Insuring with Aviva – Update

In fairness to Aviva I think I should update things for those that have read my previous blog post here.

Today I have been on the phone to the company that deals with the actual replacement of the items stolen, iVal (site under construction). They have asked for receipts, proofs of ownership and anything else that shows that I owned the items that I was claiming for, despite the fact that original receipts etc were sent along with the original claim to Aviva it appeared that they actually didn’t have them, I’m kind of thinking that this is Aviva’s communication problem raising its head again as dealing with iVal has been fairly pain free.

After I sent them photographs of receipts, copies of invoices etc they handled the claim very well, replacing my expensive lenses and other items without any problems. There was a slight issue when they were trying to replace my Cowon D2 media player as their suppliers didn’t supply that model. I was offered at first a Samsung MP3 player which upon investigation was for sale at half the price of the Cowon and didn’t have the expandability, when I questioned this I was offered a Creative Zen XFi-2 which does fit the bill in the main, however, I have owned 2 Creative Zen players and both have had to be sent back due to malfunction so I wasn’t prepared to take the risk again. This was an issue and I had to really stand my ground as they were offering a ‘cash settlement’ of £104 which wouldn’t allow me to replace ‘like for like’ which my policy states. Eventually they gave in and gave me a full cash settlement for this item……..result #1.

With this issue I was expecting further problems with the replacement of my main laptop which I got for a bargain price two years ago, 17″ screen, separate graphics card and dual processor performance all for £450. I was expecting problems as  I couldn’t find one with similar features for the same price, they had already offered an Advent model with a 15″ screen and onboard graphics, nowhere near what was stolen.

My first call resulted in them asking for the receipt, which I had already sent with the original claim (Aviva communications again?) I also sent the specifications of the stolen laptop and made it clear that these were key in my original buying decision and that any replacement would need these features (17″ screen etc etc). My expectation of problems was soon put to bed when they called back and offered a replacement that had the features that I needed. Checking it out further I found that the replacement was at a higher price than I originally paid, but no problem because of the specification match that I was insisting on. Shows what a good deal I had when I first bought it. Better still, they then offered vouchers for the two replacement laptops at full retail value, this means that I will be able to go into PCWorld/Currys/Dixons whatever and buy what I want……..anything up to the value of the vouchers………result #2.

The only thing that slightly annoys me is that we had a number of ‘older’ mobile phones stolen which they are replacing directly. We don’t really need these but as they were stolen we decided that we should claim for them anyway. They won’t give us a cash settlement for these so we will have 4 new mobile phones that we don’t need……..never mind.

So, in summary, the dealing with Aviva was at times  a bit of a nightmare but when that was eventually sorted and I was dealing with iVal things improved significantly. Well done them for the time being as we still have to sort the stolen jewellery out, I’m leaving that to Lorna!

‘Wild Camping’ at Lake Vyrnwy.

Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th October 2009 – 310 kms

After a week of decorating we decided that we should get away for the weekend and make our first attempt at ‘wild camping’ to get us used to the idea of parking the motorhome in a fairly remote place and spending the night there. After numerous searches to find a suitable place not to far away we decided on Lake Vyrnwy, a large Severn Trent reservoir which is about 60 miles away from where we live. Not too far away, recommended by many as a perfect ‘wild camping’ spot and beautifully picturesque……..seemed like a great place for our first experience.

We packed the motorhome up (now lovingly called Heidi as we have seen various references to this name in the owners handbook from the previous owner) and made our way there, ignoring the weather which was extremely windy with bouts of rain. I had been to the lake previously on a Shropshire Community Flickr meet and knew of a decent sized, flat car park at the top end of the lake which is close to a massive waterfall. Having only been once before, and on that occasion I was a passenger, I turned up the road which I thought led to the car park, however, I was wrong and was happily proceeding up a single track road signposted ‘Not Suitable For Heavy Vehicles or Trailers’ which got more narrow the further we went. With Lorna getting more jittery the further we went I admitted defeat and made a perfect three point turn in a small passing place (requiring Lorna to watch the back of the motor home so I didn’t reverse off the road and down a hill) and then carried on along the main road to the place where I initially thought I was going.

After navigating a tighter than comfortable entrance which provided a little entertainment for some people just returning to their cars, we parked up and took a short walk with Jack up to the waterfall before returning and waiting for dark to fall.

We had seen a chap in a white transit van enter and leave the car park that we were on a couple of times and really thought nothing of it until he pulled in again and parked up close to our motorhome, obviously a walker (to me anyway, Lorna was picturing axe murderer, or pervert) we later had a chat with him initially asking if he was stopping the night as well, which he was. A bit of comfort for us on our first ‘wild camping’ exercise. No shared drinks or wine on this occasion, I’m sure we’ll get used to it.

Parked up at Lake Vyrnwy as the sun sets.

