We’ve finally got the keys to our new house! Now begins the stressful part of moving everything in. Luckily for us we still have our flat for a couple of weeks so the relocation process can be a gradual one and it gives us time to decorate a little before the furniture goes in.

That US style mailbox definitely has to go, its been bugging me for the best part of 3 months and now that its finally mine, I’m going to take a large hammer to it thus marking the start of a very long DIY season.

Heres the garden and what will eventually be the workshop where one can be left to create and tinker to their heart’s content.

Theres a great deal of work to do but its going to be fun doing it and with kind offers from friends to help out, our little house in the country will be up and running in no time.

My National Trust podcast site seems to becoming popular. The amount of subscribers is really encouraging ( a few thousand at the last count) as the podcast gains popularity. This month’s has just been released into the world and it features Natterjack toads.

You can listen to the podcast by visiting the site here.

I am having an encouraging response from friends and strangers on Nike Plus as I start racking up the races. I achieved a personal best in one a couple of days ago. I blogged about it when the challenge began but between then and when the challenge finished I took the time to concentrate a little on getting my timings down and as a result managed to smash my previous record and winning the challenge as a result. I can now run 3k in 10m 52s which I like the sound of but I’m certain when I finished I could have shaved a few more vital seconds off. Not to worry though, still very pleased with the result.

I’m now back to concentrating on distance training.

I’ve noticed as of late that as the weather starts to improve and temperatures start to rise, so does my Mac - so much so that it gets unbearable having it sat on my lap. Venturing into the old mecanno drawer I quickly whipped up a handy stand for my laptop to sit on and wired an old computer fan in for good measure.

Unfortunately my plan to run it off one of the usb ports failed as it wasn’t producing enough output so it running off external batteries at the moment and seems to be doing a great job of quietly circulating the air and cooling things down.

Yesterday we put the staff pass to good use and ventured out to Stourhead. I haven’t visited for a couple of years and during that time had obviously forgotten how pretty the place is. I tried to take a few really good photographs whilst deliberately turning the auto feature off in a bid to force me to learn how my camera works.

This weekend there was a festival of the voice in which choirs from far off kingdoms came together to celebrate the wonder of the vocal chords and drawing huge crowds in the process. Dotted all round the lake, it was surprising how well the choirs music carried across the whole estate.

Salisbury is buzzing with people most of the day and night but as I met up with a very talented photographer at 6.30am this morning, the deadness of the city centre was very eerie indeed. It was as if we had the whole city to ourselves to play with our cameras.

I’m still starting out with my new Nikon D40 and this morning I learnt a great deal about operating the camera when you switch off the auto function despite the challenges of an overcast sky.

Unfortunately the photographs I took weren’t anything special as they were really just educational shots but everyone has to start somewhere.

The afternoon was spent in the grounds of Stourhead of which more interesting photographs were taken and will be posted shortly.

Recently whilst I’ve been doing the blog rounds on the internet I have become greatly inspired by a growing community all pledging to buy homemade. We all know buying homemade is best (just pop over to the site to read more on the homemade pledge) and for that reason I decided to give it a go myself and judging by the amount of people they already have signing up to pledge I’m not the only one. Pop over and see the signatures, its impressive.

Regular readers will know I am a big fan of podcasting, in particular ones by Make Magazine and Etsy and although I’ve enjoyed customising my own tshirts (click here to read more) I decided to head over the Etsy site to have a look around to see what other people had been making and it soon became apparent that theres a huge amount of talent out there.

Bank holiday weekends are great aren’t they? Not only can you catch up on lost sleep from the working week but they also give you plenty of time to get on and progress with various projects. I’m aiming to get one past the finishing line very shortly.

Over the last couple of months I have been working on a photographic site based on an idea I had a year or so ago. The idea was to bring local photographers together to display and sell shots of local landmarks online to the many visitors of Salisbury who may have forgotten their cameras or who are after a better, more arty shot than the ones they’ve taken. The past couple of months have seen me speaking with a few photographers who were able to give me some very helpful feedback and advice. I was half expecting my idea to be shot down straight away but because the comments from the people who know their stuff were so encouraging I decided to put plans into action.

Shutr was the name I came up with in the end, sort of going down the whole Flickr route and I was very surprised to see the domain shutr.co.uk hadn’t been taken. The logo came along easily enough and over the last three weeks I have been toying with a couple of templates which I’ve been designing. Its all coming together nicely and clicking into place. I have half the content from contributing photographers and am just waiting on the other half before I go ahead and release Shutr into the big bad world.

Well the week is over and one can now enjoy the extended weekend. The past few days out of the office have been hard but very productive and at the end of the day yesterday we all let rip on these really great electric skateboards in part of our customers warehouse. Just press play.

These things really pack a punch despite having a variable spped controller in your hand while you ride them. These things are scary but such great fun.

Its turning out to be an incredibly busy week this week, too busy to do anything fun. I did however make it back up to Edinburgh yesterday but sadly it was only for the day, and most of that was taken up with meetings and feeling scared on a plane. Now the remainder of the week, including today and for sometime next week I’ll be gracing the presence of a very cool London based clothing company. I drove the rocket into the city this morning to be presented with a beautiful array of hand gestures and insults as it would appear a ginger lad sticking to the laws of the road in London just won’t do. London’s just full of shits isn’t it, full of people always in a hurry. Give me a sleepier city in Wiltshire any day.