It’s my birthday…

It’s my birthday and I’ll play with my camera all day long if I want to! Yes, today I reached the grand old age of 33. Amélie woke me up with a cuddle, then Hanno got up to go and buy our favorite breakfast treat: craquelin (Belgian sugar bread). Amélie and I sat in bed reading together until we were called through to the table where Han had laid out breakfast and a big pile of presents. As we ate, I opened them (with some assistance from a very keen little helper).

There was a huge bag of Haribo sweets, some fancy-pants Belgian chocolates, some book vouchers from my gran, a lovely selection of hand creams, soaps and foot massage lotion and – something I had really really wanted – a beautiful Moleskine diary. I was really really happy. AND THEN… Hanno got up and wondered off… Only to reappear a few seconds later holding another, unexpected present. “This one” he said “is from me, Amélie and Tara“! This in itself was very exciting and made me feel all smooshy: my husband and one of my best friends going to all that effort to make me happy and to surprise me. I was already grinning like a loon and then I pulled off the wrapping paper. Inside was a 100mm 2.8 Macro lens! This is a lens I have been dreaming about for quite a while. I thought I was going to have to save up for YEARS and now, here it was, in my sticky little mitts! I think I screamed quite a lot.

So, as you can imagine, I have spend a fair part of the day taking really big pictures of really small things. It’s such a great great lens. I really do love it. I think it’s going to take me a while to produce something worthwhile with it though. So instead, below, is a picture I thought of a few days ago but hadn’t had time to set up. It’s a silly idea based on that moment when you get home from work and, before you’ve even had time to take off your shoes or coat, you’re jumped on by your child who wants to play. I say it’s a silly idea because I actually love that moment and, because I cycle to and from work, I’m already wearing scruffy clothes when I get home and I’m quite happy to roll around on the floor tickling Amélie. But I do wonder what people might think if they could see me sitting on the floor in Amélie’s room drinking tea out of a tiny teacup and eating wooden birthday cake…

Oh yes, and the odd pencils sticking out of my top? Well, that’s what I spend the other half of my time doing in the evenings: drawing with Amélie. So I wanted to incorporate it somehow. I should probably have scattered some of her drawing paper around me too. Next time maybe.