We slept soundly that night with no disturbances at all, we did however wake quite early and were sat at 8.30am the next day on a different car park looking over the lake……..cooking bacon sandwiches and drinking nice hot milky coffee. Fed and watered we went for a stroll around the sculpture park which is close to the dam before deciding what we were going to do that day. In the end we decided that a nice steady drive up to Bala was in order so we set off and made our way through the countryside, up and over Bala mountain itself and then around the lake, navigating a few tight lanes along the way, something I seem to gravitate toward when I’m driving the wider than normal motorhome.

I had read about a pub just outside of Corwen called The Goat Inn which welcomes people in motorhomes and allows them to stay overnight on their car park if they have a drink or a meal there. We needed to eat so I phoned ahead and confirmed they were serving and that we would be able to stay if we wanted. Unfortunately the car park there is not exactly ideal for stopping overnight as it is on a very steep hill with maybe only one place that was level so we decided that stopping was not the best idea, great of the owners to allow this sort of thing and something that more pubs that have large car parks should do in my opinion. At the pub I had the biggest mixed grill I have ever seen and we finished the day off with a nice walk around the surrounds with Jack before heading back home.

Job done, our first experience with ‘wild camping’ though I feel a bit daft using that expression as it’s hardly wild with a fridge, gas hob, toilet, shower, TV and heating now is it!

Insuring with Aviva – Were we robbed?

I have had  a number of dealings with our insurer Aviva over the past few months. First of all our shower leaked and soaked our living room ceiling to the point that it bowed. One phone call to a UK based call centre and all was sorted out quickly and efficiently, new ceiling, new floor in the bathroom and a repainted living room, all professionally carried out by their agents, Home Serve.

A similar story could be told when we were broken into whilst away on holiday. Home Serve again being the agents carried out the replacement of the broken window and replacing of all the locks. Home Serve it seems are the heroes here as my dealings with Aviva themselves in respect of replacing the contents that were actually stolen have been far from satisfactory……..in fact, dealing with the company that took over from Norwich Union has been more stressful than having to come back off holiday early to deal with the initial break in.

Having compiled a full list of things that were stolen this was posted to them on 3rd September, recorded delivery, first class. Now this is probably due to the postal strike but it took ages for the letter to be confirmed as delivered, in fact I posted a duplicate without the ‘recorded’ bit to see if that worked more effectively. It all seemed so easy, let them know what items were stolen, provide serial numbers etc and they would get them replaced…..not exactly difficult now is it?

We received a phone call from them on the 22nd September and the caller said that it was all in hand and a list was being forwarded to the people who replace the items, Ival, and we would receive a call from then within ‘48 hours’ (an expression I would get very used to over the coming weeks). When that call never came I phoned the number I had been provided with only to be told that they had not received the list of items. I was on the phone straight away to Aviva themselves to find out what had happened……..this is where it starts getting repetitive i’m afraid.

According to the person on the end of the phone the list had been sent but apparently not received so there must be ‘technical problems’ (another term I would get used to) but, she would send the list again and I would receive a call within 48 hours. The time passed and no call was received so I called again to find out what was going on. Again I was told that there had been a ‘technical problem’ but I was assured that the list would be forwarded to Ival and I would get a call within, you guessed it, 48 hours.

This period of time passed again, and now getting a bit fed up with the total lack of communication I phoned again to see how the claim was progressing……..apparently a ‘technical problem’ had occurred and Ival had still not had the list. The lady was very apologetic and again I was assured that the list would be immediately sent and I would get a call……..within 48 hours!

Giving up on the usual route I decided to phone the Aviva head office in the UK and speak to the complaints department. Getting the number from ‘saynoto0870.com‘ I spoke with them and begged them not to transfer me to India but to answer my questions about how my claim was progressing…..all details taken I was told that someone would ring me back ………within 48 hours! To be fair, I was phoned back later the same day, from India, and the promise was made that the details had been sent to Ival and I should hear something………within 48 hours.

When I received no call I decided that I should fill in a form on the Aviva website to register a complaint about their inability to communicate effectively with their customers through their ‘foreign operation’

Today came, no reply to the complaint form and no phone call despite their assurances that I would be contacted. Not at all happy I phoned their call centre again determined to get this sorted once and for all, after all I had now been told four times that it would be and I was no further forward, nor was my claim. Speaking to India again wasn’t ideal as I was quickly losing patience with the stock answers, stock phone manner and rehearsed ‘banter’. Again I was told that a communication problem had occurred and that Ival still had not received my details……….what a complete joke!! After expressing my opinions in a fairly cut manner the chap on the other end of the phone was in no doubt as to the level of my frustration and ended up giving me the email address of Ival so I could sent the details myself, apparently they are unable to email things from India and their fax machines don’t work properly.

So, after filling out yet another complaint form on the Aviva website I emailed my claim details myself, we will see what happens next, though I doubt that this is the end of it. I’ll probably update this………..within 48 hours! but at the moment I am totally unimpressed with the shoddy service offered by such a large company with absolutely disastrous levels of communication offered to their customers who really should be treated so much better.

Moving Home – Literally!!

