I am on holiday. My work bag has been packed away in the cloak room next to the front door, my work boots are in the walk in robe in the bedroom and as soon as I get around to doing the ironing, my uniforms will be hanging in the robe for the next 5 weeks. You want to know how I celebrated it? I cooked myself a roast dinner. The works, roast beef, baked potatoes, pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato and gravy. And I loved every minute of it. Still, I'm not quite completely in holiday mode just yet. It takes a few days to get used to not having to schedule what you want to do around what time I would be starting work. Usually the first week of my holiday time is spent just pottering around thinking about the things I can do while I'm free.

I do know that on Wednesday I'm heading up to the mountains to visit Lady Cathie The Insane which will mean quality time spent idly chatting away on her comfy chairs and lunching somewhere in Katoomba. The camera will be making the trip with me as well because there are no end of photo opportunities up that way. The Blue Mountains are one of my favourite places to be and since I was born in the hospital in Katoomba, it's almost (but not quite) like going home.

In a few weeks, I am going on an overnight trip to Coonabararan (my, there's a lot of "a"s in that word) with three of my workmates. Senior Driver Tebbet invited me after he had discussions with Drivers Reynolds and O'Brien over beers at the Commercial Hotel where it was revealed that I would be "good value" on such a trip. If you had asked me 10 years ago if I would ever consider spending time outside of work with my fellow workmates, I would have told you that you can't mix work and your personal life but I have come to realise that is just a stupid attitude to have and your workmates can actually be your friends as well. A lesson learned late, but not too late.

The rest of my 5 weeks off is take each day as it comes. I do have my usual scheduled gym classes but they can be moved around if something comes up. Plus there are a couple of jobs around the yard that I need to attend to now that I have the time, but other than that, there are no obstacles to doing what I want when I want. Last year, I went to America for Garry and Rebekahs wedding and that's really been the only organised holiday I've had, but a trip like that has to be organised. A few day trips here and there and I'll be happy. As long as the weather is fine and I can get out and take some photos, I will be able to say that I had a restful vacation.

I will also gloat whenever I can about everyone else being at work. That's just the kind of person I should be.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 190:- The 'Crystal Palace' at the Great Exhibition of 1851, contained 92,900 square metres of glass - imagine how many times a day someone had to clean off fingerprints.

The NEWS week is over and done for another year and I must say that it was exciting to watch a few days of sports, meet up with a bunch of new people from interstate and get reacquainted with some old friends. It doesn't matter that nothing ran to schedule or that a couple of the days ended up being extremely long. I ended up with over 1100 photographs which I have been diligently editing since Saturday night. Miraculously so far, I've managed to get about 250 done with only a few deletions.

This week is an easy one since I go on holidays on Sunday for 5 weeks. Yes folks, that's 5 restful weeks of getting enough sleep, eating food at regular hours, being able to get out and visit people, drink till I can't stand up (which is helpful since I usually go to bed after a few drinks) and best of all get out and snap photographs.

As part of the NEWS week, I ended up being somewhat of their "semi official" photographer. Not really a task I relished because at the end of the day, I am not a professional and certainly not up to the standards that would be expected of a sporting event. However, on the other hand, I looked at it as getting some experience in taking photos indoors in low light situations that also required high speed shutter speeds to capture the action. I think I did pretty good most of the time, but I definitely do need faster lenses (or glass as they like to say in the trade).

My friend Martin, who is also a fellow board member of Push And Power, the organisation that I run, also had his camera with him during the week and in my email today, I found this gem from him that he took on Saturday:

I've never seen myself from this angle before and it is disturbingly unflattering. It seems all that money I have been spending at the gym has actually been going to (my) waist. Looks like I know what I will be doing a lot of during my holidays.

Last week I got my stimulus money from the PM and I have decided to add a little to it and buy myself a new lounge to replace the futon that I currently sit on. It's a great thing to lie on while watching TV but it plays havoc with my back and butt when I have to sit on it. It certainly doesn't match up to the phrase "hurts so good". John Cougar Mellencamp lied.

I think that I'll have another lazy day tomorrow. Do a few more photos, hit the gym and the pool, then come home and prepare things for the return to Push And Power on Saturday. We start the second half of the competition and the games are going to be quite interesting because at this time of year, we split into an A and B Grade competition and the A Grade teams this year are more fairly evenly matched than they usually are. It's amazing how exciting a close game of wheelchair Rugby League can be no matter how many times you've seen it played.

