Judith Chalmers I am not !

I had always wanted a good camera, and as I am now settling into my forties, it was something that had been on my mind for some time, I had visions of my photographs of Pendle Hill, a Red Admiral Butterfly or even a misty lake with a Drogonfly hovering just above the surface, being displayed on North West tonight or in the latest edition of Lancashire Life. And so when the opportunity to purchase one at a very competitive price I took the plunge and planned to make my dreams a reality.
Oh this was a splendid piece of modern technology, it was sleak, sexy, smooth and had one of those lenses that popped out for what seemed like forever.
 I was keen to give it a try before my annual trip into Europe and so went down the farm path, where I photographed a Motorway Bridge, a tree, a puddle, a cow, a magpie, another cow, my feet, a fence and a Bull, which quite possibly could have been another cow! I was trying to master the auto focus, macro, flash etc and in truth out of about 50 snaps, 50 probably wouldn't  have made the local rag let alone regional television. I was that serious about honing my skills I spent a good 5 to 6 minutes in the back garden following a Bee as he stripped my flowers of nectar whilst I struggled in avoiding dog poo, my beloved pet had left for me to negotiate.

So there I was a few weeks ago at Manchester Airport, huffing and puffing, sweating and frustrated, angry and well and truly at the end of my tether. In my ideal pre flight programme, I would have had a couple of hours to peruse the over priced tax free perfumes, gasp at the price of M & M s and wonder to myself who actually shopped In the very chique Monsoon store in the departure lounge of the North Wests biggest airport. Does anybody plan to do a bit of clothes shopping before they jet off to Benidorm or any other exclusive destination Terminal 2 has to offer?
It all started so well, We Arrived at the airport in good time,I even remember hugging my wife at the bus stop.  We were whisked away by the shuttle bus which arrived in no time at all. We jumped on with excitement and enthusiasm for the long trip ahead. We got through check in nice and quickly, or so we thought, and made our way into to the thronging departure lounge which resembled a plague of ants on a discarded "Fab" ice lolly lying on a sticky pavement. It was heaving, but still cheerful and optimistic we made our way to the food hall fully prepared to pay an extortionate price for a hot meal that had been cooked to within an inch of disintegration. We scambled around for a table to seat the five of us, but then all of a sudden the harmony had been shattered, one wanted, Burger King, one wanted Deli Bar, The good lady and my self weren't fussed and another wanted Mcdonalds, which as far as I,m aware doesn't exist in T2. The queue to all food stations was longer than the opening of a new ride at Alton Towers, and after much deliberation as to which would be the quickest of the stupidly long queues, we decided non would match our increasing sense of impatientness and decided to seek another eating emporium about a mile up the other end of the departure lounge. After more pontificating we decided that all Food Halls in terminal two were "no go" areas and as our increased desperation increased, my eyes were drawn to the Boots concession offering sun creams, travel pillows, and the world renowned "Meal Deal!" My heart sank and with the body language of a defeated human being, I suggested to my Wife, that the Boots Meal deal was the only viable way we were going to have a holiday "nosh up" before we were called to the departure gate!
Oh the disappointment that swept through our family that we couldn't spend way over the odds for a cold Burger with shriveled fries and a cup of ice was almost too much to bare, but before we could consider any other options my darling wife and hit the fridge and I was left holding our leopard skin hand luggage. To be honest I pretty much abandoned the luggage and decided that a 30 metre range would be adequate to observe our cases as I took a seat where I could wallow in self pity! Just as I begun to wallow, I felt a self awareness of being light of baggage, and realized I hadn't taken any pictures of aeroplanes taking off or the annual family picture of us looking completely underwhelmed at the prospect of a 3 or 4 hour flight across countries we hadn't heard of! Feelin my torso for my new state of the art camera, I patted away, checked pockets that didn't exist until I was met with utter despair that my new toy was not safely around my neck, nor strapped to my waist, under my holiday hat nor any bloomin where for that matter.
  My wife emerged from Boots armed with 5 meal deals mine being a tuna-less tuna sandwich, to be met by me in state of total despair at the loss of my piece of technology that was going to transform the future of photographic images. I ran through the terminal like a a Father that had not seen his long lost son for decades, and asked people sat at tables, men with foreign accents serving orange juice, security guards that looked unwell, everybody and anybody, but nobody had seen my camera, I had slipped into a uncontrollable mental state, my life had been shattered the world had turned against me and I wanted everyone to know!
  My dearest wife on the other hand kept her composure very very well and with only a little flapping took it on herself to bring some order to proceedings and gently nipped back into Boots where she re-emerged a short time later armed with 2 disposable cameras and another 5 meal deals!
"What the hell?" I inquired. to which she rationally explained, "Alex, we still needed a camera, and we hadn't book for the on flight meals"!
  A few days later, we were on a delightful boat trip, bobbing up and down in a secluded bay in the glorious, picturesque Aegean Sea in the South of Turkey, my children were looking happy and cooling off  in the warm sea, when  my wife suggested a family picture, So there I was with my Boots disposable camera, looking through a plastic eyepiece about a cm in diameter, click, wind, click, wind, click wind ! The good holiday makers of Europe were nudging one another is astonishment that in this day and age people were still using the "Trueprint" method of photograpy, in fact I swear a man from the Ukraine took a picture of me taking pictures.  Many wonderful memorable evening events were missed as I waited for the flash light to appear. Some days later we persuaded one of our daughters that her bog standard Vivitar camera was better in our possesion and so most of our snaps are of low quality and frustratingly rather average.
Our other snaps will be available some time in the next 28 days. This years holiday pics just about crawl into double figures and is well off  the 2 to 3 thousand clips I was preparing to capture.

So the christian message!
Proverbs 15:18 

A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel,

I was hot, I stirred up much dissension, and it was a patient woman the calmed the quarrel.

May peace be with you all this day
with love from
Alextheanglican