Tuesday 22nd September 2009 – 265 Km

We didn’t leave the campsite particularly early, a bit of a tidy up, a refill of water and a chat with the neighbours and we were on our way again. From our site just outside of Watchet we headed into the small fishing village causing slight chaos on the streets. Even though I have a decent idea of the width of the vehicle now it’s places like Watchet that give you the experience you need to build your confidence. The width I can deal with, but add in the left hand drive and a narrow, busy town street and the extreme caution mode kicks in. We/I decided that the ‘not suitable for HGV’ signs were best avoided (especially as I seem to remember a narrow lane with walls both sides along that route) and took the slightly longer route back to the main road heading toward Weston Super Mare where we intended to park on the beach, have some dinner and run Jack for a while. These plans were soon thwarted when I decided that a nice ‘fish and chips on the beach front’ situation would also be nice. We pulled up at the beach car park entrance and were flatly ignored by the chap sat in his little wooden hut. I couldn’t enter the car park as there were cones in the way and he made absolutely no effort to get up and move them for me. I took that as a ‘can’t come in here mate’ so drove on and parked on the front for a while. My need for fish and chips took over the situation somewhat and we ended up driving along the front looking for somewhere to park up near to a chip shop (it was starting to rain now and I didn’t want to get wet!). Eventually we found a chip shop where we could park and Lorna was relieved of £4 for a sausage,chips and peas, not happy at being charged so much and doubly so for not being able to park on the beach we stuffed our chips down and headed back for the M5 rather disillusioned with Weston Super Mare. A stop at Gordano services to meet one of Lorna’s friends and a steady drive back saw us home at just after 7.30, our first motorhome experience over with and looking pretty damn good for the future!

Monday 21st September 2009 – 197 Km.

We headed out of Padstow and set the sat-nav to take us to Weston Super Mare just to see how long the journey would take. We intended to stop in that general area so we were a good chunk of the journey home. The A39 (Atlantic Highway) is a funny old road, in places it’s a very fast and busy dual carriage way which makes its way toward Barnstable, from there on you hit the countryside and the road quickly becomes a very narrow and winding route taking you up hill and down dale. We headed slowly toward Lynton and Lynmouth and then ascended the steep 1:4 incline toward Porlock, dodging the occasional coach and pulling in numerous times to allow other traffic behind us to pass. We stopped when we reached the top and had a quick wander around taking in the breathtaking views over the rugged coastline. Another lovely day too.

On top of Porlock Hill

Then we navigated the descent, another 1:4 hill that saw the Hymer staying in 2nd gear with me keeping the brakes on for that extra bit of stopping power. Having got the hill out of the way we then had to make our way through the narrow streets of Porlock, not an easy task in itself. Blue Anchor Bay (just in between Minehead and Watchet) is a place that holds lots of fond memories for me, Mom and Dad used to have a static caravan there that we had most of our holidays in, just yards from the beach. I hoped, as we pulled in, that they took motorhomes. The place had changed massively. Where there used to be an old wooden hut which acted as a shop and reception now stood a huge Costcutter supermarket, and opposite, where there used to be caravans, was a large brick built reception with an indoor swimming pool. I was thrilled to hear that they had room for us in the motorhome The thought of spending a night there, walking on the beach and then maybe walking up to the Blue Anchor Bay Hotel for a pint or three, filled me with a funny kind of anticipation but, unfortunately, dogs were not allowed so we had to move on. After another stop where we were refused a pitch for the night despite it being nearly empty (Caravan and Camping Club members only) we arrived at Warren Farm just outside of Watchet. After the dog had escaped and refused to come back (theirs not ours) we were guided down to the bottom field where we found a fairly level spot for the night. We soon got talking to others on the campsite and then we met Graham. Graham was a bearded fellow who was staying in a tent next to us. He was a scaffolder from Banbury who was working on a new hospital in Minehead. We had a few drinks, put the world to right and had a thoroughly pleasant evening. Sausage and onions on baguettes for tea and a viewing of The Life of Brian and we were sound asleep in bed by midnight. Bit too much driving for my liking, as I reckon we will only be traveling for around two hours per day when new are actually abroad, but a great day none the less.

Saturday 19th September 2009.

Today we embarked on the first stage of our adventures by driving the four and a half hours from our house to Perranporth to pick up our new motorhome, a 2004 Hymer B564 A-Class. We had been looking for a while to find the motorhome that suited us best, taking into consideration all different kinds of makes, layouts and accessories, deciding that the A-Class type would suit us best we were then looking for the best deal we could get to include things like air conditioning, solar panels, weight limits and left hand drive. We decided to hire a car to make the journey rather than taking our own car down and then having to drive two vehicles to our first overnight stop. We arrived at the house where the previous owners of the van lived, completed all of the paperwork and then slowly made our way to the Avis car rental site in Truro where we dropped off the hire car and moved all of our stuff into the van and then made our way to the first camp site which we had booked, Dennis Cove in Padstow.