I have some red wine and photos to sort through so I think it's time to sign off until next time. Remember, in these tough financial times there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Only thing is, be careful that it's not actually a train.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 189:- Between the two World War's, France was controlled by forty different governments - which explains why they hate everything.

It's that time of the year once again. Over at the Sydney Academy Of Sport at Narrabeen, the National Electric Wheelchair Sports (NEWS) guys are having their annual Rugby League, Hockey and Soccer competition and I'm heading over during the next five days to watch, cheer on the New South Wales team and photograph as many of the games as possible (and maybe hand out some trophies on Saturday afternoon). It's a good thing that my roster has me booked off for most of it and finishing early enough on the days I do have to work to enable me to arrive in time for the start of the games.

Unlike the Push And Power competition that I have been involved with for the last 9 years, NEWS is a competition that allows only people who have a neuromuscular disability and use a powerdrive wheelchair. You could almost think that this is a bit discriminatory, but in general, disabled sports in this country tends to be either disability or chair type driven and there are generally few organisations that mix every type of disability or chair type.

My introduction to the world of disabled sports was way back in the early 1980's when I was bumming around avoiding having to find a job. A friend of mine was a carer for a young fella who had muscular dystrophy and he asked me if I would be interested in looking after him for two weeks while he was on holiday. I accepted and found myself spending my days with an interesting guy called Danny Campbell-McLean and discovered that all my illusions of disabled people were wrong and, other than their bodies letting them down, they were just as normal (or strange) as me. Danny was also obsessed with the Balmain Rugby League team (the Tigers) but I never held that against him.

Through Danny, I was introduced to disabled sports because he played on Saturday mornings and he asked me if I wouldn't mind coming along and helping out. The games were played at the old Mt Druitt roller skating rink that was owned by Larry Stone (another fascinating character from my past I may talk about at a later date) and he donated two hours in the morning before opening time to this eclectic group of disabled kids to play their modified version of Rugby League. I found it such an interesting experience that even after I stopped being Danny's carer, I would accompany him on a Saturday to his games - I even ended up refereeing some of the games even though I have no idea what the rules of Rugby League are nor do I have any real interest in the game itself.

Time passed and I got myself a job and more or less lost contact with Danny but from those humble beginnings nearly 30 years ago, the Push And Power organisation came into existence and, over time, other organisations such as NEWS and the Australian Electric Wheelchair Hockey Association were formed and joined a slowly growing list of organisations that provide sporting opportunities for an enormous number of disabled people of all ages.

When I was a kid, disabled people were rarely seen and if they were, they were either ignored by the general public or stared at as being somewhat of a minor freak show. Thanks to the fact that attention has been brought to accessibility issues at schools and other public places, disabled people get to live more "normal" lives in mainstream society. A lot of the kids in Push And Power attend mainstream schools rather than special schools and this is something that has helped able bodied kids understand the difficulties disabled people have to put up with on a daily basis. I like to think that, as a society, we've progressed a bit on the moral and ethical side of things by actually noticing that disabled people exist and that the world is generally very disabled unfriendly - something we are rectifying slowly.

So for the next week I will have the unique opportunity to see some very interesting sporting activity and both catch up with familiar faces and meet some new ones. If any of you reading this are in the Narrabeen area, drop in and see what's happening - it's free to watch and you might learn something as well. You could even get to say howdy to me - I'll be the harried looking guy running around with the camera trying not to be run over.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 188:- In 1849, David Atchison became President of the United States for just one day, and he spent most of the day sleeping - at least that way he couldn't get into any trouble.

Dear reader, have you seen the Men In Black movies? Do you remember the very last scene in the first movie where they do a pull back with the camera and it is revealed that our universe is encased in a marble which is just one of many others being used in a game of intergalactic marbles? My mate Garry has a similar theory about our existence, only he thinks our universe is nothing more than a piece of lint in the pocket of an alien. For all I know, he could be right. There are times when he displays wisdom that I was unaware he could access in the 29 years I have known him.

I often have similar thoughts myself, only mine relate to such things like what if spiders (or any other creepy crawly) were the dominant species and we were the bugs of their world? It makes me think twice about putting my size 9 boot down on some random insect that has invaded my home - I tend to find myself looking for ways to transplant the critter to the outside world safely.

One of my more safe for children fantasies is that I am living a Truman Show kind of existence where the relatively small world I inhabit is populated by actors improvising for the benefit of some mysterious audience that I am unaware of. I know it isn't true in the same way my fanatsy about being adopted turned out to be untrue, but there are times when I like to think that the life I live is being directed by some unseen hands.

