There is not one dirty word in it, and it is funny.

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the surrogate father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, ‘Well, I'm off now. The man should be here soon.’

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. 'Good morning, Ma'am', he said, 'I've come to...'

'Oh, no need to explain,' Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, 'I've been expecting you.'

'Have you really?' said the photographer. 'Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my speciality?'

'Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat'.

After a moment she asked, blushing, 'We’ll, where do we start?'

'Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there.'

'Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!'

'Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results.'

'My, that's a lot!' gasped Mrs. Smith.

'Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be in and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that.'

'Don't I know it,' said Mrs. Smith quietly.

The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures.

'This was done on the top of a bus,' he said.

'Oh, my God!' Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

'And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with.'

'She was difficult?' asked Mrs. Smith.

'Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look'.

'Four and five deep?' said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.

'Yes', the photographer replied, 'And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in.'

Mrs. Smith leaned forward. 'Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh...equipment?'

It's true, Ma'am, yes... Well, if you're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away.'

'Tripod?'

'Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long.'

Mrs. Smith fainted.

I was home alone this evening, Pam and the girls have gone up to Fleetwood as the girls are in their annual summer dancing show at the Marine Hall. I started looking through some photo's that I had taken a few months ago, but never had time to re-size them and look at them properly. I had just saved them on the computer and whilst I was looking at them tonight, I thought that they might just be worthy of a quick blog post.

It was a while ago that the family and I headed up towards the Lake District in Cumbria. It was one of those days out where we just made some sandwiches for lunch and headed off on a magical mystery tour.

On the way I was stopping the car snapping photo's of the lovely scenery around us. I can remember now trying to get a couple of unusual landscape photographs with different colours in them and shadows. I also like capturing moving water and the green algae on the rocks stood out a mile from the white water.

Take a look at the ones I picked out and let me know what you think, the last one was just too cute not to include and come on - how often do you see a Robin whilst you are feeding the ducks with bread ?

'ah' at the Robin, you big softy

Gz

Kelsey and Jemma wanted to set up a little greenhouse and have a go at growing some veg from seed. Now I am not Alan Titchmarsh and don't have green fingers like the incredible hulk, but I thought hey! Why not? I have seen Yabba's vegetables on the plot of land he has not too far away from where I work and have always been interested in the produce he (and his good lady Vicky) pull out of the ground each year. I have been lucky enough to try some of his vegetables that he has grown, in the form of the odd carrot and radish and as people always say, they taste so much nicer.

I set up a little plastic covered greenhouse near the house, just large enough to take 8 seed trays. Kelsey and Jemma filled the trays with compost, sowed the seeds and then watered them well. The tray were then put in the greenhouse and we handed the rest over to mother nature herself. A few days went by and this eventually lead on to a week and nothing, not a sign of anything growing through. A few days more and the first of the radish sees had started to grow, poking their little heads out of the soil. The girls were really chuffed and excited to see them growing.

One sunny day we had all gone out on a bike ride and after we got back, I unzipped the greenhouse just to see how they were doing. It was now that I was to learn a valuable lesson, unzip the greenhouse door each day as it get mighty hot in there if you don't. The radish that had started to grow had fried in the mid afternoon sun. They were dead, and at this point I realised that plants need ventilation in order not to steam in the soil. I noticed this when I pulled a tray out and saw the steam coming off the soil

Not to worry, I thought, another week and we will have more coming through, how wrong I was. The heat steamed soil must of killed the seeds stone dead and there was nothing in sight at all. I was also to find out that the seeds were planted too deep as well, and this didn't help them in their quest to grow.

Knowledge is a powerful thing, if only there was something like.... lets say 'The Internet' where you could look up and read all about things like this before you started with a new project !!! Dooh :

So armed with some basic facts on sowing seeds, I had noted how deep to sow them and how they don't like to be mad hot with no ventilation, I set off to sow some more in the trays. This was done last Saturday and the girls and I were looking forward to the second attempt of 'Grow your own veg'. I am proud to say that after a few days we are now the proud owners of some little juvenile radish and peppers. Pam has got the salad bowl out on stand by . It looks like we have got the hang of it now, and can't wait for a few weeks until we can try our very own, home grown veg.

Tune back soon folks to see how they are doing, I will keep you all posted with more photo's and info.

Gz

* edited 19.6.08 *

The seeds have been busy growing and have come up really well this past week. Here's a few pictures to show you how the feast is growing.

I am quite enjoying watching their progress every few days and I am trying my best to look after them by watering them every night, gosh its worse than having kids. Mind you, at least you don't have to get up in the middle of the night with them

 

Gz

Fed up of your usual morning breakfast cereals ? Then look no further as these new and exciting morning delights are heading for the supermarket shelves as we speak.

O.K, so I diverse a little, but just imagine the look on your children's face if you served them up with a bowl of any of these before they headed out to school.

Just thought I would share them, I got them in an email today and thought they were - well lets say different

Which ones your favourite ?

Gz