Photo-an-hour day

Every so often on twitter I see photographic challenges.  I suspect these are designed around the idea of getting nice shots, showing off your photographer, and I suppose improving your photography.  However I just like taking pictures of things, and recording my life, and jumping on bandwagons so when I decided to do it the pictures were obviously pretty bad, but since I did decide to do it I'm going to do a blog about them.  Lucky you!

I did this last Saturday.  I think I was spurred on by the idea that I'd be in all day and so would have my camera to hand.  I got up late, about 11am, and realised this meant I'd have less hours to forget to take the photos, which seemed like a good idea.

So. My first photo. Breakfast at 11.40am:

Or rather half a breakfast. I have no idea what was on the plate.  Possibly a cookie.  More likely toast with jam.  In the bowl is thick porridge with sultanas.  Getting up late means I'm much hungrier than when I get up at 7 or 8am for work, which is why I had the porridge and unidentifiable but eaten plate of stuff.  Usually I just have porridge.  The pills are a combination of vitamin pills and an antihistamine for a shitty dust mite allergy I developed about 8 years ago.

Second photo.  Our fully stocked fridge, 12.40pm:

We do 90% of our weekly food shop at the market and we get our vegetables from the organic veg stall.  It's more expensive than non organic stuff, but it's better for you.  I like shopping from the same people each week and I like now knowing what you can get.  We just buy whatever they've got and then I think about what to make with it.  This sometimes means we have a mix of assorted veg which don't really go, but we usually manage to use it all up.
The brussell sprouts got turned into bubble and squeak (brussells, cabbage, garlic, onion, butter to fry, bacon and potatoes, it was delicious).
The mushrooms eventually got used in a vegetarian bean chili.
The fennel, cucumber and celery get turned into a salad for my lunch (add balsamic vinegar and pepper, have with cheese and crackers or add to brown rice).
The red peppers can get put into a tomato and pepper sauce for pasta (always add sun dried tomatoes) or can go into the chili mentioned above.

Third photo.  Tea, 1.54 pm:

I had to work on Saturday and I think this tea was me reconciling myself to it and gearing up to make it happen.  My mug is wonderful.  You could almost say super.  Boom tish.  Sorry.

Fourth photo.  The en-warmening. 14.42pm:

I'm not very good at remembering to take photos on the hour. Oops.
OK, so this photo is all about the stuff that makes me warm.  I loathe winter.  I hate the cold and I'm too tight to turn our house into a sauna, so I wrap up from October to March.  In this picture is:

• My amazing fire coloured fleece/knitted jumper
• My ombre/dark fire fleece/knitted mittens, which are perfect for winter and keep me going.
• My slippers, a couple of years old now but warm and fluffy.
• The blanket we bought in Derbyshire over Christmas which quite often goes across my legs.

Fifth photo. Leisure activities, 15.58pm:

I'd been working for a couple of hours by this point but my boyfriend was having a much better Saturday.  He was making marmalade - that orange mess in the pan - and watching the birds.  You can probably just see the bird feeder through the windows.  1 minute before I took this photo the feeder was covered in blue tits, great tits, blackbirds and long tailed tits.
The blackbirds have worked out how to sit on the seed holder and get the food out, and they can eat 70% of the food in a day.

Sixth photo.  The work station.  16.48pm:

The book isn't part of the work.  That's the boyfriend's.  It's a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories, non fiction and poetry and is apparently quite dire.  I appear to have switched mugs by this point, to a British Sea Power (a band) bee gone mug.  The pepper mill was there since my mid afternoon lunch, which started off as heinz chicken noodle soup.  I soon realised that was pretty rank, threw it out, and had noodles, frozen beans and cheese instead.  With pepper.

Seventh photo. Computing data, 17.31pm:

Twitter is what I would have liked to have been doing.  Looking up synonyms for combat is what I was actually doing.  For work.  Yes, I was still working at 5.30pm on Saturday.  It's a good thing I quite like my job.

Eighth photo.  Casual cosplay, 18.23pm:

I'd by this point finished work (hooray!) and had changed to go out for dinner. The blue top is a dress that I added the blue lantern patch to a few years ago for a Blue Lantern outfit for LSCC.  I put the green light cardigan because a) it's winter and the dress is sleeveless and I get chilly, and b) blue needs to be combined with green for hope to work.  Only DC Lantern fans are going to get that.

Ninth photo.  Starter.  7.30pm ish:

From now on times are approximate because I was too busy with dinner to tweet the photos at the time I took them.

We went to an vegetarian Indian restaurant called Namaste, which I hadn't been to for a couple of years,  It's really good.  This started is called Special Chat and it's a mixture of puri bread, potato, chick peas, bombay mix, onions, yogurt, tamarind sauce, pomegranetes and chat masala (I don't know what that is).  It's served at room temperature, which in February in England means cold.  It's nice, but I found it a bit much towards the end of the bowl.  I suspect it would be better when the weather is hot.

Tenth photo.  The main course, 8pm ish:

  

I'd been determined to get this since we'd decided on the restaurant.  It's called a dosa.  It's a massive pancake stuffed with spicy potatoes and peas, served with a runny dahl soup and a coconut chutney and it's delicious.
The thing in the background that looks like a pizza is an uttapam.  It has chillis and onions on it so really wasn't the sort of thing I liked.  It also had a dahl with it.
My boyfriend got the pav bhaji which is a vegetable curry served with rotis and was also delicious.
This restaurant is so damn good,

Eleventh photo.  The remnants of dessert.  9.30pm ish:

I forgot to take a picture of it before I ate it so here's a photo of the dessert's empty bowl.  It was ice cream with a gulab jamun (little doughnut in cardamom syrup).  I preferred the ice cream and syrup to the doughnut but it was all pretty good, and small, so you weren't overpowered by it.  There were also some nuts in it, I think.  My friend got the dish named Vegan Paradise, which is chopped up banana, cashew nuts, almonds and mango pulp.  That looked amazing.

Bonus photo: picture of the artwork on the walls.

One of the reasons this restaurant is so good is because they don't serve alcohol.  They allow you to bring your own wine and beer but you have to pay a corkage charge, which means people don't turn up and get wrecked.  The emphasis is on the food and creating dishes which suit the vegetables.

Twelfth photo.  Bedtime.  10.30pm ish:

I've been reading this book for a few weeks and it's not bad.  Some stories are fun and surprising, others are more dull.  I like reading fantasy anthologies, I find them a great way to get to know new writers.  So much of fantasy is turgid by the numbers crap I am dissuaded from just picking up a new title.  But this one is alright.

So that was my day.  I told you the photos would be terrible quality!  Did you notice what was missing from this day?  Comics, that's what.  Because I was working I didn't get to the shop.  I intended to go in today, but had to work late, so I determined to go in tomorrow.  I think I've got 2 or 3 weeks worth of stuff to pick up.