Snap, Crackle and Pop

Well after an invigorating trip to London to see the Queen...okay actually it was Golfy, but he carries a royal presence!  I was almost tempted to go for the drag queen approach, but erred caution...

...anyway his wise words of wisdom which actually covered many subjects resulted in me spending my hard earned wonga on a new gadget.
Now I have been toying with this idea for years and could never quite justify it, even when Mrs Stretch gave me permission it always seemed that there was a catch and to many of my married readers you should know what I mean when what a woman says is not actually what she says!
So now I have a new Nikon D5000 with 2 lenses and flashgun and extra kit

 

I have to say she has done me very proud already.  You see as well as having the wise words from Golfy, and permission from Mrs Stretch (ish), I also had the Sister-In-Laws wedding at the weekend and I was asked to be the photographer for the day.  Now this is my 2nd wedding photography booking in the last 4 months and I have another one next month.  What started out as a favour has not exactly snowballed but it has continued!  Which means I must be doing something right!  And to be honest I love it.  Yes it is nerve-racking and tiring (your legs and glute muscles really ache the next day!), and very time consuming.  Obviously it takes up the bulk of the day, but it also takes up every spare moment for weeks afterwards.  Luckily I had undisturbed time on my train trips to and fro the big smoke to do lots of editing and tweaking.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattstretch/

Squeezed in

So here I am sat on the train.  Okay I will correct that I am squeezed on a train.  It is nothing to do with the guy sat next to me, whom at some point in the next 5 minutes is bound to be tempted to read my screen.  And that is not the reason why I am saying it is not his fault, but it is clearly the day and age that we are in, whereby every company beliefs they can squeeze every ounce out of people.  This is especially more the case in a captive audience.  I don’t have much choice about what train company I want to use to get to London (my destination for the day), so Rail company decides that they can put in more seats which are smaller, they have no tables.  I know I am slightly larger than average, but seriously this is ridiculous.  I have heard about another company I think RyanAir looking to having saddle seats which are basically a mix between standing but perched on a saddle; that way you need less leg room but you do get to sit-ish.

My train journey is less enjoyable by the fact that I don’t have a table and there were none to choose.  I could have sat next to someone from the 2^nd stop which is where I get on, but I always think this looks strange when there are blocks of seats which are empty but of course they don’t have seats.  The next reason my journey is not great today is due to the fact that my audiobook on my iPod is not working it seems that Weread4you books are rubbish.  They play okay on my laptop so I do get to listen to it now, but it is not that portable!!  I don’t want to be walking around the tube with my laptop in tow.  So with my laptop finally out and keeping my knees warm I have been able to get a smidge of work done, my blog written (nearly) for the day and had a battle of elbows with my neighbouring passenger who also has their laptop out.

Today in the big smoke will be ending in an enjoyable bypass to Westminster and meeting up with Golfy.  A great catch up is indeed needed especially as Starfleet are trying to squeeze an extra ounce of there best and probably only asset they have left!

In the words of Rolf Harris - The Cat Came Back

Harris - Cat Came back

so really has it really taken me this long to think of an appropriate title to return with?  No, not really.  Unfortunately time has slipped between my fingers and it is never retrievable.  So for my many readers I can only apologise.  Even the cryptic Badman could not populate my blog for me - shame, but his makes for such a great read to alleviate the misery of all those that have missed mine.

So the update goes along this line:
We had Christmas - a nice time with family, didn't go overboard and didn't drink.  Now the lack of alcohol was not quite my choice but Mrs Stretch's who decided that I should be on constant standby in case baby made an appearance over Christmas - and tho and behold the baby did not make an appearance!
We had a baby and will forever more on blogging be known as "baby".  A not so novel but somewhat appropriate name.
Starfleet as me still here and I have moved around to slightly different work.  We have some internal rebranding and some new tools, and just had a cheery call from Bendy Ears which doesn't give much hope!

So was that really what I have achieved in my absence... well you cannot underestimate the time that baby takes up but the enjoyment is unmeasurable.

okay, that is the brief update and the bite size teaser to keep you coming back and more importantly for me to keep writing!