4th – 10th May

4th –  Star wars day! After the mornings schoolwork,  Noah made a cinema in the front room (mainly focused around a sweet stand) and we started watching the new Star Wars trilogy with him.

5th –  Schoolwork, family dog walk and football on the field. Highlight of the day was homemade Chicken and Prawn Yaki Soba, a Wagamama recipe from their instagram, it was delicious!

6th – As above. Without the Yaki Soba.

7th – Noah decided to do his schoolwork in the office, Laura needed a break from schooling so I was bought in as the substitute teacher. After our dog walk I built some more decking in the garden and the afternoon was spent creating VE flags (Noah using his laminator for any project he can!) for tomorrows VE day celebrations.

8th – VE day. In the morning Laura and the boys made a beetroot cake and a sponge cake. My attempt to join in ended up in me dropping the open jar of  hundreds and thousands all over the kitchen floor!

The local area looked amazing, filled with flags and setup for an afternoon of celebrations. Near to us a homemade board gave details of Francis William Hallinan, who joined the army age 17  in 1942. He was one of the first British into the Bergen – Belsen concentration camp, where his life was saved by a Canadian officer who pushed him out of the way of a dagger being thrown by a German officer!

Our street had organised a front garden party between 4-6. The boys get dressed up and we filled the cool box with ice, booze and party food. Sitting out front for the afternoon, we enjoyed the atmosphere and chatting (2m away!) with the neighbours. It was a great day (if not a little stressful trying to control Lev near the road) and provided some much needed social interaction. \ 

9th –  In the morning, Noah and I headed into Bramhall to do some doorstep portraits. I’ve seen the doorstep portraits done by lots of other photographers, and initially dismissed doing them as they are not my style of shooting (too much posing!). However I changed my mind and lots of families in Bramhall / Cheadle Hulme have contacted me for a shoot. So far we have raised £84 for charity + provided free shoots for NHS frontline staff.

Noah loved it, armed with my Fuji x100v (which nearly all of my photos on this blog are taken with), he quietly shot over my shoulder. We’ve yet to edit them but he got some crackers! He decided he wants to start shooting weddings with me, I told him he’s a little young yet, he reckons 10 is a good age to come along with me 🙂 .

Back at home it was a scorcher of an afternoon, we stayed in the garden all day enjoying the sunshine.

10th – Anyone that follows my Instagram stories will have seen Noah’s home made “Noah Riley Photography” business cards, after creating them in the morning he came with me for a couple more doorstep portraits  before a chilled afternoon and Sunday dinner.

Boris made an announcement on lockdown tonight. Looks like nothing much has changed for us, we can exercise more and those that can not work from home get go back to work.  Possibility of Noah going back to school in June.