Learn Elements 7 finished and Foxes

Hi Everyone
Great news all round....yes I have finished "Learning Elements 7" and I'm now awaiting delivery of them from the manufacturers HOORAY! So all those people who have pre-ordered should have delivery early next week. Use this link to find out all about our new product http://www.tigpud.com/learn-elements-7-c19.html

Now that is all done I have some more exciting news! Last year we had foxes under our shed at the end of the garden. We live just outside the town centre so these are definitely "urban foxes". This year we have a new Vixen, who we believe is from last years cubs. She has four cubs and we get treated to a nightly display of chaos, much better than any wide screen telly can produce. I have taken these images for your enjoyment:

Hope you like them? But to answer a few questions, before I get them.

How did I do it? Well one of the many benefits of my job is I use large flash units for shooting commercial assignments. They do exactly the same as the flash on most cameras, but with way more power. The other advantage is I use long lens and a radio slave unit. This fires the flashes off when I press the shutter release button on the camera, but operates them remotely. So I can sit the the comfort of the house waiting for the foxes, with my G&T, shooting images without disturbing them.

After the first couple of shots, which were just to test the setup, the foxes didn't even care.

Now I have a slight dilemma. We have a small garden and Mary is a keen and brilliant gardener. It always looks stunning all year round. How she manages to do this and join me on my assignments astounds me. Actually it's down to damn hard work, I know as I have to run her bath and cook when she is finished. Not a chore on my part as I love cooking and find the garden not an enjoyable event. That might be why we get on so well, Mary has this as a release from my constant boundless enthusiasm for well.........just about everything...but mostly LIFE!

Back to my dilemma, lovely gardens and fox families don't actually go very well together, big surprise there then! Most low lying shrubs(technical word there, yes, I did have to ask Mary) are laid flat to the ground. Anything slightly taller and it becomes either edible or a damn good chewing toy. Below the ground is not safe either, bulbs get dug up and eaten or redistributed around the garden and holes appear, well just about anywhere!

Mary has been very patient these last two years but the shed they live under is on its last legs. She has asked me to take it down when the family leaves and that would mean no foxes next year!!!

So what do I do? Your comments as always to keith@tigpud.com

Take care and hope to see you soon.

Keith

Los Angeles to Antigua

Hi Everyone
Just arrived back from Gatwick airport, so straight on with the blog, as promised.

Had a great but very long flight to Los Angeles, with the hope of seeing some of the city when we boarded Fred. Olsen Ship, Balmoral, but arrived too late to get to see anything. Damn! oh well always next time, I guess.

2nd May: Next day awoke to San Diego and a 36 hour stop, brilliant! Spent the first day at the world famous zoo. Tip for anyone going to San Diego "take the bus" really cheap, clean and safe. An all day ticket to use any public transport of the city for only $5, around £3! Also buy your ticket, for the zoo, from tourist information and save even more money!













Massive zoo with huge enclosures and natural feel to the environments, great photo opportunities and brilliant weather.

3rd May: Went to find a decent coffee house for the Sunday morning fix and more of a feel of the city. Can you believe this, they do a "white chocolate, triple espresso, mocha" wow! So after Sarah, my daughter, had retrieved me from the ceiling, we rejoined the ship and set off for Guatemala. The ports in Mexico had been cancelled, due to Swine Flu.

4th May: First lecture of cruise, went really well and to a packed audience. No, the weather wasn't that bad either, so people did come of their own accord. Second lecture on 7th went really well.
Went out on deck afterwards to see loads of Flying fish, not the easiest to get, they look really slow to the eye, but through a long lens, much more of a challenge!






















8th May: Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. Warned very heavily about safety. They always do on cruise ships to these kind of ports but something told me to stay local to the ship and just enjoy the local bar with Sarah and a couple of friends who are waiters on the ship. Very chilled out day but managed to get these images as well. 9th May at sea.














10th May: Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Another wildlife enriched day. Off to a crocodile and wilderness experience. Fantastic fun, although you do get pretty close to the crocs! I was allowed to hang out the back of the small boat and get these images:

11th May; At sea with another lecture, passengers getting more used to my style of presentation so the questions start flowing making it a much more useful experience. Also ship visited by a Peregrine falcon, amazing! we are about 50 miles from shore and it did a couple of circuits of the ship, landed on the bridge and set off again. A passenger commented that they often come and meet the ships and grab any small birds that have hitched a lift.



