It’s all been a bit quiet on here of late. The main reason being there is a LOT going on for the two of us right now! We have pretty much settled into our new home right on the cusp of the Peak District and within easy reach of the wonders of the City…the City being Manchester of course! In truth we absolutely love it here, out in the country with walks from our door step and fantastic hillside and valley views. We have found our spot, for the time being at least.

So what have we been up to? A trip to the Lake District saw us bring in Dave’s 30th birthday with a lovely spell in Ambleside. We stayed in a boutique B&B; The Waterwheel which with only 3 rooms really felt quite cosy! Our hosts Julie and Nigel made us feel very at home by leaving home-made chocolate cake in our room and rustling up a very tasty breakfast each morning. It was simply nice to be away from our work-related and home improvement environments. At this time of year it’s a stunning area to visit as all the leaves on the trees are turning into rich golden hues and vibrant reds.

Ambleside is well located for local walks and shops and has a pretty good selection of restaurants and bistros too, although with this comes a price tag. We are used to good grub, we are also used to fantastic vegetarian food so although we ate well at Lucy’s and Fellini’s we felt the food didn’t quite match the price tags at around £16 for a main in both.

We enjoyed a lovely walk up to Easdale Tarn from Grassmere, which again is a very twee, picturesque village and this can be appreciated even in the rain! After grafting our way along slippery paths and streams in a torrential downpour of rain we came to a very foggy tarn. We managed to take a few meter readings for our new friend; a Bronica Medium Format camera and then promptly took the loop path back down to Grassmere. Once back in Grassmere we enjoyed soup and drinks at   Baldry’s tea room, great hot chocolate to be had there.

Something that was a nice little bonus during our stay was that the Ambleside Salutation Hotel next to where we were staying were offering a Sunday lunch and swim deal for £15.95 per person. This isn’t just a swim though, we had full use of the facilities including the gym, pool, sauna, steam and hot tubs, one of which is outdoors. Lovely for the cold autumn chill. The 3 course lunch was fine for what we paid and we spent the majority of our morning there so it was a worthwhile thing for us to do.

Earlier on in October we attended Sukie’s 4th Birthday party, wowee that was a whirlwind event. About 8 little girls from her pre-school came along, presents in tow and prepared for pass the parcel, sleeping lions (or something like that!), party food, a tremendous Tinker Bell birthday cake made by Emily and of course some crazy shapes on the dance floor. This was all over within a few hours! They have some fast energy those little ones! Love their group photograph too, they obviously didn’t find it a smiling matter!

Coming back to a more sobering note, we attended the Broadbottom Community Remembrance Sunday service on the 10th November. This is our first community event since we moved here and it was a beautiful site to see all the families and friends of the village come together in remembering lost one’s through war. This couldn’t have been on a more perfect Autumnal day, starting off with a low mist which by mid morning had cleared to a beautiful blue sky and bright streams of sunlight. A local brass band led the procession up to the cenotaph where everyone gathered in remembrance, singing hymns and offering poppy wreaths. Very atmospheric. We followed the service with a local walk which took in hills, paths, roads and more rivers! It is really beautiful around here!

We keep saying this everytime we write but we wish we could be posting more frequently on our beloved Notworkrelated blog. The truth is we’ve both been so busy in our workrelated lives! This shouldn’t be an excuse! The reason we started this blog was for us to have a platform through which we could discuss and showcase what we get up to away from work. I guess with all the traveling out of our system (well for the time being at least) we have had to crack on and get back into our lives as photographer and designer.

So for a little update here’s what we’ve been up to…

Helen photographed Andre Bonomi, new Aston Martin shareholder for an Italian editorial feature at head office in June.

Helen has already visited Dubai, Spain, France and Germany this year with top client Aston Martin. She’s been photographing lifestyle and documentary imagery on launches, at motorsport events and various VIP visits to head office. It’s been a busy year for Aston with it being their Centenary year and so there has been lots to photograph! Not to mention their big celebrations in London this coming weekend. It’s free to the public on Sunday to witness Aston Martin’s biggest line up of iconic Aston Martin cars in history. Lets hope the sun stays good for us!  You can find out more here.

Bruno Senna leads the GT Pro class in car no.99 at this years Le Mans 24 hour race. Needless to say the gridwalk was a fantastic experience!

Unfortunately David doesn’t get to play quite so much with the Aston’s but he does often find himself joining Helen as a photographer too which is nice as this means we get to work with each other! And we have just both returned from the Goodwood Festival of Speed where we were shooting for Tag Heuer as a joint venture so he does get some of the perks!

David in the meantime has started a job! Nooooo! We cried! But there are a few responsibilities on our shoulders including a new house which we should be moving into soon. We’re moving to a lovely village on the cusp of the Peak District and within reach of the glorious city of Mancheser which is going to be our new back yard! Well actually the Peak District is more our back yard but it’s good to have Manchester only a 20 minute train journey away.

He is now working at Havas Lynx, a global agency leading the way when it comes to marketing and design. He’s in the design team putting ideas into reality. It’s a great platform career wise, plus it means we get to meet more people from Manchester!

So in between relocating and finding ourselves new contacts for work and play we took a little trip to Wales recently and opted for the less popular but perhaps more spectacular hike to the top of the Glyders in Snowdonia. We were greeted by glorious weather right before this ongoing heat wave began luckily for us as it rains often in Llanberis. We took the £1 bus up to Pen-Y-Pass where the path begins opposite the Pass car park alongside the hostel. We rarely passed anyone heading up this side of the mountain a refreshing change to tackling the masses of hikers who take on Snowdon every day.

Our ascent took about 2.5 hour or so with a few breaks to take in the views and to enjoy Mrs Roscoe’s homemade fruit cake! Its easy to loose the path because it isn’t well trodden however there are pink markers on the rocks every so often so if you do miss it navigating back onto it is easy enough. Approaching Glyder Fawr at 999m is fun, it’s a little like scrambling over giant rocks in Planet of the Apes. The landscape is amazing up here, the rock formations huge making us feel like midgets! We met more hikers as we ventured across to Glyder Fach (994m) and found the cantilever stone perched on top of more rocks. Some fun to be had there!

We looked out across to Tryffan and Devil’s Kitchen, perhaps routes that are taken more frequently although only in good conditions. As it was still and sunny this was the perfect day to hike around these peaks. We’re always reminded of the dangers when we see rescue helicopters flying around!

We took the path down to the Pen-Y-Gwryd Hotel where we enjoyed drinks in their historic and Everest themed bar. The only downside was the hour long wait for the bus back to Llanberis, but at £1 each its a bargain really!! Although this isn’t the Himalayas there is so much exploring to be done in this part of Wales either by foot or bike. We’ve enjoyed many hikes directly from Helen’s parents cottage in Llanberis and also bike rides around the Snowdon routes. It’s a part of the country that should be on everyone’s visit-list at some stage in their lives and especially for those who love the outdoors.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 processed in Lightroom 3)