Getting to the camp site was an experience in itself as the road leading to it was only around two feet wider than the motorhome itself so this was a bit of a baptism of fire to navigate our way down the lane without scraping the side of our new pride and joy. Motorhoming, we thought, would be a stressless experience but our imagination was quickly dampened when we had trouble flushing the toilet, getting the fridge to work and generally operate and understand all of the gadgets and gizmos that the previous owner have lovingly installed, but, after a few reads through various instruction manuals we quickly got to learn what to do (though I feel that there is a lot more we need to know before we are fully conversant). Toilet flushed and fridge getting cooler we opened the first ‘ceremonial’ bottle of Malborough white wine and settled down for the evening, taking time to watch a DVD and eat some food which we bought from a local Tesco store……..we decided that cooking would probably be too much for our first night so the pre-cooked chicken was very welcome indeed. Our first night’s sleep was a good one, getting used to sleeping ‘in the air’ (the double bed pulls down over the two front seats in the cab) was not difficult at all and we both soon dropped off, more than likely helped by the fact that we we both absolutely knackered from the day’s excitement and the bottle of wine +1 that we managed to get through.

Our Hymer in Padstow

Our original plan was to spend just one night in Padstow and then move on to a ‘wild camping’ spot just outside of Minehead for our second night, but we made the decision fairly quickly after first arriving that we needed the security of a camp site to allow us to acclimatise ourselves to the van in an environment that had others around, after all, when you have trouble flushing the loo it’s best not to be too adventurous. So first night done, the learning experience started and we are on our way. Today Padstow, tomorrow Padstow, the future……..Europe!

A few days away and then……..

Lorna and I went on holiday for the first time in ages last week. We went down to Exmouth and stayed at a camping site just outside the town centre. Two reasons for this, firstly my mom has a time share down there where she goes every year on the same weekend, secondly, we had arranged to look at a Hymer 564 motor-home which was located in Perranporth (ok so it’s 2 hours away but it’s still closer than going from home!).

The first day that we were there we pitched our tent and has a general look around the area and later in the evening arranged to go and see the motor-home that was for sale the following day.

We have been looking for a motor-home on and off for a number of months but only really to get in our heads what layout we wanted. We knew that we needed a solar panel as we intend to ‘wild camp’ for the majority of the nights that we will be away, we wanted air con, we needed room for Jack to sleep and most of all (as far as I was concerned) we wanted an A class vehicle, the bed pulls down instead of being in an ‘overcab’ position making much better use of the living space.

I had seen the motor-home we were going to look at for sale previously but the price was too high for us so when it was re-advertised and reduced we had to go and have a look as it had everything that we wanted.

After a 2 hour drive to Perranporth we arrived at the owners home and had a good look around the vehicle, it was perfect……absolutely perfect. I think that both Lorna and I knew as soon as we walked through the door that it was the one for us so after a break to discuss what we should be offering we went on a test drive, again, perfect. I could now spout on about lots of very strange coincidences but I won’t as I am still struggling to believe what I think I should, or shouldn’t (if you don’t understand that last line then  you are probably as confused as I am!)

The upshot was that we loved the motor-home, agreed a price and have arranged collection in a couple of weeks……….wahoooooo, the European travelling adventure is a step closer!

Back to the holiday. Mom arrived on the Saturday and we met in a pub in Topsham where they were holding a Town Crier competition, after we watched that for a while we wandered around Topsham town and I took a few snaps of interesting doors, windows and vents (usual minimalist style where these things were concerned). Can’t post any at the moment unfortunately. We decided not to go to the big carnival that is held in the town later in the evening, electing instead to cook ‘camping food’ at the tent and drink wine

The next few days we experienced variable weather, nothing stunning and nothing particularly bad, and we generally pottered about visiting places like Sidmouth, Budleigh Sultertton, Exmouth and embarking of long walks with Jack. We were preparing to go out for a curry on the Tuesday night when we had a phonecall saying that our house had been burgled, so after a few discussions on what to do we headed home just as the night fell (preceded with much fun dismantling the tent and packing up in the dark). Holiday cut short by a full week!

When we arrived home early on Wednesday morning we saw the scale of the damage caused and the losses suffered. Windows broken, holes in the wall where the brick hit, lots of mess upstairs where the drawers had been searched and, unsurprisingly, a lot of my ‘gadget’ stuff missing. Two laptops (thus the reason I can’t post any pictures), two lenses (one of them the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L (IS) USM), gaming machines, MP3 players etc etc.

Nightmare!

Anyway, our insurance company is pretty good judging from our recent dealings with them so we shouldn’t lose out any and hopefully they will be fairly quick dealing with the claim. In the meantime we are looking forward to sorting more stuff out at home and collecting the motor-home in a couple of weeks! When I get a decent laptop I will post some photos from the holiday, though not as many as I would have liked for obvious reasons.

Not the usual Flickr meet!

Yesterday saw some of the members of the Shropshire Community Flickr group attend the August meet at Quarry Bank Mill and Styal Village in Cheshire. This was probably the furthest I had travelled to attend one of these meets but having not attended the last couple I thought it about time that I actually went along, after all, I am one of the administrators of the group.

The property is a National Trust place and looks very impressive from the outside as you walk down the steps from the car park, this a view of the rear of the building with its many windows.