12th may: transit of the Panama canal. Slightly misty day, but nonetheless an amazing journey from Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean sea. The transit took all day with Sarah and I on deck from 6:30am. Yes a photographer and daughter up and out that early, incredible!


14th May: Santa Marta, Colombia. Only here for the morning, although to be honest, that was all you needed, unless you just like sitting on a beach drinking rum punch. Hang on that doesn't sound that bad now! Just walked around the town and again got ready for my lecture in the afternoon.

15th May: Willemstad, Curacao. Late arrival here but managed to fit in Kayaking and snorkeling, had a real good time. We were in a two person kayak and with Sarah taking the helm, I could sit back most of the time and relax. Kept telling her she needed the training and I was more of a management kayaker than a paddler, got very wet with that comment as her paddle seemed to suddenly throw a wash of water over me. Justly dissevered I guess. Went out for a great local meal in the evening.
16th may: Last sea day for us and last lecture, with a slide show for the passengers of the images I had captured on the trip.

17th May: Castrie, St. Lucia. Another chillout time, getting used to these.

18th May: St Johns, Antigua. Leave the ship for the Rex hotel for an overnight stop and kickback time with friends, entertainers and lecturers. Had my first go on a jet ski. Amazing but I have never been able to have a go before, but right in front of the hotel was this gorgeous beach with all the water sports imaginable. Hired it for 20 minutes and set off with Sarah gripping tightly on passenger seat. After almost, must have been 30 seconds, and just starting to have fun Sarah screamed " I don't like it" I started to play some more and got a sharp prod in the side with "what part of take me back to the beach NOW don't you get?" I reluctantly poodled back to the shore and dropped her off. Well it was gloves off time! Being a mad keen speed freak and biker it was great fun! I found if you put it into full left lock at speed, do a complete tight circle, full opposite lock and then left lock again you ride straight into your own bow wave and go submersible! KOOL! Spent rest of time just chilling mon, as the locals say.





Keen to get back home with Mary and was so relieved flight was all on time and transfer home went without a problem. Hope to finalise the new DVD's before I'm off to Iceland on 6th June.

Oh before I go. Been thinking about uploading slide show of the cruises to the website. So what are your views? Comments as always via keith@tigpud.com

Thanks for reading the blog and take care.

Keith

Radio Interview

Now I know you are all going to be shocked! Yes two blogs in three days, but here it is.
I have just had an interview with Neil Pringle of BBC Sussex, on his Breakfast program. To listen to the interview just click below and don't forget to sponsor me please, if you havn't already! Use this link to donate online

Just been informed that, the cruise I join in Los Angeles, will not be calling at ports in Mexico, due to the outbreak of swine flu. Big relief all round on that one, but so sorry for the people affected by this awful virus.

All the best

Keith

Very overdue update

Hi Everyone

Firstly a huge apology for not updating this sooner, but when you read the news you may see why!

Well let's start from just after my first blog. We flew off to Tenerife to pick up "Spirit of Adventure" a wonderful ship with a real family warmth to it. We then cruised to Dakar, Senegal, we were supposed to be in Gambia but due to an engine failure we had to slow down and make the extra stop.

Dakar, ah yes DAKAR, interesting to say the least, they certainly know how to swarm around tourists offering everything at $10 and then when you finally can make a small break from them its $5, even when you are back on the coach they appear with the 2 for $5 approach! The best thing about Dakar this first time, was seeing it shrink on the horizon!

Onward across the Atlantic, destination Brazil, but on the way coming across St Peter and St Paul Rocks. This is one of the few places an underwater oceanic ridge breaks through the surface of the sea. I seem to remember this making it one of the highest mountains on the planet. It only protrudes 18m above sea level so I will just have to take their word for it.

Brazil was fantastic, we, yes Mary managed to come with me on this trip, had a great time calling in at Salvador, Rio de Jenero, etc and culminating in Buenos Aires. Let's be honest how could you not have a real great time?

The flight home was a little different! As you know I lecture on cruise ships, so come under the entertainment side of things. All the passengers flew home direct to Heathrow, we were treated to a far better trip, via Washington! Yes we flew from Buenos Aires to Washington, three time zones west! to then fly five time zones east! I must say the American Airlines staff were great, I think they just thought we had moved in. We arrived back home on the 9th January. Don't ask when we left Brazil.

