’m proud of. Those that didn’t make it can …

It is a beautiful snowy day and as I finished work yesterday I decided to go on a wander with my camera this morning. I love snow! Snow at Christmas is even better!!!

I’ve finally got around to updating my Flickr Photostream and I thought I’d use todays blog to give you a sneak peak.
Flickr is another thing in the realm of “social networking” that it took me a while to get to grips with (see my post RSS… WTF!) but now I love it for showing off the best of my photography. I find that with my Nikon D40 I’m now taking hundreds of photos but getting some fantastic results, sometimes completely by accident! For example at Lucy & Dave’s Wedding I …

In what is becoming my usual style, I injured myself at the worst moment yesterday. That was about twenty minutes in to the photography evening at Durham Cathedral. Whilst I tried to hobble about for a bit, in the end I gave in. My concentration on composition was fuzzy and the frustration at being able to bend or move to get the photographs I wanted was just too much. Thankfully the Cathedral has an abundance of hard benches to sit on, perfect for minimizing pain whilst watching others snap away.
Before …

Today has been a strange day… so strange indeed that I am blogging twice in one day.
Everything seemed fairly normal until after lunch when I traipsed around the library with the photographer trying to find students to take photos of in a library setting. The only weirdness in that is that you usually don’t spend a Monday being a prop in photos (to think I may feature in Durham University prospectus – enough to scare any potential student off!)
Settling back down to get work done there was a bright …

I joined Twitter on the 4th February 2009. In the 131 days since I’ve found that Twitter has the marmite effect – people love it or hate it. It has provoked debate, discussion and almost argument both on Twitter and in real life. Work related Twitter (@DROdurham) has really caused a stir and split of opinions at work.
From a personal point of view I don’t understand why people feel the need to tell me I’m wasting my time or telling people too much about my life. Why do people care …

I haven’t had the best of weeks. It started of very promising as I bounced into work early on Monday morning. The sun was shining and I’d had a lovely weekend. However just like the weather, it has gone downhill from there.
It’s just been one of those weeks where everything comes to a head. There’s been a couple of annoying situations at work (that’s the edited description of it). That bad feeling grew into snowball of crap, which along the way decided to unearth horrible feelings associated with my last …

In my previous job I had to get up ridiculously early and I hated it. I am not a morning person in the slightest. So I was surprised to find that when it came to research for my novel I was willing to get up at 5.15am, having taken a days holiday from work. It is funny the affect that dreams and determination can have on you!
The first half (or so) of the book takes place around the area of Colliers Wood and Morden in South London. (Google Map). I …