View of the back of the main mill building

Being a National Trust property, photography is prohibited inside the building itself. To me this seems absolutely crazy as of the 16 people that attended there was at least half of us that decided not to go into any of the properties and instead stick to walking around the estate, this was free, so they missed out on a fair amount of entrance money by enforcing a silly rule about no photography. I’m convinced that with the plethora of photo sharing websites about these days, allowing photography inside would give them a much wider exposure, more paying customers and lots of free publicity, some may disagree?

The grounds themselves surrounded the property and ran along the River Bollin and included the Styal Estate and an old church. After we had decided that we were not going to pay to enter the property we asked at the reception if they had maps of the walks that we could take away as they informed us that they were not signposted…….maps were not available, hardly ideal. So off we set on our walk around the grounds using a map printed off by one of the members of the group.

Try and navigate properly with this map!

Those that were interested in fungi and plants had a good time here as there were many sights to see and photograph, personally though that kind of ‘Natural History’ photography doesn’t really float my boat so my shutter count didn’t really go above two or three shots, none of which I have processed or posted. After a short break for lunch (packed) during which we were constantly harassed by wasps, six of us decided to have a walk in the opposite direction to which we originally set off. We walked all along the river until we hit a road and so decided to cross the river and follow a path back along the opposite side of the water. Unfortunately the signs quickly disappeared and after crossing over the grounds of a local rugby club we found what we thought was a path……..it had been walked on and that was good enough for us. It soon became clear that we had ventured a bit too far off the track and were soon attempting to navigate our way through shoulder high foliage, muddy streams, steep banks and fallen trees. This went on for around 45 minutes and in the humidity the sweat was certainly building up.

Well, I had to photograph something!

After a while we managed to be in a position where we could see the path that we needed to be on……..on the opposite side of the river. We had a choice, walk over a field which would have meant climbing over an electric fence, retracing our steps (no chance of this as there were more men than women and you know what men are like for turning back…….it just doesn’t happen!) or, making our way over a tree which had fallen over the river. Unfortunately the tree and river were at the bottom of a steep, maybe 50 degree,  bank but we decided after much protestation from the ladies in the group, that this would be the best way forward. So, sliding down the bank toward the roots of the fallen tree presented the first problem, the second problem was the gap in between the bank and the tree itself which required a small but brave jump, the third problem was the seemingly high instance of balance problems and height fear amongst the group. Combine this with a tree trunk that had loose bark, the value of camera equipment that needed to be carried across and of course the watery end that would meet any small slip and you end up with a situation that is both hilarious and slightly concerning. As it happened, three of the group managed to get across without incident, simply walking across the log and emerging through the undergrowth on the other side unscathed. The other three fared slightly less well, deciding that walking across was just too difficult and electing to straddle the thick trunk and shuffling their way across on their backsides, all very well until the trunk split into two and various acrobatic moves were required traverse the water without getting wet. Of course the people that managed to get across first spent all their efforts encouraging the rest of the group across by way of creasing over in fits of laughter and photographing the unfortunate positions they got themselves into. Of course, I was one of the ‘walk over it and take no notice’ people and in a completely selfless act, spent more time on the trunk helping others across, trying not to fall off from the laughter!

All safely over we decided that enough was enough and made our way back to the car park after a swift refreshment break and proceeded to sit in traffic for over an hour on the way home. Still, a quick visit to a local pub just before dropping others off seemed to be the perfect end to a very enjoyable and memorable day.

The next Shropshire Community Flickr meet is at the hill climb at Loton Park, hopefully that will be as enjoyable but with less chance of injury!

The Big Chill Festival, The Big Issue, The Undead and too many Mojitos.

I was lucky enough to be doing some volunteering for The Big Issue magazine at The Big Chill festival just outside Ledbury in Herefordshire over the last weekend. I have done some volunteering before (blogged in this section), so when I was asked to help out at the festival I jumped at the chance. My friend went down to the festival on the Wednesday to help set up and get organised, very helpfully he took my tent, sleeping bag and boots down with him and even put my tent up for me. I arrived on Thursday and, in slightly damp conditions, walked round the festival site for about 3 hours looking for my tent. One of those daft situations where when the tent was erected there were no others about and by the time I arrived there were thousands! It did give me a good chance to have a good look around and take in all the sights, some of which were very strange.

Thursday’s are normally a very quite day for weekend festivals with the majority of people there involved in setting up stalls, organising stock, testing electrics and all the other things associated with the ‘business’ side, but this occasion was slightly different.

Zombie Alert

On the Thursday night there was a huge gathering of people dressed and made up as zombies, a very surreal experience with the people dressed in anything from wedding dresses to police uniforms all with varying amounts of blood and various ‘injuries’. The reason they were there was twofold, there was an attempt to break the world record for the most amount of zombies gathered in one place, previously 3894 people in Seattle. This was easily beaten with a total of well over 4000 zombies here. Secondly  they were there to take part in a film being made by Film4 and Warp Films called  ‘I Spit on your Rave‘ which stars Noel Fielding as the Zombie King. I tried to get a few shots of Noel Fielding during the rehearsal and then during the parade but really didn’t have too much luck.