I know that isn't true. I take full responsibility for my actions and decisions and the resulting consequences of both, but that's what fantasy is all about. Escaping that reality for a short period of time. If you take my fantasy about being adopted, I have a copy of my birth certificate which tells me that I am related to my parents and my older brother (since my younger brother came after me, he isn't on it) but when I look at the kinds of people my parents were and how different I am to my brothers, I can't help but wonder how three people from the same gene pool and social structure could have such diverse lives.

None of us look like either of our parents or each other. If you were to put us in a random group of people, you couldn't pick us as being related. My two brothers have blonde hair - I guess you could call me a brunette. Everyone in the family wears or wore glasses - I have fantastic vision (although it is to be noted that I will claim that until the day I go blind). My brothers have this strange compulsion to be interested in organised sport - outside of my gym visits, I think that lazing around should be an Olympic sport.

When my mother passed away in 2000, I had to accept that I was actually born into my family whether I liked it or not. Looking at the major differences between myself and my siblings, this brings into question the concept of nature verses nurture. If nature was to be the dominant feature of mine and my brothers lives, then it is pretty much accepted that we would all be alcoholics and ridiculously aggressive. If nurture were the main player, then we would all be tolerant but against everything while having a bucket load of morals and ethics.

Thanks to my upbringing and the direction my life took because of it, I have come to question a lot of things I have believed in. My generally timid nature led me to blindly accept what people told me as fact but I've hardened up over time and look below the surface nowdays. Questioning is one of my favourite pastimes. Blind acceptance of something is just a ridiculous idea which leads to no end of trouble (just look at any dictatorship or religious movement). Stepping back and seeing the big picture makes for more rounded decisions about where life leads you.

My workmate Andy once gave me one extremely valuable rule in life - actions lead to consequences. I still fail to think before I do things a lot of the time but it has helped me at other times to surrender on issues that, in the end, could never be won. After all, a battle may be lost here and there but the war can be won anyway.

I'll probably keep daydreaming about the different ways my life could have turned out. It won't make a difference to where I end up but it will be a charming diversion when the pressure gets to me and diversions are really what we need in life when you really think about it.

Later days.'Trivial fact number 187:- Sir Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' cloakroom after his mother went into labour during a dance at Blenheim Palace - even the great have to be born somewhere.

Is it egocentric to have your name tattooed somewhere on your body or just something you would do for the hell of it? An interesting question which I probably wouldn't have thought about asking if I hadn't actually seen it on someone a couple of days ago.

By the way, I'm not anti tattoo. Those who know me know that I have three of them myself. Plus, I have seen some quite astounding ones on other people, with my favourite being a pair of sleeves on one of the inspectors at work where they make no sense at all until he puts his arms together and then it forms a very detailed picture of a junk yard - pure brilliance in my opinion. If I ever do a post on piercings, I'll tell you about the same inspectors work.

On another note, I once hypothesised that there was a correlation between the number of tattoos a person had to the size of their penis - i.e; the more tattoos, the smaller the penis (although how that works for women is a mystery). I was challenged by another workmate to make this announcement at a tattoo show but declined the generous offer on the grounds that I was allergic to being beaten to death by a horde of drunken tattoo enthusiasts.

Since I grew up in a very conservative household with parents who looked at the world in two colours - black & white - without any regard for the gray areas, it was always reinforced that things like tattoos were bad and that only bad people got them. For some reason, motorbikes also fell into this category so naturally a person with tattoos AND a motorbike was especially someone to avoid at all costs (if I had known my older half brother would fit into this category, I would never have been near him when I was 9 years old). As a result, I never got my ear pierced until I was 30 and my first tattoo came along when I was 35 - two midlife crises that cost a lot less than a Harley Davidson, Ferrari or a large breasted blonde.

In the past 10 years, I have developed a fondness for art in all it's varying forms including body art (or body modification), which is the new fancy politically correct name for tattoos. As with all art forms, there is the good (the aforementioned sleeves), the bad (my very first tattoo) and the downright WTF was that person thinking (my mate Garrys fathers el-cheapo tattoos he got when he was in the navy). It seems to be a job requirement for naval personnel to subject themselves to body decoration - I am yet to meet an ex sailor who has not been touched by a tattoo machine of some description.

