A Mans Home is his Castle...... or so they say.

Men everywhere have different ideas of what would or should be the ideal mans home. Now I have my own personal opinion that I will share with you.

The phrase in my title is one that has stayed with me since I was very young and first started reading fantasy novels. They are a passion of mine and a fantastic means of removing yourself from the humdrum of everyday life and immersing yourself in another world.

I would love to live in a castle. Yes, that's right folks I take that phrase quite literally.

It would be a modest affair in this day and age due to the exorbitant costs involved but still its nice to dream...

A large driveway would meander up to a large oak door surrounded by large grey brickwork. To your left you would spy a tower that rose about 10 feet higher than the surrounding walls. The walls would be crenelated and have a small walkway so that you can walk the walls in the evenings. All of the windows would be arched and bound in iron. Once through the door you would be into a small square yard with out buildings to the right and the main building to the left.

The main building would have a similar door to the one on the main wall. Once through this you would be into a large hall with stone floors and a central staircase leading upstairs. Six bedrooms are upstairs 4 to right and 2 to the left. Also a door leading onto a winding staircase that brings you to a small room atop the tower. Downstairs is the norm with a large kitchen, dining room, sitting room, study and storeroom. The walls are adorned with tapestries and wall sconces for torches and the standard castle decorations of suits of armour and swords.

At the back of the castle would be a large garden area with an archery area at the back and plenty of room for growing your own vegetables etc....

Ahhhhh a dream for sure. I guess its time to explain the picture above...

I am currently living with two fantastic guys from Lithuania. They are both as gay as Christmas and while this poses no problems for me I return to the title of this post.

I came home today and went for a cigarette in the garden. The garden is a nice one with a well kept lawn and a couple of random bushes around the place. So a mans home is his castle. Mine now has four pink butterfly lights poking out of the ground for all to see.

The picture is one I am happy with. I used the macro on the camera. Yes I don't call it the flower button anymore!! I also used it more correctly than I have before. So the main butterfly is in focus and the others out of focus. I played with the levels and used an overlay to sharpen the image. Yes I am getting very posh when it comes to using photoshop. I am really excited about what Dolly will comment here!! She has been mean to me in the past so check her site out and leave some nasty comments :)

Ahhhh Spring.....and other stuff

Well I finally managed to find my camera again. It was stuck in the bottom of a large box of crap that I hadn't been arsed unpacking. So anyway this means its time to let the brilliance start again. For everyone who has missed my utterly, amazingly, inane pictures....I'm back.

I have obscurely named the above picture "Some red berry things in a bush". Well I have a garden now so there are all sorts of new and wonderful things to take pictures of. The taking of this photo was amazingly difficult. Its been a couple of weeks since I have taken any pictures and I had forgotten what most of the little buttons did (there are only three). So it took a few tries before I remembered the little flower button. So I just clicked and this is what I got. Then I had to go through the bullshit of hooking the camera up to the PC. Then I had a nap for about 30mins. It was a nice nap and I had a weird dream that I was sitting in a deckchair in a tree.

So I played about with this shot in photoshop and made it look really crap so just started again and did some levels and said "fuck it, it will do as no-one really wants to see red berry things in a bush anyway".

EDIT: A special word of congratulations to Dolly, who noted the fact that the berries in the pic are not in focus. This is a very hard thing to do when they are in the centre of your picture. It took a lot of hard work to manage this. Anyone looking for lessons in how to do this should contact me on 1900 outoffocus...............

Well as I mentioned in my previous post I have moved home and this is a picture of it.


It was built in the 1930's and is worth a feckin fortune as it is in a very prosperous area. Thankfully the rent is pretty good. It could do with some insulating and crap like that but all in all is the perfect home. Its quite amazing how much different I am feeling since moving!!! Life is so much more relaxed and I am pissed off with myself for not moving sooner. I took a few pictures of my empty apartment and it is amazing how fast it became just an apartment and not home anymore.

Well I think this was a nice happy post so expect a rant tomorrow or the next day about Friday the 13th.........