Noel Fielding as the Zombie King

As I was still wandering around waiting for my mate Ash to finish his shift at work I also managed to get a few shots of some of the people who had dressed up, I tried a few candid shots but really the best ones come when you talk to the people before hand and then get them to pose how you want them to be, gives a lot more options for this type of portrait.

The Undead?

After a while I was able to meet up with Ash and go and find my tent, the weather weather wasn’t brilliant with a few spots of rain but that has never stopped us having a good time, especially at festivals where we are kind of used to walking around in 8 inches of mud. We decided that Thursday would be a fairly quiet night as I was working from 9.30am the next day, however, the best laid plans always seem to go awry when there is alcohol involved, especially Sailor Jerry rum. We also met up with one of Ash’s friends which made three of us wandering around for the night. A bit of rain later and we were all stood in the crowd watching and listening to British Sea Power playing their latest offering Man of Aran which is a soundtrack to a 1934 film. The combination of the film and the music was a real experience and it was a bit of a privilege to be there for the performance.

British Sea Power perform Man of Aran

After a fairly sleepless night, mainly due to the tent been in very close proximity to a generator which was running all night, I was up and out by 8.30am, ready for my days work for the Big Issue. Essentially I was looking after one of the vendors in the morning and another in the afternoon, supplying magazines, programmes, lanyards and handling all of the money. It was certainly quieter than the previous day on the pitch I was on as the car park attendants were guiding cars toward the ‘wrong’ end of the field meaning that the crowds were missing our sales point and were guided toward another.

I worked until about 5pm in the blazing sunshine and after a long walk back to the main Big Issue office on the main field, cashed in and made my way back to the tent for a lie down. Ash was working a later shift than me and so we didn’t see each other until much later in the evening so I had the very strange experience of walking around a festival site by myself. I had arranged to meet another friend later in the evening and prior to this happening I spent a good hour or so talking to someone who I thought I had spoken to at length the previous night, only to realise that we hadn’t actually met before. Luckily she was in exactly the same position and it was only when she said ‘Oh your mate had a zombie mask on didn’t he?’ that I looked at her and realisation slowly dawned for both of us……….one of those normal ‘festival experiences’ that stay with you. Ash turned up later on that night and we did the usual thing of missing every performance that we planned to see. We did turn up for the Basement Jaxx concert but actually didn’t think much of it so wandered around for a bit longer.

Basement Jaxx at The Big Chill Festival

Neither of us were due to work on the Saturday so we had arranged to have a bit of a lie in, a nice steady morning and then a good old party on the night when Orbital were headlining. I seem to remember that the idea was to make sure that we weren’t too worse for wear until well after 5pm but this went out of the window after pretty much the first hour………damn those mojitos!

Sailor Jerry Rum Promo People.

We eventually decided on a lie down at about 7pm so a steady walk back to the tent was followed by a complete failure to get any decent rest, both of us preferring instead to have some quite time away from the festival grounds but to carry on with the drinking, chatting and taking photographs. We headed back to the main grounds at about 10pm to make sure we could get some food, more drinks, meet friends and get where we wanted to be to see Orbital play at midnight. Amazingly we actually managed to do what we planned and were able to watch all of the Orbital set which was excellent, not my usual type of music but in this atmosphere you can’t help but enjoy it.

Overall a weekend of great company, great music, great drinks, surreal conversations, too much smoking and just a small excess of walking. I’m not convinced that the Big Chill festival is one that I would go to every year, the music isn’t entirely to my taste and the ground is a bit spread out for my liking but the atmosphere was excellent………plus, I was there when the world record for the largest gathering of zombies was broken!

Shropshire Community Summer BBQ

You would think that organising a barbecue for the 1st of August would be a pretty safe bet weather wise however, being England I suppose you should definitely never take the weather for granted. To be fair, the forecast had said all along that we should be expecting heavy rain all day so preparations were made to give us some cover should the forecast actually be right for once, updated forecasts on the day suggested that the rain would stop later on in the day. As it happens they were spot on with their predictions, the rain came, very heavily at times, soaking the gazebos we had put up and even leaking through in places so all we could do was hope that the forecasts were right. 3pm came and the clouds cleared and by the time people started arriving at 4pm even the sun was trying to make an appearance………bonus!

Rarely in front of the camera

The barbecue was being held for members of the Shropshire Community group on Flickr, the photo sharing website where I seem to spend most of my on-line time. The group has around 150 members but a core of around 30 that are regular contributors who go on monthly meets and stay in touch via the website. It’s a really vibrant and friendly group which has made both Lorna and I some really good friends, so hosting the barbecue was a real pleasure for us.

As well as a common love of photography there is also a select group of us who share a common love for real ale, so a trip down to the All Nations to get a barrel of their Dabley Gold ensured plenty of liquid refreshment was available………a real bargain too, £85 for 72 pints

Cheers!

