This took place between the 27.09 to the 02.10 and before writing anything further I will re-quote Aldous Huxley - “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries,” which here again is very true.
Fantastic people, wonderful country which no doubt has it's own faults, bandits and whatever, same as everywhere else.
We were in Sibiu and Brasov mainly with rides out into the mountains.
Thanks go out to the organisers who did a wonderful job of it. Also to the 1x'ers who as on my only other get together with them are great folk with a penchant for mega amounts of laughter. Thanks my sides are still sore.
Next Autumn is already planned for a major trip back down there.

Last minute packing of the van still to go and then ready for the off. Plan on leaving Düsseldorf at about 02:00 on the morning of the 02.09 and hope we don't get into trouble with long waits for the ferry in Dunkirk. First couple of days in Folkestone before heading across to Cardiff. This will be followed by the "Bestest" near Stamford. Then through the Peaks, Pie Town and on to Skye and the Highlands. After that all open.

Well after the Dordrecht meet with 1x members on the 30th April and 1st May, which despite my earlier scepticism, turned out to be a wonderful week end full of great folks, I started catching up on image processing etc. Even posted a few, which were bounced, and this puts ones ego back into perspective as there really are an awful lot of good photographers out there.

Anyway was moving ahead and getting ready to meet up with No.1 son with his lovely lady in Bavaria close to Passau for some prime time together. Unfortunately Murphy was lurking and what could go wrong did so with a vengeance.
Early hours of the morning of 10th June found me in an Ambulance with all the bells and whistles on turbo getting a free ride to the University Hospital in Düsseldorf with a ruptured appendix and me feeling a wee bit sorry for myself. This also managed to cause a hernia.🤕

Anyway on the 24th June I was back home all patched up with two nice new scars for the collection and generally a bit chaste and sore. All's well though and time and perseverance will fix all and onward we go. Especially having had such a forceful demonstration that time can be very short and immortal we most certainly are not.

Only good thing about it was I had the biggest (legal) high of my life because before I went into the first emergency op they dosed me up with three bombs of Morphine. They had to strap me down to keep me getting stuck to the ceiling. They more or less kept me in the land of Morpheus for three days with a couple of small doses afterwards. Brutal they are after three days its cold turkey and no whining helps. Bang straight back into the real world.😡

Lucky again and its good to be around. Had to cancel the meet in Passau though for obvious reasons, just as well really, had a message from No.1 yesterday from Cardiff Airport. It seems an un-named member of their party had forgotten to check if their Passport was valid!😜 No further comment.

So revised plans for the year are simply to get as fit as possible for the trip across to Britain on 2nd August. Will drive down to Cardiff to see No.1 and Co. Then Stamford to say hello to the Very Besets in the World for a kiss and a cuddle. From there a ride through the Peaks to Cumbria and on to the Highlands.

Want to be back by 20th September in time for the Photokina in Köln. After that short local trips in the T5 and Caddy to get myself and all top fit again. Big plans for 2017 but I'm holding off on making any firm plans until sure that am up to it.

One good thing about it all is I won't be having another problem with my "friend" the appendix again, nasty little bastard he wus.

The 103rd. is behind us, all peaceful and happy. Great time with a wonderful woman.

Prep for the Norway trip in full swing and will be having the spiked tyres fitted on Tuesday and ready from the sneak up to the boarder and out of Germany on the 21st. Illegal here but the motorway is only 2 kms., away and once on that and hoping I avoid doing anything silly that attracts the attention of those that should not be attracted all should go well.

In the process of preparing to load up found that the back hatch will not close, which could be a bit of a problem by sub zero temperatures so thats to be fixed as well day after tyres fitted.

After that its just packing of winter wollies etc. Although a look at the weather forecast for around the Tromsø area, which is more or less as far north as I intend to go, is currently showing only around -5 degrees C so that is not too intimidating, been getting that here.

Aurora forecast is pretty dismal at the moment, all centred around Alaska and Canada
;~( Think positively I suppose is the motto and all things being equal there should be plenty of great image opportunities.

Well I finally managed to take delivery of my new toy as I mentioned on the 12.01 and am as happy as the proverbial pig in ….
The first evening I did nothing other than unpack it and then alternated between picking it up to get the feel of it and then putting it back down again
Too nervous to try anything with it, which given my clumsy paws was probably the right decision.
Yesterday was spent entirely reading the manual, understanding and making the various parameter settings. Late afternoon I actual got to take a couple of images to be sure it actually did so.
Today I finally took it out for a walk and revealed in the pleasure of using it.
Happy me.
Being Medium Format I guess its first big try out will be on the first Norway trip this year.

Happy New Year all round!
Not a lot to say, added a new post of the day and updated 2015 Travel Plans.
New Years resolution is to really make an effort to keep the site up to date.
Also I have just become a happy lad, camera dealer just rang and told me I can pick up my new toy. A Pentax 645Z 6x7 medium Format DSLR. Anyone know how to make tomorrow  be today?

Couldn't resist adding the Clock under the Home tab.

I've noticed that the Graffiti Slideshow can be slow on my machines, probably due to the fact it has way too many images in it, and the traffic at any given time of day.
I shall be leaving the images in their current location into the new year and then transfer across to the Graffiti spot under galleries. This will then presumably slow down that tab ;~D

Yesterday I was playing around with my old Pentax Spotmatic SPII, the one I had mentioned earlier and which I noted that I thought it had laid down and died.

Have finally managed a mini update.

Updated is the following:

Home page. Comments and images.

Travel-Added the tentative 2014 ideas.

Galleries. Added some images to the B&W section.

Thats it.