14. develop all my films - roll 1

For those that know me, you may recall my interest in film photography and my collection of cameras. Photography has been in and out of my life since I was a kid. My stepdad likes to take credit for this, claiming he would hand me the family camera as a child and bought me my first 35mm camera as well as my first digital. I guess he's allowed that credit but the love I developed for film photography a few years ago is entirely my own.

I briefly studied photography at college back in 2010 but dropped out in my 2nd year. I get pretty sad that I didn't feel I could continue. But the course wasn't what I wanted. And my depression made it hard for me to stick it out. Funnily enough I bought my first proper 35mm film camera, an Olympus OM10 shortly before dropping out. And for two years I carried a film camera everywhere.

So here's my confession. As much as I still love film photography, as much as I still love the feel of a camera in my hands, the sound of the shutter clicking, and the eventual return of a developed film, I've become incredibly lazy with my photography.

Writing on this blog and messing with film photography have both taken a back seat to my job. Which is pathetic right? It's not even like my job is particularly engaging or interesting. I work in a contact centre. I used to love my job. Now I'm pretty indifferent.

I realised a few months back that I didn't have a good work/life balance. And that realisation led me to something of a mental breakdown. It drove me to reassess some things. That breakdown and my 29th birthday created the '30 before 30' list.

So on my list went the notion of getting all the undeveloped films that have been hanging around for these past couple of years developed. If you're not doing it yourself, getting films developed can be costly depending on where you go. So I took some time to find somewhere reasonable who would develop and put my images on a CD.

I found Photo Express, packaged up 3 films with an order form, posted it on Monday and got them back on Thursday. It was really exciting to look through the little contact sheet of my images and see photos from so long ago. The majority of them are from 2013!

So this is roll 1, from May 2013 when me and Andy went to Crosby Beach for the day. We wanted to see Anthony Gormley's 'Another Place'. It was a nice day.

This is just a selection of course. I'm not tech savvy enough to find a way to put masses of photos on a post without making it the world's biggest post. Maybe that can be something for me to look into as this goes on.

So for now I hope you enjoy the first of my developed rolls. Rolls 2 and 3 happened to have been from the same event so there'll be a bigger post about those later. And I've got 3 more films packaged up ready to send off. Wonder what else I've photographed in the past?

4. revive my blog - sorta - again - if I try really hard

Well I've done a really good job of reviving my blog haven't I? I have to question whether blogging is really the thing for me since life just continually gets in the ruddy way. Weirdly I don't feel like I'm ever actually doing anything with my life. One thing I'm definitely not doing is working on my blog. But how else am I spending my time that means I'm not able to sit down and write posts for my blog?

Truthfully it's laziness. I spend my whole day at work staring at a computer. When I get home I just want to go into mindless zone. Totally switch off from having to engage with anything. It's fine to do such things but I think I need to keep it in moderation from now on.

So the initial idea of reviving my blog was part of my 30 before 30 list. All those ideas of things I wanted to achieve before I turn 30 this coming October. How am I doing? Well...

Since October, I've achieved precisely 4 of those things. Now admittedly one of those things is especially big and utterly life changing (I'll post about that later) but c'mon, I could be doing better. We all know it.

A few weeks I sat down and looked at that list and I thought to myself, how am I going to do this? How do I get back on track? So I gave myself loose deadlines for when I hoped to achieve certain things by. I identified things I could give a definite time for and singled these out. Things that require continual work...well you've got to start something in order to continue with it.

Now let me tell you what I have definitely planned. 3 things from my list that I am definitely going to achieve before I turn 30.

1. go to Edinburgh zoo and see the pandas
This is mere weeks away. We've booked a hotel, we've booked train tickets, we've booked a late Valentines' day meal. Ok so we still need to book our actual zoo tickets and panda tickets. But oh my we're finally going to Edinburgh and I'm really excited! Will it be terribly tacky of me to wear my tartan scarf at all times?

2. go to Harry Potter studio tour again
Like many others, I'm a big Harry Potter fan. Back in August 2014 (so long ago!) I took my nephew to the Harry Potter studio tour because I had been promising him for ages and he finally pulled me up on it. He was 8 at the time. It was amazing and magical of course. But I tell you what, doing something like that for the first time wasn't as amazing and as magical as it could have been if I'd gone with my peers. So I asked my mate if she wanted to go for her birthday. And I finally pinned her down on a date. So at the beginning of May, we're off to cry about Harry Potter together and drink a butterbeer.

27. go on a trip to Aberystwyth
This one might have seemed a little random when I included it on my list. But my other half's family (on his dad's side) are from Wales originally. So we talked a while back about going on a trip to Wales at some point. Since there's a cousin in Aberystwyth, we're going to see her and her family. We've booked a nice hotel on the coast for a few days over my boyfriend's birthday in June. We're mostly going to see family, enjoy some nice walks, and spend quite a bit of time in pubs. Sounds perfect to me.

How's that? 3 adventures planned before October. In the grand scheme of my 30 before 30 list, it might not seem much. I guess planning trips is pretty easy really. But I'm trying. Really I am!

I have a couple of other things I need to post about and hopefully I'll find some time over the coming weekend to work on those. But stick with me, I will pick this blogging lark back up again.

7. read all the unread books on my shelves

I imagine that those of us who are avid readers all have a books to read pile. Either by your bed, on their own shelf on your bookcase or maybe even on your desk. I'm talking a physical pile of books, not a list of books you keep as something to read one day but an actual stack of books.

