I have been without my favoured camera, my Canon EOS, for a couple of months now.  It had stopped working and what with one thing and another I didn’t find anywhere to take it to have it fixed.  A few weeks ago, whilst walking round Tunbridge Wells, I noticed RedBox Cameras and asked if they could take a look at it for me.  Well they did and it was repaired, cleaned and serviced in less than 2 weeks (they had to send it away and wait for a part so quite quick I think) and for a reasonable price.  The staff in the shop are very helpful and knowledgable which made me wish I had found them ages ago.  So I am passing this on to all my local readers in case you or someone you know is looking for a camera repair/service shop.

Red Box Cameras

01892 544 702
(Monday to Saturday 9am to 5.30pm)
5 Monson Road
Tunbridge Wells
Kent TN1 1LS

Friday is weigh in day.  The same again !!!!!  I was disappointed but at least staying the same is better than a gain.

This is a new packet of nutritiousness I bought at Wholefoods in the week but had not had a chance to try until this morning.  I added 1 tbsp to 2 frozen bananas, 2 persimmons, some coconut yogurt and a splash of almond milk for breakfast.  Complete deliciousness. I then set off for my photography course.  I often have an image in my mind of what I want to photograph but I am often disappointed so I booked a 2 day course at the Adult Education Centre in Maidstone.  It was very reasonably priced (£90), enjoyable and  I learnt a lot.

I have wanted to be able to do this for ages; choose part of the photo to be in focus and the rest increasingly blurred.  Now I can do it 🙂I took lunch in with me as I wasn’t sure what the lunch time options would be.  I had more carrots than this but otherwise just the carrots, celery and humous.
We spent the last hour of the day directing a shoot with the assistance of the others on the course.  There were only 3 of us so we had 20 minutes each to tinker about which was really good fun and a great learning opportunity.
I wanted to photograph a white mug,on an undyed natural coloured piece of fabric,against a white background. I wanted to experiment with different aperture, shutter speed and ios settings with different lights. I didn’t want to be distracted by different colours. I wanted the shapes and textures to stand out. It was really good fun.And I learned a lot.  I ate 2 of these crisp and juicey apples – they were mine and not the teacher’s props, honest!

One of the others on the course was more interested in achieving different effects with the professional lights as he already knew a lot about aperture and shutter speed etc. It was very interesting and I am looking forward to part 2 next Saturday. Unfortunately at home I do not have professional lights and I didn’t use any lamps so apologies but these are out of focus more than I wanted them to be but you get the idea of what we had for supper.  I made onion bhajis for the first time and they were very tasty.  Easy to make and well worth it.  I never knew they had potato in them. You make a batter, stir in gram flour, spices and grated onion and potato and fry them.  Nearly as easy as making pancakes and apart from grating the potato and onion, about the same time too. Instead of eating them with a greasy curry we had them with salad made with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks and mixed sprouts.  Harvey had a sausage too as he baulks a bit massively at being vegan or even vegetarian.

I tried to eat the salad undressed but it was all too dry.  I couldn’t be bothered to make a dressing as we had started eating so instead I had some Salad Cream which has egg yolk in it.  So not a vegan supper but vegetarian at least. Onion Bhajis (recipe from the back of the packet of gram flour!!!)

Ingredients (made 4 bhajis)

75g gram flour
2 tsps cumin seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp salt
½ tsp mixed spice
4 tbsp water (I needed 6 tbsp but the recipe says to use 4)
100 g grated onion (almost 1 whole medium sized brown onion)
25 g grated potato (about half a medium sized potato
1 tbsp oil for frying

Method

1. mix together the gram flour, cumin, coriander, turmeric, salt and mixed spice (I gorund mine up so there were no “bits” in it i.e. the cumin seeds
2. stir in the water and beat to a smooth batter
3. add grated onion and potato and mix well
4. Heat the oil and drop in 4 (you could make them smaller if you want) spoonfuls of mixture
5. Cook until golden brown on both sides and drain on kitchen paper before serving

I shallow fried mine whereas the recipe uses 5 tbsp oil.  They were not oily at all and tasted really good so we really enjoyed them.  It made a change and I will make them again as they were very easy and quite quick.

I am now relaxing with a little snifter of sloe gin I made a couple of years ago.  I am now on my second and it is going down rather easily!  Cheers.