Okay, so I got off the track a little there so back to my original thoughts. I saw a young person at the gym the other day who had, what I assumed to be, his own last name tattooed on his back. Is it ego or some other mysterious thing? I worked the logic and it wouldn't have made any sense for him to have someone elses name on his back. It isn't as if he was going to forget who he is and, unless he has some kind of demonic possession going on, he certainly wasn't in any position to be able to read it anyway. I never got around to asking him the reason behind it so it will remain a mystery for a little longer.

I can understand putting your kids names on a tattoo to celebrate their birth etc or maybe your parents names as a tribute to them, although the trusty old "mum" tattoo has probably been done to death. Putting the name of an ex wife/husband/partner is a definite no no though just in case it turns turtle sometime in the future. Is there anything worse than trying to bed someone who has the name of the last person they slept with tattooed prominently on their body? Probably, but I think minors read this blog and it's best that I don't reveal too much information and earn the ire of their parents.

My first tattoo was such a failure that I intend getting it remodeled sometime in the future. For now, it can sit quietly on my arm, behave itself and endure the embarrassing questions about what it is supposed to be. My second tattoo is an angel (of sorts) that perches on my right shoulder and my third is a devilish little character who resides on my left to balance everything out. I do have a good side and a nasty side to my personality so they are my mascots. At the moment, neither tell me what to do so everyone around me is quite safe.

Just don't be in my vicinity when they do start chattering away.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 186:- The great Russian leader, Lenin died 21 January 1924, suffering from a degenerative brain disorder. At the time of his death his brain was a quarter of its normal size - one wonders if his head rattled when he walked.

I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours on my own in the dark due to a blackout last week and discovered something rather disturbing - I am the absolutely most boring person I have ever had to spend any time with and I have a penchant for peanut butter sandwiches.

This has also made me realise the pain and suffering that I have been putting other people through over the years when they have to spend time listening to me verbalise my inane thoughts, espouse at great length how I would be a great and benign dictator if only I had the time, inclination and support of my fellow workmates and endlessly quote Monty Python sketches.

At this point, I really should make some kind of long and meandering apology for all this tedium I have subjected everyone to, but bugger you. You can love me just the way I am and keep pretending I'm interesting.

Seriously though, there was a 2 hour blackout here a week ago because of a really big and cool thunderstorm which spoiled the plans I had organised for my evening meal (I don't have a gas stove so cooking was out of the question) so I indeed did eat a peanut butter sandwich (yummo) to fill the hole (plus a muesli bar and half a packet of peanuts) while I waited patiently for the lights to come back on. Watching a thunderstorm from inside a dark house has it's own special kind of appeal as well.

It's a week later and wouldn't you know it, it's raining heavily again. It also looks like it's settling in until the weekend. I'm starting to feel like I'm cursed lately. It seems whenever I make plans to do something, the weather turns nasty until the day set aside to do whatever it is has passed then the sun reappears and I go back to work. I seem to be the human equivalent of washing a car (you know the idea, wash the car and you are guaranteed of rain).I had plans to play tennis on Thursday night with Kennedy and his girlfriend but that looks like it will be out of the question.

You would think that with all this indoors time that I now have on my hands, I'd be diligently working on editing out all the photos that I took when I went to the zoo two weeks ago, but along with my exceedingly boring nature, I'm pretty much a slack arse when it comes to doing any actual work on my computer. For instance, I only finished editing the photos from last Novembers wheelchair Rugby League World Cup a little over a week ago and that was only because the person I promised to send the photos to emailed me to ask where they were.

Can you see how slack I am - I'm blogging about not editing photos when I could be editing the photos that I am blogging about not editing. Ack!! Weird convoluted  logic!!

I may need to start drinking heavily again.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 185:- Abraham Lincoln was shot with a Derringer - nothing good can come of the arts.

I have a tendency read the newspaper everyday - usually online but if I find a discarded one on a train, I'll steal it (it's definitely cheaper that way) and I really enjoy those little "out there" type stories. I came across an interesting one yesterday - I don't have a link to it because it was in this freebie paper that gets handed out at city railway stations to commuters to distract them from how god awful the train services in Sydney actually are despite what the our state Government and RailCorp (I won't link to them because they don't deserve promotion by me) say.

Anyways, the story was about the unusually high birthrate in Uganda. Apparently, they have so much trouble with the electricity supply in that country that it isn't unusual for there to be no power for up to 17 hours a day so as a result, the population has little else to do but go to bed. Subsequently, they apparently see this as a good excuse for playing games of hide the sausage and then play it with gusto, thus breeding like the proverbial rabbit.