For a bit of fun, Lorna and I decided to have a raffle with some really great prizes all sourced from the depths of some of our less used cupboards and drawers. Prizes included an 8Mb compact flash card (8Mb??!!), a sandwich toaster that Lorna won in a raffle a while ago, a telephone extension cable, a DVD of The Producers which we never managed to watch past the first ten minutes, a VHS tape of Heartbreak Ridge (one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films)……..all quality items!

Some of the group

That shot was taken well into the night so some were edging toward being a little worse for wear, either that or they had been sampling some insanely hot home made chilli sauce that one of the group bought with them. As is normal with any kind of gathering at our house, later into the night the karaoke machine came out and some rather ropey singing made a great finish to a wonderful evening. We even managed to raise some money for the Severn Hospice

Shift Time – Surreal Time?

Lorna and I were invited to go to the Friday launch of the Shift Time Festival in Shrewsbury. A free bar (for a while at least) and the first performance of the festival ensured a good night so we picked up two friends and made our way there, slightly later than expected but time seems to be a concept that is slowly taking a back seat these days.

After our first beer we then sat down in an igloo type building and listened to the official opening speeches by Anna Douglas and Jon King, two of the main bods involved in the festival. Following that the first performance, entitled Low-Tech Songs with Servo Drive, started which was by Paul Granjon a French performance artist who essentially sings self penned songs about animals in the evolutionary chain. With a definite tongue in the cheek he sang about chicken feet and fish, each supported by a video being projected onto the wall behind him. He then progressed and wore a pair of robotic dog ears and a robotic tail whilst singing, He finished with him singing and being supported by a robot which played a small, purpose made synth. All very surreal but highly entertaining and a great start.

When  we returned to the bar the free drinks had ended…………boo!

As the light started to fade we all walked over to Umerus and watched a twilight demonstration. One of the local freelance press photographers was there to get some photos so a few of us helped him out by holding some LED lights to light the scene he had set up a little better, he was working with on-board flash as well and was still at 1/20 second exposure at f/3.5 not sure what the ISO was. I shot this not long after,  ISO-800 1/25 @ f/1.6. I liked the silhouette and thought it made a nice shot.

Wonderment

We left soon afterwards and I have been sworn to secrecy about the further beers, wine and kebabs which made a very pleasant end to the night!

We arrived at the Quarry the day afterwards feeling slightly worse for wear and as it was a beautiful day we took our dog Jack along for a walk. Our first visit was the installation of theRemembrance Path by two local artists, Wren and Ray. I talk a little bit about it in this post. Trying to get some different angles on the proceedings I got on my belly and after being jumped on by Jack I took this shot.

Wren places book number 2 down.

Bit of a lucky catch really, as I was lying there getting my angle how I wanted it, Wren, one of the artists, came along and placed the second book down and promptly apologised for ‘ruining my shot’……..couldn’t have been more wrong.

We then had a wander further into the Quarry and saw part of a performance by Blue Eyed Soul who perform aerial dances, this time dressed in Victorian costumes and with audio narration. I took a few snaps here but didn’t really get anything that I was particularly impressed with, I blew the highlights on this one.

Blue Eyed Soul

Trying to get some movement in the scene I swiched the camera to Av mode and set the aperture to f/22 and lowered the ISO right down to 50 which gave me a shutter of 1/30, plenty long enough to convey some sense of speed, luckily the girl on the right stayed fairly still which made for a nice contrast.

Swinging Around.

My wife, Lorna, who has also been blogging about this event has also been doing some of the video interviews for the Shift-Time website so I held Jack and took some photos of her whilst she interviewed Theo Jansen. It’s been a right old family affair hasn’t it, me photographing, Lorna interviewing. Other videos of Lorna doing her stuff here

Lorna Interviewing Theo Jansen

I had been looking forward to seeing the performance of Feng Ru Lee since I had first seen the festival programme so I was keen to make sure I was about when it started. As it happens, Lorna was carrying on with her interviewing duties and spoke with her before the performance so I had time for a complimentary burger.

After a while Feng Ru Lee appeared in her sheep costume and started her performance where she was penned in a small enclosure and mimicked the actions of a live sheep in another pen next to hers. From her website:

Counting Sheep is a series of performances that has turned an artist such as myself into the comic like character of a sheep. The sheep has appeared in many different situations and is interested in inspecting the changing landscape of the urban city. It references our post-human future and relates to self-marketing as an Artist product. Doubling myself / itself again and again like Dolly this clone has never died, but instead reinvents its self in new forms and manifestations. So many questions are waiting to be answered in the future. I am interested in testing the boundaries of social ethics and acceptable science, exploring the line drawn between where scientists cease to be humans and play at being god.

Possibly the most surreal performance I have ever seen and it certainly got the attention of many people passing by.

Photography wise it wasn’t an easy situation to get something a little different, so again I was trying to look for a slightly unusual angle to get the scene in. There were many others there taking photos at this point and some people were even setting tripods up to get their shots. I took a few ’straight’ shots bu they didn’t really do anything for me at all, either by content of composition so I started to angle the camera around and came up with this which sets the scene quite nicely I think.

