Is that the weekend I can see in the distance?

Just about. Thank $Deity - I really need a break i think, but am not planning on having one this side of April - for lots of reasons - one is that I have too much to do at work (as always) and the other is that the weather is rotten and who wants time off when it's cold and grey?

Picking up a cold at the moment too - a rotten cough - not too bad yet but very productive (as my medical collegues say). Lovely.

Looking for photography courses to book myself on at the moment - once you start researching this it looks like every photographer in the country, at some point, stops taking pictures and starts charging a couple of hundred quid a day for lessons. Some of them seem to make no bones about it - and advertise it as a day walking around outside (wherever they are based - so either countryside or architecture) taking pics and having a pub lunch...

I am after some detailed time in a proper studio - I want to learn more about lighting and posing models than I do about pub lunches or starting your own business. Some of these courses are no more than thinly disguised ways of selling franchises - they even say in the blurb that they prefer people with no experience behind a camera at all and no skill or artistic flair required... Dodgy devils.