A few years back, out here in the wonderful land of Oz, the (now) ex Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, realised that at some point in the future, the population would be mostly old and doddery people with no incomes but needing high maintenance so he decided that what needed to happen was that people had to breed and breed like they had never bred before. I believe the term he used was "Have one for family and one for country".I figure if he could have slipped in something about cannibalism he would have also suggested having one for dinner in there somewhere.

Anyways, to encourage the good citizens of Oz to do his bidding, he offered them the only thing that interests them other than BB's and beer - money. A couple of thousand dollars per child in fact. Paid in one lump sum once the child popped out and took its first breath of Aussie air. It wasn't means tested so anyone with a uterus could get it as well - rich, poor, young, old, married, single, lesbian - the list was potentially endless. It would end up costing the taxpayer a fortune in the long run.

If only he had realised that all he needed to do was cut the power off at 7:00pm, just when Home And Away was coming on the TV, so people would go to bed and do what comes naturally (well, the next natural thing after arguing about what colour to paint the garage), he could have saved millions of dollars and still got the same result - thousands of potential future taxpayers and caretakers of the aged (or in reality dole bludgers and single mothers).

Still, the allure of a couple of thousands dollars isn't enough compensation for having to put up with children - I remember what I was like and I wouldn't wish me upon anyone.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 184:- Elizabeth Blackwell, born in Bristol, England on 3 February 1821, was the first woman in America to gain an M.D. degree - good on her.

They say that a week in politics is a long time and I'd happily agree with that. The way things change in political circles on a daily basis, if anything lasts a week it's pretty much a miracle. A similar thing can be said about a week in the trenches of civilian normality as well.

It has been a week since I finished the picture a day project and I've not had a great deal of time to use the camera with work getting in the way, but I did manage to get out into the back yard on two nights to experiment with taking pictures of stars and learned two very valuable lessons - remember to have fully charged batteries in the camera and don't turn the bathroom light on when the camera is underneath it pointing up. It would also help if my neighbours didn't have a penchant for leaving their external lights on all night.

Anyways, those experiments weren't failures but they weren't total successes either which means that I will have to get out of suburbia a little if I want to get decent photos of star trails with no light pollution to mess them up. There are still plenty of other things to photograph and learn along the way.

Which brings me to my plans for tomorrow (Tuesday) and my last day off before having to head back to work on Wednesday. I'm planning on going to the zoo, assuming that the weather behaves itself. I have a feeling that the weather knows when I am having time off work and deliberately goes funky on me. If you remember, during the project, I had a block of 6 days off work and it rained on every one of them.

I haven't been to the zoo since I was at least 10 years old - we're talking over 30 years there - so I have no idea what to expect when I get there. My recollections are of cages and caverns where you had to look down on animals and the elephants lived in a concrete bunker type thing. My friend Cathie went there a couple of years ago as part of a Girls Brigade day out and she said that it is amazing - she also hadn't been there for a long time.

It's going to be an all day affair since I am on my own and don't have to worry about keeping up with other people or anything like that. The plan is to get the ferry over around 7:30 - 8:00am then walk up the hill to the entrance rather than catch the bus or the new cable car thing they have. I'm assuming it will take me about an hour to get to the main entrance from the wharf plus I want to be able to use as many photo opportunities as I can on the way up since the zoo itself is right on the edge of the harbour. It's basically a downhill walk through the site back down to the wharf and I'll be doing it as casually as I can.

It will also be an opportunity to get some cityscape photos from the North side of the harbour from a different perspective to what I am used to. I really enjoy being down near the water but to make it worth the while, you need a full day and a good pair of walking shoes. I am hoping that the day will be cool but not wet. Nothing worse than having to wander around all day in the rain.

So with all going well, I should have a lovely collection of animal photos and city pictures by the end of tomorrow. At worse, I could end up wet, miserable and cold. Whatever happens, I know I'll end up in my bed at the end of the night.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 183:- John Winthrop introduced the fork to the American dinner table for the first time on 25 June 1630 - and people have been forking ever since.

Picture 28 - Sunset:

The final picture for the project is pretty appropriate, although Summer isn't the best time for taking photos of the sunset in my opinion. There just seems to be something harsh about the look during the hotter months of the year than during late Autumn to early Spring. Sunrise, on the other hand, will always look absolutely fabulous.

