Happy is what we are when we're together

We've had some cracking summer weather here the past few days and as luck would have it Mark had two days off in a row, yay!

After he finished work on Saturday we bundled all our dive gear, along with four borrowed tanks and weights courtesy of awesome Aquatron, into the car and headed north to Ballachulish.

We stayed the night with mum and on Sunday morning we did our first ever completely solo buddy-team dive in Loch Leven.

There are two popular dive sites within a stone's throw of mum's house, the one that we went to with Ben a while back called Manse Point and another one that is even closer to the village called The Slates.

Unfortunately Mark had forgotten to charge his GoPro camera so we've got no pics or film of what we saw under the surface which was a shame cause the visibility was really rather splendid on the day.

We did two dives of about 40 minutes each, the maximum depth that we went to was 20 meters and the dive highlights were spotting a Ling  and having a close encounter (thankfully not too close) with a large Lion's Mane Jellyfish. The water temperature was a cool 10°C but I kept fairly warm in my Scubapro Climatec Undersuit & Everdry 4 Drysuit combo.

On Sunday evening we drove back to Glasgow and celebrated our buddy team milestone by cracking open a few bottles of choice ale, awesome!

When we woke up on Monday morning the sun was blazing though the window and although I had planned to spend the day indoors taking photos for the Etsy shop, it would have been a sin to miss out on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year.

So Mark and I decided to grab our snorkeling gear and head to Wemyss Bay for a day by the coast.

Here's Mark all wetsuited and booted running into the Firth of Clyde...

It would have been too cold to go snorkeling for any length of time without wearing a wetsuit but with a protective layer of neoprene we could stay in the water for a good twenty minutes. The water was crystal clear so the visibility was amazing. We spotted lots of crabs and really small jellyfish but I spent most of the time looking for unusual pebbles for my collection.

Here are a few snaps of our lovely day at Wemyss Bay...

We only took a couple of pics at The Slates on Sunday as our minds were pretty preoccupied with getting everything just right..."planning the dive and diving the plan".

The dive site name is spot on. Here I am rocking my fleecy thermal onesie or Monkey Man Suit as I like to call it.

A well deserved cuppa in-between dives.

So that was the tale of our two days of diving and snorkeling fun.

This is the lifestyle Mark and I have been longing for and I can't begin to explain how happy I feel that we finally got our procrastinating act together and made the move up north. I feel tremendously blessed that everything has turned out so good and that we've managed to hook up with such awesome & kindhearted people.

Don't get me wrong, we had a really nice life & lovely friends down in London too but financially we were always chasing our tails. Even if Mark was earning twice as much as he is here in Glasgow we were still always teetering on the brink of being completely broke.

Although the move has not put us in a better place financially at least we are much happier and we get to do loads of fun stuff, which to me is more important than a bulging bank balance anyway.

Last month we were sent a lovely surprise parcel from our friends Kaori, Adam and their cute as a button daughter Maya in Japan. It contained (among other things) two beautiful kimonos and obi belts.

We have been awaiting an opportunity to take some photos of them and on the way up the road last Saturday evening that opportunity presented itself.

We wanted a dramatic backdrop to do these truly stunning garments justice and it doesn't get much more dramatic than the spectacular Buachaille Etive Mor.

It was Mark that choose this spot. I think it's quite Hokusai-esque.

Mark snapped a few solo sans wig ones of me but the midgies were out in force so it had to be a guerrilla style photo session. 

I had some fun with PicMonkey this morning :)

I'll leave you with a cheesetastico tune from the 90s, enjoy  ;)

May this blog post find you happy & healthy.

loads of love,

Jennie

xXx

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Wipe the slate clean

Welcome to the third and last installment of the Highland photo sessions.

First off a vintage 70s lurex extravaganza labelled Richard Shops that I bought on ebay last year.

The reason to why I decided to bring this frock was because the colour reminds me of slate and Ballachulish is an old slate quarry village. The shore is absolutely covered with the stuff and I just thought it would go well with the dress. I'm actually quite pleased with how these pictures turned out. I love how the surface of the loch is like a softly rippled mirror for the sky, the combination of grey slate and the rust coloured seaweed, it really appeals to me.

It was absolutely freezing cause it had been raining all day and the sun only decided to make an appearance in the early evening. The wind was still strong and I was having real problems with my wig.

 I got so frustrated with having to spit synthetic hair out of my mouth every few seconds so I tore it off in a huff, scaring the pants off an elderly dog walker in the process.

The last frock we shot isn't actually a frock at all but a theatrical skirt and top set.  I bought it a couple of years ago from a freelance costume designer who was clearing out her clutter at a car boot sale. I couldn't believe my luck that day I can tell you, it is absolutely stunning and tremendously well made.

Incidentally this was the ensemble that we tried to shot in the glen, the one that filled up like a tall ship sail.

Mark had warned me but I was adamant to give it a go anyway. I don't like to be beaten but on this occasion the whipping Scottish gale force winds whooped my ass.

 Here I am struggling to keep the skirt down and looking rather miffed ;)

Photo sessions in The Highlands are fun to do but they do present challenges that's for sure. When we did our session last September the weather was very good but then we had  to contend with the midgies and this time we were just a little bit unlucky with the weather...third time lucky?! Who knows? 

That's all folks!

I hope you've enjoyed these posts as much as I enjoyed creating them.

To sing us out the stunning Icelandic band Sigur Ros, enjoy :)

Loads of love,
Jennie
xXx