Home grown spring onions

Well I handed in my court summons to the magistrate’s court yesterday and felt like I had been caught shop lifting or granny battering. The staff were split down the middle: 50% really helpful, 50% really wanting you to piss off and leave them alone. Luckily after being sent to several wrong offices, I found a woman that was fantastic. And actually, she told me not to plead guilty! We had a letter after the visit from the aggressive TV henchman that said, no further action will be taken because you’ve bought a licence… Anyway, I had forgotten all about it but my partner found it and attached it to our stuff. The lady I dealt with says this proves that they should have never issued the summons in the first place and that we should call TV licensing urgently. Even if they don’t withdraw the case though, at least I delivered my mitigating statement in time.

Last night I went to college feeling a bit blue about the whole situation – no camera (well, I have an excellent top of the range camera worth £600 but apparently I can’t use that!) and no photos. Towards the end of the lesson I felt just about ready to give up. Other than the whole ‘no camera’ thing, I have an impossible tight deadline to hand my work in because of going to Scotland. I slept on it and after talking to my partner, decided that quitting was for… well, quitters. In one last final attempt to finish term three with the high marks that I received in terms one and two, I have emailed some friends asking if anyone can lend me a film SLR (preferably a fairly modern one) and then I emailed my tutor asking for an extension. What will happen? I don’t know. It is conceivable that I may not get the extension, but more importantly no one will have a camera they can lend me. But I can’t give up just yet. I’m a good photographer. Now I just have to be a resilient photographer as well!

It’s a gorgeous day and we’ve spent most of it in the garden. We’ve also just had a salad that contained home grown spring onions, very satisfying and very tasty!

TV licences, chickens and photography

I had a lie-in this morning and it made all the difference. So much so that after a healthy breakfast I started work and have achieved more this morning than I have all week!

So today I have to drop off the statement and documents to the court that’s handling the trial of the century – my ‘30 days out of date TV licence that as soon as we realised was out of date was replaced immediately’. My partner and I are both a little nervous about being hit with a massive fine. We’re hoping the case is seen for what it is, an accidental oversight, but I guess it depends on all manner of things. I’ll let you know. But to be honest, once I’ve hand-delivered the stuff I’m going try and put it all out of my mind.

College tonight but I have no photos. I haven’t had the time and / or inclination which is a shame. I’m really struggling with this new term. I joined to become a better photographer and just as that happened, we were told we had to use other cameras which we weren’t familiar with, and often, due to the age of the cameras, have significant operating differences. Ah well, it's a small problem in the big scheme of things.

Country smallholding magazine arrived this morning! I was very excited but haven’t had the time to read it yet. I wanted to check it out before I subscribed and you can buy each new issue individually. If it’s well written and helpful, then I may just indulge… even if I never get a small holding, I’ll always know how to care for rare-breed chickens!!

Bangers

I’ve got a bit of a hangover. I had a police away day yesterday (I am a specialist advisor) and we went to the pub afterwards. Five pints later, I jumped on a train to get back (late) for my reflexology appointment. Luckily the woman is a friend and she had made toast and walked the dog for me!

I think I’m also feeling a bit crappy because we’ve been working on our mitigating statement for our TV licence summons. Actually my partner did the statement, I’m not sure I was much help. I’m still hoping if I ignore it it will go away… it’s not that I mind paying a fine because at the end of the day, I fucked up – my licence was slightly out of date and I hadn’t remembered to renew. It’s just the being treated like a criminal that I’m having a few issues with…

I’m not sure what we have planned for this weekend. Bearing in mind, we are trying not to spend money before our holiday! I suppose I should try and do some photography but I’m a bit fed-up with that too. My first two rolls of film were a complete washout. It didn’t help that the 2nd roll came off the spindle and light ruined most of the shots.

Anyway, from the negative to the positive, Abel and Cole! I’ve had two deliveries from them and so far, it’s been a splendid experience. The food arrives in a cool box with ice packs so you don’t have to be in to take delivery. The biscuits we ordered last week were so good I ate all but one and had to re-order some this week just so my partner might actually get to enjoy them too. Everything is well packaged and the meat (which we haven’t tasted yet) looks superb. The rump steaks are huge. And yes, it is quite expensive relatively speaking but I guess it does depend on how you view food and the treatment of animals. Because although I can go and get a 50p chicken from a supermarket (actually I’m not sure that’s true, but you know what I mean), I’ll have paid dearly in terms of the lousy quality of the meat and of course, the treatment of the animal before it died and in some cases, how it died. So, I’m very pleased so far. And I appreciated the phone call after my first delivery to check everything was ok. Sausages were missing from the first order and they immediately deducted the amount from the total and were very apologetic. I ordered them this time and they arrived safe and sound!

So maybe that’s something I’ll be doing this weekend, sausage and mash!