You tell yourself you won't buy any more until you've depleted that pile. But then you find yourself in a bookshop whilst wasting time on your lunch. Or you see someone raving about a book they've just read and it's cheap online. Maybe you're in a charity shop and see a book with a cover that jumps out at you. Since you're known for your love of books, family and friends buy you gift vouchers which you just have to spend. This stack of books becomes something that is constantly topped up but the bottom of which is never reached.

I have a stack of books that I have been meaning to read. Some of the books in this stack have been there for nearly 5 years. That's a really long time to have not read a book. I'm actually a bit ashamed to admit that. So another of my ideas for my 30 before 30 list was to read through this stack of books.

As you can see it is not a small pile. It is a pretty varied mix so I'm hoping that will keep me interested in working through it. I tend to dip in and out of reading but have been doing it more frequently since I purchased a Nook eReader. Whatever you do, do not ask me about the books I have to read on my Nook, I'm not including those. Otherwise I would be spending the next 11 months doing nothing but reading. Which sounds glorious but is wholly impractical.

Reading is one of life's finest pleasures so I'm looking forward to working on this. I won't promise not to buy any more books but I am going to prioritise reading these first. I'll keep you updated on how I get on.

6. attend a beer festival

When I wrote up my 30 before 30 list, I aimed for realistic achievements. #6 on my list was attend a beer festival. Now I have to confess, we already had this planned before I wrote up my list. So was this a cheat of an idea? I don't like to think so. You see at the start of the year, the only resolution we made was to drink 52 beers in 52 weeks. And when I say beer I don't mean lager. I mean ales and stouts and the like, real beers. We hit 52 beers ages back so I decided to double my target to 104 beers by the end of the year. So we talked quite a bit about exploring new bars and even attending a beer festival to get the best variety of brews.

It was with that in mind that we bought tickets for the Independent Manchester Beer Convention (IndyManBeerCon/IMBC). From their own website IMBC describes itself as "a world class showcase for the best breweries from the UK and beyond. Taking over the stunning surrounds of the Grade II listed, architectural gem Victoria Baths for its 4th year from Thursday 8th October to Sunday 11th October, IMBC brings together the most progressive, forward thinking breweries from across the UK, Europe and USA for a multisensory, headlong, hop- forward beer extravaganza."

With 6 sessions held over the 4 days we bought tickets for Friday evening and Sunday. So after work on Friday, we headed down to Victoria Baths. Now considering this was both our first trip to Victoria Baths and our first beer festival, that Friday evening was a little overwhelming. Victoria Baths is a beautiful building so we were a little distracted by our surroundings and quite baffled by the huge choice of beers. We wandered from room to room, trying to make sense of the online beer list, and navigate around the crowd (beer festivals can be quite the sausage fest if you know what I mean). In total I had a solid 6 beers on Friday night but now of them really stood out to me as amazing. Nothing I fell in love with.

Sunday was a much better experience. Seeing Victoria Baths flooded by natural light was stunning and I can massively see the appeal of getting married there, it's such a special building. The crowd didn't feel as overwhelming on the Sunday and I made the choice to stick to the types of beers I like. For me that can be a dangerous game as I am a dark beer girl, give me your stouts and porters please. But I loved it. I drank some really delicious beers on Sunday. The walk home was a bit more stumbled as I drank a heftier 8 beers in total but I have no regrets.

Overall I had a great weekend at IMBC and I would definitely go again in the future. It was such an interesting experience and helped me hit my boozy target for the year (I'm actually up to 107 beers now). I'm sad we didn't take more advantage of the amazing canning service, where you could get any beer canned to take home but lesson learnt for next time! What a great way to kick off my 30 before 30 though.

30 before 30!

On 3rd October, I turned 29. The idea of this did not remotely bother me leading up to the day itself. I don't get all worked up about birthdays, it's just another day after all. But come the big day and this phrase kept ticking over in my mind, '30 before 30'.

It was perhaps inspired by a friend's Facebook status about what she wanted to achieve before her 30th. I scoffed at it initially. Discussed it with my boyfriend (who turned 30 earlier this year) and laughed about the ridiculous goals that people in general set for themselves.

But then that phrase kept going round in my head. Before I knew it, I had 6 ideas written down. Then 11 ideas. And then I was sitting at my desk trying to think of 19 more (and feeling very frustrated when they weren't immediately obvious).

I wanted to set ideas that I believe are genuinely realistic and achievable. Researching the concept of '30 before 30', I came across list after list that were filled with ideas which were financially impossible unless you are flush with cash or incredibly well connected. I am neither of those things. I also wanted to avoid setting ideas that resembled the usual dross you see around new year. This isn't about changing who I am as a person or setting myself up for failure. This is about experiences, achievements, and ideas that I could actually do.

So here's my list, my '30 before 30'...

These aren't in any particular order, I recorded them as I thought of them. And my boyfriend has already sweetly pointed out the contradiction of buying a car and working towards being debt free. But c'mon, I'm not looking for an expensive car and by the end of this year I'll be down to just my loan to pay off. 

Now I did plan to write a little explanation for each of these but I think this post has been long enough as it is. Some of these things are already in progress which is a pretty encouraging start! By posting this then I'm already working on #4, revive my blog. And I plan to post for each idea I achieve so you can look forward to at least 29 more posts in the future.

Wish me luck!

A revival

It's been a long time since I felt I had anything worth posting on here. There's been some changes in my life but I'll get round to posting about those in due course. For now, I wanted to say hello again. Let you know that more things are coming. In fact another post is just around the corner.

However I felt it's polite to say hello before jumping right back into blogging.