Tomorrow sees the running of the Blue Diamond Stakes at Caulfield Racecourse.  I've always liked the day....  As a general rule you can expect to see some of the best WFA horses running, both middle distances and sprinter-milers, not to mention great sprinters and of course those precocious 2 year olds.  The company has always been nice too. I was suffering from a sore tummy this morning.  My mood was not helped by the fact that my microwave still smelt of burnt chocolate....  I see you shaking your head in dismay, saying to yourself 'you burned what?????? '...  I discovered the hard way that normal eating chocolate doesn't melt well.  I blame the 8 year old daughter.  She picked it out, to put melt to put on the strawberries for dessert...  Not me....  It started to burn on the gentle heat of the gas cooktop, so I switched it to the microwave on the melt setting..  Only to see it come out actually smoking with real smoke pou...

From time to time I find myself reading other photographers' Blogs.  They are often insightful, frequently funny, and make me sit and wonder about things.  Quite often they are very high profile photographers too, like Delly Carr and Joe McNally for example who I've followed for awhile.  It's hard to imagine a photographer as great as Delly Carr having a bad day, or a bad shoot, or having a crisis of confidence.  Do you believe that this happens to him??  I've been reading his Vodka Borsch and Tears Blog posts.  They are great!  His commentary on the KGB and how much toast and rolls of butter he thinks he's allowed to have make the edges of my mouth curl in a smile, as I read with the nail of my thumb in my mouth. Just has his tendency to want to scream out loud with the exertion of dragging 25 kgs of equipment up what seems like hundreds of stairs. Delly Carr - Vodka Borsch and Tears... Reading his recent Blog (Part III - see link above...

I'm aching and tired tonight, as the title of this post indicates. I had phone calls I should have made today, having finally gotten around to checking my voicemails today, but in the end I couldn't summon up the energy. I'm sure those in question will forgive me for an extra day.   I've been riding today, and then this afternoon it was the usual chaos of school pick up, getting dinner ready, plus pulling together a portfolio of images to show a picture editor at a meeting which is supposed to be tomorrow morning. That is of course provided his day doesn't turn disastrous which can always happen.  I'm supposed to have a photoshoot in the afternoon too.  I'm sore because I've been on a horse for a total of about 4 hours today. This is far longer than I'm used to and I don't have that much riding fitness yet.  My neck and kneels are sore and I'm stiff all over.  It's not going to be pretty tomorrow. Archie continues to delight me....

I'm struggling to watch the news right now with the tragedy in Tyabb, which is so close to us, still so raw and fresh in everyone's mind.  In addition to this I also had a rough night with Jessica last night and because she was unwell I kept her home today with me.  I seem to be wanting to hug my children close at the moment.  Some of the children at school knew Luke Batty.  His mother's agony must be unendurable.  For these reasons I am glad to have the autumn carnival upon me and my little behind the scenes projects to work on, not to mention working the very beautiful Archie who goes better every time I get on him. Horses always seem to make things feel better.  I was supposed to dash into Melbourne again today, but Jessica being unwell meant that this wasn't possible.  I don't get a lot of enjoyment from of a media call type of photoshoot though, they tend to be restrictive and staged, so I wasn't all that fussed about missing it, and it was t...

I'm tired and deflated this evening, despite the fact that it was a good day until about 6pm.  I was on the go in Melbourne all day today with a couple of photoshoots, and in between the 2 shoots I caught up with my Dad, Sister and her partner for lunch.  Jessica had dance this afternoon after school, during which time Heath and I wandered around the little village centre.  We went to the truly ace art shop, had a coffee and a milkshake then returned to school to get Jessica.  We then drove 10 minutes up the road - would you believe that there is a KMart so close to us??!  Jessica has a birthday party to go to on Saturday so we had a present to shop for, and because I was feeling little protective of my kids after events far too close to home last night in the area, I was softer than usual and they were allowed to spend $19 each..... However the evening quickly fell apart once we were inside.  I was in the process of unloading the car and getting dinne...

My writing has dropped off over the last week.  I'm not sure why, I've gone to start, but then just ended up doing other things instead.  Perhaps I also just didn't feel like writing much recently either.   I bounced into the Press Room at Caulfield on Saturday, despite the beginnings of a stinking hot day which usually renders me completely hopeless and grouchy.  When my ace friend Gatty saw me his face broke out in a grin, he opened his arms and hugged me saying "you're a Melbourne Girl now!!!!"   He said my face was glowing, and happiness was radiating out of me and that's he only ever once seen me this happy.  One of the best feelings was to be able to arrive at the track without having gotten up at Stupid O'Clock to catch a plane, or having just driven a stupid amount of kilometres.  Even better was also not having to do it for the return trip north.  It was the best feeling in the world.  No one was more pleased than me wi...