Busy shooting the next DVD on Understanding your Digital Camera. We have all learned that "Keith doesn't do scripts" as Barry, the video king, so poetically put it!

Joined Fred. Olsen's ship Balmoral in Dover on 27th January 2009. On a trip called "South to Senegal", can you believe it! I met some lovely people on board but spent a lot of time working on the new DVD's in my cabin as Mary could not join me on this trip, her daughter needed her help with our granddaughter and home while she under went another bout of chemo.

Dakar again! In truth it wasn't as bad the second time and I travelled with some passengers to the pink lake. it should be called the "the not really very blue lake and a tiny bit pinkish lake". but I guess they don't have trade descriptions restriction that we have in the UK. Managed to get a go on some massive 4x4 vehicles, great fun!

Returned home in time to have a romantic meal with Mary on Valentines day, but only just.

Managed to fit in some photo shoots for a couple of commercial clients before flying off to Norway to join the Hurtigruten ship "Nordkapp". this was a specialist cruise with a dedicated bunch of photographers wanting to expand there knowledge and hopefully photograph the "Northern Lights".

After the first day of cruising and a lecture we were delayed in port and then while I was working in the cabin the power went off. Oh well the laptop will run for a few hours and I'm sure it will be back shortly. Yes the power came back on, but damaged the main motherboard to the engine management system. Yes! Mary also commented on me and ships breaking too!

This actually turned out to our benefit. I started lecturing the following morning to keep the group happy and when we still weren't moving at lunchtime announced we should just carry on in the afternoon. Result.

The following day we were all transferred to the "Polarlys" hoping this was a good omen as it means Polar Light in Norwegian. See it was worth waiting for this blog, I'm now teaching you Norwegian! The rest of the voyage was brilliant with 4 consecutive nights of the Aura Borealis. Wow what a treat.

The cruise took us past the Arctic Circle Monument and onto "Nordkapp" no not the ship but the North Cape, the northern most point in Europe. Hey that was another part of the learning Norwegian course, see not so difficult, is it?

We then went on to Kirkeness which is 10kilometers from the Russian border. Because of the breakdown, the ship not me, and by the way nothing to do with me, no really. I had reorganised with the company for us to stop an extra couple of nights before flying home. Not only this but also some extra treats for Mary.

A night at the Snow Hotel. Brrrrrr yes very Brrrrrrrr but very Grrrreat too. Carved out of lake ice every October and melting in May with a constant temperature of -4 degrees. It certainly was an experience, one I am happy to tick off the list but a one off I can assure you.

What else can a tiny town in the middle of nowhere clad in snow offer the traveller? Well, kick sledging, snow shoeing and husky rides! No you don't actually ride a husky but around 6-10 of them pull your sleigh and I actually got to drive it with Mary sat in the lap of luxury surrounded by reindeer fur.

Back to the UK on the 9th March and then off to the Brecon Beacons for training with Marie Curie for the Kilimanjaro trek in June. Had a wonderful time, fantastic fun and have teamed up with my Kili buddy who I will share the experience of climbing Africa highest peak and a tent with. You all know why I'm doing this trek right? If not use this link Keith's charity-support

Then onto my latest trip with Oceania Cruise company on "Insignia". Flew out to Barcelona to join the ship and thankfully the engines started and we were taken around the Western Mediterranean calling in at St Tropez, Monte Carlo, Portofino etc. We finished this cruise in Rome, where I had organised an extra night and a trip around the Vatican with a brilliant guide Grant from Eden Walks. Tip for the men here: Mary had always wanted to go to the Vatican and organising it and putting in a little effort pays massive dividends. I have now been promoted to "Best Husband"

Just managed to get this done. Yes you guessed it off to join another ship, well one I work on quite a bit. Fred. Olsens' Balmoral, joining her in Los Angeles to travel around Mexico, Costa Rico, Panama canal and stopping a night in Antigua, yes I know what you are thinking, but I'm not allowed to write those words on this blog! As I write this it is raining hard outside. I shall miss that!

Mary can't come with me on this trip as her daughter has just started Radiotherapy at a hospital close to us.

Well I hope you enjoyed this blog? let me have your feedback.

I hope to now keep this updated regularly. That should get the people who have been nagging, oh it's not nagging it's constantly reminding me, off my back!

Take care

Keith