Yes, the autumn is here, the heating is on! Things have been pretty busy over the past two weeks. Work is still very busy, and my half year profits show an almost 50% increase on last year, which is, of course, good to see considering the whole credit crunch and the way a lot of businesses seem to be suffering. I also finally managed to understand and use Subversion and have finally got my first WordPress plugin into the WordPress plugin repository! I've had the alotted space available for a few months but just couldn't work out how to add my plugin, however after a bit of searching I came across some instructions that made it all clear. Once I got my first plugin online, I immediately requested to add my new Page Menu Editor plugin to the repository as well. 24-48 hours later and that was in too

Last week we both went back to school. We decided to enrol on the Spanish for absolute beginniners evening course, which is held about 5 minutes around the corner from us. As we want to go to a few various countries that use Spanish, we figured it was a good idea, plus it gets us out the house one evening a week. We've had 2 lessons so far and it's an 11 week course. Hopefully we can then continue on to the standard beginners course and maybe take it a little further. The Spanish we've learnt so far is quite similar to Italian too (with them both being derived from Latin it's not a surprise) so that's always handy too

Then on Friday we finished work early (well if you can call 5pm early!) and drove over to besides the Mersey as the QE2 Cruiseliner had docked in Liverpool for the day and was then due to do a quick tour of Britain before traveling out to Dubai where it's going to become a hotel and casino. I've never seen the QE2 before so it was literally the last chance to see it. Of course we took a few photos of it during the day, and also returned later on to get some shots in the dark before it left at 10pm. You can see all of the photos I took on Flickr. I've also been trying to finish my Photography blog off, and just need to finish off adding some more photos and content, however that should be finished off soon

It's still pretty busy here workwise. As one thing starts to come to an end and the stress eases off, 2 or 3 more jobs come along to just escalate it to another high! Next week is going to be a bit of a nightmare for work as clients have left things too late and seem to expect me to just work 24 hours plus invent a few more hours into the day to get everything they need done in time.

So this week was welcomed as we were going away on Wednesday for a few days break plus a visit to a county show that's only on once a year (so not something you could reschedule!). Despite all the bad weather we've suffered in recent weeks, also resulting in the cancellation of another country show we were due to go to 2 weeks ago, on the day of the show the sun was shining and the weather quite warm! Actually it's been the first time in years where I've been to the show and it's not rained! Of course we took our cameras along, just in case there was anything good to snap.

After a bit of wondering around I spotted that the falconry show had started in one of the arenas so made a beeline for that! I managed to get a few good shots of a gorgeous and cute barn owl, one of which was whilst it was in flight. They also brought a Falcon out, which decided that it didn't want to fly, and an Eagle. All my photos from the day can be seen in my Flickr Set.

We've now got 2.5 weeks of solid work and then we're off to Dublin for a short break, which should keep us going then until Christmas

Ooo what a cool date (note my dates are in the UK version of Day/Month/Year, in case that wasn't already obvious!). So we're into the first week of the second half of the year. Where does the time go?! This week hasn't been so great. On Tuesday evening I started to suffer with a pain in the lower right of my back. I've had this before, sometimes a minor twinge, but 2.5 years ago I had a kidney infection which caused just as much, if not more pain. Obviously my main concern is always something like this happening again. On Wednesday I woke up in even more pain and by lunchtime I had to go back to bed as I just couldn't sit in my desk chair. Luckily the tennis was pretty good on TV! Thursday morning the pain didn't seem so bad so I assumed that it was possibly just a strained muscle (yes I guess there's a muscle there somewhere!) and managed to work until early afternoon, but then again I'd pushed it and the pain was worse again. However the pain has lessened each day so I can only assume it is a strain.

Besides that, I've managed to get through a few more photos and get my photos from our weekend to the Lake District up on Flickr. Whilst we were there they had this WoW Factor event on (WoW – Windermere on Water) which involved some french street artists hoisted up on a crane above the crowds and a fireworks show.

This week I also got my contract renewed with my mobile phone supplier, and got a new phone in the form of the Nokia E65. It's not a new phone (It was out about 15-18 months ago) but the difference between this and my old Nokia N73 is that it has WiFi so I can use it to check email and connect to the web for free when at home or near a free WiFi hotspot. I had wanted to get the N95 but the 'contribution' was going to be £170 which I wasn't prepared to pay. I probably should have argued over it, seeing as new customers get it and a better deal on their minutes etc for free, trouble is I don't need any extra minutes as I don't use the ones I have! Still, the phone does what I need it to do, make calls and check my email. When I was stuck in bed I was also using it to read through a website on jQuery, making my own notes. Obviously I can also go to Google Reader on it, along with other mobile enabled sites.

So not a very eventful week really. I've barely moved much!

Been a bit swamped with work round here lately. We took on a new client in the form of an agency last week and seems like they're going to have plenty to keep us occupied! Plus a couple of ongoing sites too so it's all go here. In between work I'm still trying to put the finishing touches to a new plugins site that I'm setting up with a friend, one I'm eager to get up and running and get more plugins written for.

However, I've managed to finally get all of my photos from Rome on Flickr at last. I'm quite chuffed with some of them, the beautiful blue sky and weather out there helped!

Also, don't forget you can get a nice code filled post on WordPress coding over at Blogging Tips every Sunday, or keep an eye on my own Blogging Tips Posts page which lists the posts I've written. Anyone who isn't scared of a bit of code and uses WordPress may pick something of interest up here

I managed to grab a quick half an hour this evening to try out my new tripod and macro lens. The tripod is great however I'll be buying a mini or micro ball head to go on it. Whilst you don't need one, I'd like a quick release plate as it'd be so much handier. However it's sturdy and easily supports my camera and new lens (which weigh around 1.1kg together).

I managed to find a few interesting shots to take. Unfortunately the better flowers are around the front of the house, but I didn't fancy advertising my camera gear to anyone passing by. Luckily the flowers on the herbs are starting to come out which made for a couple of interesting photos, but my favourite (and sharpest) photo is of the purple flower above. This is off a weed (they seem to make the best flowers!) that I spotted.

The result from this lens however is amazing. I saw a tiny little insect sitting on a strawberry plant leaf and did my best to try and focus in on it and take some shots. I'm not sure if the insect was dead or alive (possibly asleep), as it didn't move, but a slight breeze made the leaf tremor every so often, plus I'm still working on the sharp focusing. However the detail that this little black bug had (as you can see below) is just amazing. Whilst I'm not an insect fan, and hate even looking at spiders, the detail that you can see from this lens is just fantastic. Hopefully we'll have some good weather to go out on the weekend and grab some more shots further afield than the garden!

View all my first macro shots