Feng Ru Lee as Milee

I particularly wanted to get some nice portrait shots of her and had spoken to her about grabbing some time after her performance, however, I realised that if I got on my belly and poked my camera lens through the fence I was at a perfect angle to get what I wanted so I popped on my flashgun and waited for the time when she was in the right place. Difficult one this, her costume was bright white and the sky was starting to show signs of rain, varying between bright white and grey so I decided to use the fill flash to give me a bit of separation, expose her face correctly and underexpose the sky a touch. This has had a bit of extra work in post processing to exaggerate those points…….but not too much.

Feng Ru Lee

I was also interested to catch peoples reaction to the performance and I think this next photo sums up the general WTF?? expression on peoples faces.

A Definite WTF?? Moment.

So, that was about it for the first day of the festival, we saw some stuff that we hadn’t seen before, spoke to people we hadn’t spoken to before and heard things we hadn’t heard before and though some of it I didn’t really ‘get’ it was a great day out with some nice photo possibilities, even Jack enjoyed it.

Photographing Theo Jansen

A phone call out of the blue yesterday saw me being asked to go and take some photographs of Theo Jansen in the Quarry in Shrewsbury for the Shift-Time Festival’s PR agency, my very first ‘proper job’ so the pressure was on to produce what they wanted.

Theo arrived in the country the day before so that he could unpack, set up and test his creation, Umerus. A quite amazing feat of engineering that sees the 13 metre ‘Strandbeest’ fluidly walk with wind assistance. Earlier tests on a beach in Holland were thwarted when the wind was simply too strong, so a beautifully hot and sunny day was perfect for the day’s testing. Officially, the photo shoot was today (Friday) but having heard the poor weather forecast I decided to go up and meet Theo and get some photographs ‘in the bag’ just in case I was presented with torrential rain. So, Lorna and I hot footed it up to Shrewsbury and went to meet Theo. When we arrived he was due to be speaking to BBC Radio Shropshire so we hung back and took the time too have a close up look at Umerus and have a chat to his co-workers, it also gave me the opportunity to get my camera ready.

Theo Jansen Talks to the BBC

All seemed fine until I turned on the camera and then it very quickly occurred to me that I had forgotten to bring a memory card…….what a base error to make, maybe thats why I am an amateur Luckily, a friend was there too and very kindly lent me a card. Panic over I did a quick scout around looking at the light and the environment and trying to get a feel for the kind of shot I wanted.

When Theo had finished I introduced myself and explained why I was there a day early. What a nice friendly chap Theo is, very warm and soft but in a frame that excudes authority. Within minutes he was posing for me with utter patience as I manouvered Lorna around the scene with the off camera flash. My feeling for the photo was to have quite a dramatic shot with Theo posed with a ’smug’ impression. I asked him to fold his arms, look right into the camera and say mentally ‘I made this!’

Theo Jansen and Umerus

I used a circular polariser to give the rich and vibrant sky, off camera flash camera right (held about head height by my wife) to fill in the shadow areas a touch. This was the best of the day for me despite the car in the background! Another of my favorites is this shot which shows some of the detail of Umerus against the beautifully blue sky.

Umerus Detail

This morning on the ‘official’ photoshoot the weather delivered as promised and though it wasn’t torrentail rain, it was raining pretty consistently. The skies were varying between dark and light so I knew I had a bit of a job on to balance the exposures. I arrived at the park at 10.30 and just after that I met the contact I had from the PR agency. We had a chat about what kind of shots she wanted, angles, subjects etc and then decided that to get anything decent we needed Umerus to be off its temporary wooden floor and on the grass. Having met and photographed Theo the day before I had no qualms about asking him to get Unerus on the grass. As I expected he obliged without question so I certainly think my previous visit paid dividends.

Walking Umerus onto the grass

We had decided that a few photographs of Umerus with children would give the creation some scale, so as some willing parents and children were rounded up I thought about angles, light and those damn clouds that were varying in brightness by the second. Soon enough a willing parent arrived with his three children so I set the following shot up with the child looking up at Umerus. This was lit with the diffused flash camera left pointed at the subject.

Childs Play?

I really wanted to get Theo in front of Umerus again but this time with more of the ‘Strandbeest’ showing than in the previous photo above. So after clearing another photographer out of the way and positioning Theo I was quite happy to hear Theo ask if I wanted him to do the ’smug pose’ again. This was music to my ears as  I knew that he knew precisely what I wanted.

Theo and Umerus

I took around 70 photos over the two days and selected only the ones that I felt had compositional impact, good light and good colours.

Despite my initial nerves on doing something ‘officially’ for the first time I soon settled down and got on with the job in hand, I struggled a bit with some of the shots that I wanted to get but this was probably more down to my inexperience in this kind of photography than anything else. There was a point where it was suggested that we have a couple of dogs in the picture but I poo pooed that idea fairly quickly, difficult enough working with kids without introducing animals into the equation.

Nerve wracking, stressful and highly enjoyable and I think that I managed to get some decent photos out of the sessions, I’ll wait and see if any get used in the papers this weekend……..keep your eyes peeled!