Sunset signals the end of the day. The time when people should be enjoying each others company and relaxing over good food and drink. Entire cultures have myths surrounding sunset - dragons eating the sun, golden chariots blazing across the sky returning the sun God to his slumber etc. Science will tell you exactly why a sunset looks the way it does, but that tends to spoil the enjoyment of it.

Once again, I took my trusty camera gear up to the top of Rooty Hill so I could capture tonight's sunset without the interference of man made structures getting in the way - I get a great view from the front of my house but with all the telegraph poles and wires, it ends up looking crappy. I don't know if the images I captured truly represent what my eyes were seeing but the overall effect was pretty dazzling. I hope you like.

And that brings us to the end of the Picture A Day Project. It has made me realise that being creative is actually a lot of hard work and pitfalls. Photography has a tendency to be at the mercy of the elements and days of planning can be gone simply because it starts to rain. It may have been easier to take up painting - at least that can be done indoors.

This won't be the end of my adding photos to my blog. I enjoyed the challenge of finding things that I thought could show off my ability plus be interesting to you dear reader. I may just move to a picture a week and continue to hone my skills and creativity. I may get it right in about 20 years.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 182:- The Matami Tribe of West Africa play a version of football, the only difference being that they use a human skull instead of a more normal ball - when you haven't got leather, you have to improvise.

Picture 27 - Favourite things:

Well, almost to the end of this project. I don't know if it has given you any great insight into who I am or my ability as a photographer, but it has been interesting from my point of view. My penualtimate photograph is another old one, but represents some of the things I like to do. The individual items are not important, just what they represent:

The only thing missing is my car but since it wouldn't fit on my coffee table, I think it's best to take it as read.

Books (represented here by Stephens King and Colbert) are important to me because they stimulate my imagination. Who hasn't picked up a book and imagined what the characters or the scenery looks like based on the descriptions by the author? Who hasn't been disappointed when a movie is made and nothing matches up with what you imagined in the first place - one of the reason I rarely go to the cinema really.

Music (Mike Oldfield, Def Leppard and Loudon Wainwright III CD's) has always been a big part of my life and those of you who have read this blog regularly already know that I have an eclectic taste in music - I'll listen to anything from classical to heavy metal, folk to disco. The only styles I can't cope with are hip hop/rap, thrash/death metal and full on punk. If music is supposed to soothe the savage beast, I am yet to figure out what it is about those particular styles that is soothing.

Crossword puzzles are just my way of exercising my brain - lately the crossword in the weekend paper I get has become terribly obscure and an actual challenge. The squares have also become smaller making it harder to read the little numbers. My favourite type of crossword is the clueless one - they give you a few letters and you have to figure out where all the other ones go. I've only given up once.

My TV (Foxtel remote) and my DVD collection (Akira, Battlestar Galactica, Metropolis) have been getting a workout lately. I'm a huge fan of science fiction to start with so the Sci Fi channel tends to be on quite a bit. I also like the movies from the golden years of hollywood - back in the b/w days when the actors were really actors and not just pretty boys and girls with little or no talent. The two greatest movies of all time (in my opinion) are Citizen Kane and the 1927 silent movie Metropolis. If you haven't seen these movies, your life is not yet quite complete.

The medallion you see in the photo is something special to me. In 2004, the boys from my wheelchair sports organisation were challenged by the French to a game of Wheelchair Tag Rugby League - a game never before played in this country. We had 3 weeks to organise a team and the French had been playing it for about 3 years. In the end, our boys beat them and they have had sour grapes ever since. They're French, no-one cares.

Finally, the camera. This project was all about my interest in photography - an interest that I have always had but was never able to do much about it due to lack of funds or encouragement from my parents. My mother wanted me to follow a musical path, my father had little input into my upbringing besides the punishments. Anyways, my first camera was a Kodak DX3600 and it served me well for a year or two. By the time I replaced it with the Olympus C750 in the photo, most mobile phones had bigger resolution cameras in them. I am served extremely well now by my Canon 400D with which I now take all of my photos with. I think the last photos I took with the Olympus were done in the USA when Garry and Rebekah got married. It patiently sits on my desk waiting for me to do something with it. I'll never get rid of it (unless it actually breaks) but it won't be used that much.

Hopefully todays photo has given just a little more insight into me as a person. One more photo to go and the project is at an end. What I have in mind for tomorrow really depends on the weather but that's all I'll say for now.

Later days.

Trivial fact number 181:- The national flag of Italy was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte - well, he had to do something while in exile.