I originally started writing a blog post about attending Ampersand a couple of weeks back, but to be honest I’ve lost all steam since then.

One of my first insect shots, taken a couple of weeks ago

The short version is, it was really interesting and a good excuse to be completely immersed in the world of typography. I’m pretty uneducated when it comes to fonts (even though I have an amateur appreciation), and thanks to the talks I have a LOT of respect for the people who create them. My favourite talk was probably Luc de Groot’s, because he made me continually flick between amused and scared and the sheer amount of work that goes into hinting. Yves Peters, Jason Smith and Jake Archibald were also excellent. It’s weird seeing people who have done insane things like create fonts for national TV channels, Calibri and various other fonts we see every day.

What was not fun was the hotel. It was surrounded by clubs (and actually attached to one) and it was freaking LOUD. I got maybe four or five hours of sleep total, and being up before 7am the next day was not fun. Also in the ‘not fun’ category is the fact that I was dragging so much expensive equipment (laptop + camera + 2 lenses) around for the weekend, but the pictures were just about worth it. I uploaded all my photos to the Ampersand Flickr group (and I’m super flattered that Eye magazine asked if they could use them), but here’s a couple:

The lanyard had a schedule in it, which was a great idea.

Every seat was taken.

Following the conference I met up with Joe and we had dinner together and walked around Brighton for a bit. I loved what I saw of the city and want to go back and see it properly at some point because there were lots of unusual shops and places to eat. I live nowhere near the sea now and I miss it.

A cloudy evening.

Then we went back to his parents’ house and I slept for HOURS. Ampersand was a twelve hour day for me, and for pretty much all of it I was in ‘work mode’, so it was nice to have a relaxing weekend. We went for a walk, and unsurprisingly, I took yet more photos.

We got back on Sunday night, and by Thursday I was completely exhausted and twitchy. So I took Friday through Tuesday off. Tabi and Kevin’s wedding was on Monday, and I didn’t want to drag my camera around all day so I took my old Lumix TZ7.

Camera phone image taken on the train. Not sure why I look quite so pale!

My little point-and-shoot still does me proud. This is Leicester Cathedral.

The start of a lot of cake!

The wedding cake.

The figures on top of the cake were Link and Zelda. Awesome.

It was a great day with a LOT of cake thanks to there being four people on our eight person table. It was also a scary day, because Kevin and Tabi are around the same age as us, have been together for about the same time as me and Joe, and they’re now married with a kid. It doesn’t make me feel old, just confused. We did get asked if we were considering getting married, to which Joe replied ‘Not yet’ and I replied ‘No!’. There are far too many camera lenses, domain names, and things for the house to buy. Yep, I’m romantic like that ;)

I had a huge Amazon shopping spree and stocked up on cat food (we now have over 40kgs), other grocery things, and a few other bits and pieces like the 7 Wonders board game (which I have lost a lot of games of and won about two) and a new bed/scratching post for the cats. I also bought a spare battery for my camera and some more expansions for Munchkin. We also bought some storage shelf type things and put them together to try and make better use of the space. We still have one left to do but I’m really happy with how they’re looking. In real life shopping, I was hugely happy to come across some half price Spode locally. We’ve been looking for a new dinner set for ages, since we were left with only a few bowls and plates after our housemates moved out. Three trips and a lot of carrying and bubble wrap later, we have a complete new set…I’ll post photos at some point when I’m less photo’d out.

Finally, in the last of the photo round-up, the Olympic torch arrived in the city yesterday. At first I was generally just ‘meh’, but having received instructions to blog and take pictures of it for work and then hearing about all the stuff going on in the city, I got a lot more enthusiastic. Joe took most of the pics because it was just so crowded, and he’s taller than me and not opposed to pushing past people to get a good spot.

Olympic ice skaters Torvill and Dean bring the torch to Nottingham

You can view my complete set here: Olympic torch relay.

The last three weeks have been a different kind of busy, and they’ve been fun. And now back to the daily grind :D