Photo

Grand Master of Memory, Ed Cooke, London 2009

©Olivia Grabowski-West

General Tomfoolery (For Nicky)

Almost time for the biggest party of the year...are you excited yet??
This is for my mate Nicky who left us for the sunny climes of Sydney. As promised x

 ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Irrational Fear

Both me and some of my close family members suffer from irrational fear, so I do feel for this girl a little, but to be honest - the way that snowman was staring at her I think I would be scared - he looks like something out of Scream!


***UPDATE***
Ok, someone has put me straight - this girl has a fear of people in masks after a traumatic childhood incident. I feel a bit mean now. But it's still quite funny. Err...Schadenfreude...

iphone autocorrect....

there are loads of websites with some fairly funny examples of when iphone's autocorrect goes wrong. This however is by far the best and the only one I shall share. LOVE.

A belated happy birthday to Jesus....

©Olivia Grabowski-West

Due to illness (not mine), shopping and entertaining I was unable to update before Christmas. Had a lovely time with family and friends and felt this year that I managed to make it more about spending time with the people I love than just being part of the blind consumerism that is forced down our throats on a daily basis (I apologise if this was reflected in crap presents!). I feel slightly hypocritical about the whole thing as I have to admit that I don't believe in Jesus as the Son of God (I believe he was a person in History). If my understanding is correct, then all Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in the same God - so why can't we just do away with what came after and love one another. PEACE!

Heavy weekend

Had a heavy weekend and now seriously sleep deprived (seems to be a pretty constant state these days). Half of my sleep deprivation was due to a great party on Friday night but the other is that my baby, Lucky, has been really unwell, resulting in a midnight visit to A&E last night. He ended up having to have nebulizer which isn't too serious, but it's heartbreaking to see your baby like this.

He's on the mend now so hopefully the run up to Christmas won't be too bad - so much to do and so little time......are you feeling Chrismassy yet?

Friday (Christmas Themed) Funny

And finally...

Now we al know what American Presidents give at Christmas - the gift of death..

Winter Love

This time last year my friends Adam and Sonia tied the Knot - my first snowy winter wedding!

All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Camouflage

Mt Kenya Ranger

©Olivia Grabowski-West

Grown up

My oldest cousin Charles decided to invite all of us cousins to his house without the 'Grown ups' this Sunday - it felt strange that suddenly we were the grown ups and actually had quite a big brood between us!
From Left to Right: Storm, Lucky, Lucy, Arabella, Isabella and Milly

©Olivia Grabowski-West  

Issues

(I can't find the credit for the above image sadly - but it is awesome!)

Having a lot of problems here at A Caged Bird Sings with technology issues being my number 1# pain in the ass. However, have managed to arrange a kind of McGyver-esque solution to the problem - it's not going to last forever but at least I finally have access to some of my images. So I apologise for a slightly rubbish week last week and hopefully better to come..... now I just need some kind of solution to deal with Christmas......

Photo

Erin ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Photo

©Olivia Grabowski-West

From the Archive - Beside the seaside

Been a bit slack on the blog this week, been working hard elsewhere - also suffering from some major technical difficulties which are putting a serious dampner on my effing Chi! Relax.....think of better times.....mmm summer on the dorset coast....

Winter Wonderland

Decided to brave it and face London's Hyde Park Winter Wonderland. Good points: It's free to enter, it looks pretty spectacular (not your average Carny fun fair), there is loads of booze and german food (good point if you are into sausage), and there are some pretty awesome rides. Bad points: the rides are overpriced, you have to queue - a lot - for everything, there are a lot of people, really a lot of people and most of them are dragging toddlers and pushing push chairs, and to be honest the whole Christmas spirit thing kind of diminishes really quickly and you just want to start elbowing people in the face.
I reckon if you went in the evening without any kids and with loads of cash you could have an awesome time.

 One of the Fun Houses.

 'Flying Sleigh' Roller-coaster

 Santa getting a bit fresh on the Flying Sleigh

 £3 to go down this slide.

 The House of Fun was pretty fun.

 All images ©Olivia Grabowski-West

Unwilling subject...

My long suffering son Storm is always my first stop when I want to try out something new photography wise. He is patient and when he is in a good mood will do (almost) anything I ask. This is how he looks when he is fed up with me and my lens. Have a good weekend everyone.

For Inspiration

I happened upon this lovely series from Argentinian Photographer Irina Werning. This is CHINI and the many roles she plays. I love Irina's work, it has such a good sense of humour. Her series 'Back to the Future' is so great and I will post some of it up another time, but today the spotlight is on Chini.

 Chini Astronaut

 Chini DJ

 Chini Chambermaid

Chini Tourist

ALL IMAGES ©Irina Werning (website)

Friday Funny