Instagram #WWIM12 - Edinburgh Zoo and National Museum of Scotland

Last weekend I headed off to Edinburgh, on the 8am train, to my second Instameet. WWIM12! First up was a visit to an empty National Museum of Scotland. The main atrium is vast and an amazing space with some great features and exhibits dotted around. I'd been here only once before, on a busy Sunday afternoon with two tired nephews in tow, so it was great to be here when we had an 'empty'. Yes, that's right, they very kindly opened up the space half an hour early for us Instagrammers. An 'EmptyNMS'.

Everyone quickly set about the task of wandering around this vast 'birdcage' like building and snapping away. At about 10.15am we were taken up to a circular meeting room with great view of the bustling streets below and where breakfast was laid on. Then, the final treat was higher, up on the roof terrace where the public aren't really allowed to go. And the best part... The views of course.

Huge thanks to National Museum of Scotland team for their generosity and hospitality and @Snapmike for organising that part of the day.

Next, a few of us hopped in a taxi and made the short journey over to Edinburgh Zoo for part two of this WWIM12. It was #WWIM12EdinburghZoo. Now, I haven't been to the zoo or any kind of animal park since I was about 6. Many, many years ago. Oof, I'm getting old! The only thing I can remember from that visit was a picture of me and my sister standing next to a rock with a giant bear behind us. We had no clue he was there!

Anyway, we arrived just after 11am and got our tickets and name badges, but the surprise part was a ticket to see the Panda's at 2pm. Wow, very generous.

I headed on up the hill to the chimpanzee area where a feed was about to begin. A few people had gotten to the balcony before us so we had to wait at the fence but still managed to see the chimps grabbing away at their food. They had a huge wooden and rope built structure that looked like such great fun. A little while later we swapped over with the balcony group and got a closer view of the animals. I never took my Fuji camera with me as I wanted to shoot on my iPhone for my Instagram feed. In hindsight I should've just slung it over my shoulder as the zoom of the iPhone is not great for shots of animals who are quite far away. Still, good to see them in real life though. There's one there in that picture above, a female, who's been there for 50 years we were told.

After the chimpanzees, I decided to wander on my own. I slowly made my way up the hill to an area called Dinosaurs Return. Giant animatronic dinosaurs were dotted around, with sound effects and one was even spitting water! A few kids had fun standing under it. Another kid was screaming when his mum tried to get a picture of him at the mouth of the T-Rex. Hehe.

After a quick stop for lunch at a BBQ stall it was time to head over to the see the Panda's. The female wasn't around and the male was just sort of laying there in a hammock with his back to the window. The keeper told us he ate 45kg of six different kinds of bamboo per day. Greedy thing!

Shortly after that was the penguin parade. A strange affair. Everyone was asked to stay on the grass behind a yellow line and a little group of penguins walked around, closely guarded by the keepers. The penguins were smaller than I had imagined. Only about knee high, and the black part wasn't as black as I'd thought.

The Scottish weather was unusually warm and made for a great day out. Most of us headed back to the lecture theatre in the chimpanzee area to charge up phones and take some final shots. After that was a quick drink stop then I headed for the train.

Huge thanks to Edinburgh Zoo for their hospitality, and to the Instagram Edinburgh folks for organising it all. Really appreciate it. It was lovely meeting new faces too. I'm always a bit awkward at these events. So if I met you (or not!) and I was a bit quiet, I do like you and know that I'm much more talkative once I get to know you. *smiley face*

You can see some great photos by heading over to Instagram and typing in #WWIM12Edinburgh #emptyNMS #WWIM12EdinburghZoo I highly recommend you have a look!

Angela

#WWIM11_Edinburgh

I finally did it. I finally got a place and attended a WorldWide Instameet. This was number 11 and I attended the one that took place in Edinburgh on Saturday evening, organised by @IgersEdinburgh. It was held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One and was a lovely setting for it. Two things I Love; Instagram and modern art, in one evening - I was always going to want to be in on that action. Even better was the fact that the Roy Lichtenstein work has just opened at the gallery plus a great deal more. I'm a huge fan of all that pop art stuff and even have a print of one hanging on my wall.

Anyway, I arrived in the golden hour to the gallery and there were a few people milling around outside whilst a group took some pictures on the grassy sculpture. It's always a bit awkward when you are rocking up to these events and you don't know anyone there. Luckily there were a few people in the same position as well as some folks who obviously knew each other.

@Ange77H

Then there's the meet up etiquette. When I've been to 'tweet-ups' in the past there have been name badges with your Twitter handle on it. There were no name badges here. I was thinking "shall I just say Angela or will I give my Instagram name?"... I soon discovered Angela would do fine.

close up of a Lichtenstein

After the opening group shop was taken we made our way inside the museum and the door was closed. We had an EMPTY! The first of it's kind in Scotland so it felt like a real privilege. After an intro by the museum staff and a few pointers from the organisers we were allowed to go on our way to explore and snap this wonderful building.

I love this picture but WHO is this? anyone? @IgersEdinburgh 

There were a few hashtags we were asked to use on our pictures and it didn't take me long to find a few great shots #emptyscotmodern #emptyscotmodern_corner #emptyscotmodern_reflection. I also brought along my Fuji as I wanted to get some better quality shots of the artwork. PS all photos in this post were taken with my iPhone6. I'll do another post with the Fuji pictures.

At around 7.50pm the bell was rung and that was the end of the '#empty'. What a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Everyone headed outside into the chilly spring air and there were more group shots with faces lit by phone light. Most people then headed off to have food and drinks and I headed home.

I was sad the shop wasn't open

If you'd like to see more pictures I took on the night head over to my Instagram @Ange77H :)

Huge thanks to @IgersEdinburgh Steve (@Wilde_Oates) and Jemma (@Jemmacraig) for organising and to @natgalleriessco for allowing us the privilege to explore an empty Modern One.

Angela x

Featured on VSCO weekly selects

Last week I was scrolling through my Twitter time line during a break in some Commonwealth Games sporting action and happened upon a picture collage. Inside that collage I thought I recognised one of my very own snaps. "Nah, it couldn't be! Could it?".

It was a picture collage posted by the @VSCO twitter account (above) and included a link along with the picture collage to a feature they do called Weekly Selects. I clicked in it and scrolled down to what I was sure was one of my snaps and YES, there it was. My name!! I knew it! This was the picture, below. The staircase from the Jim Lambie exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh.

Now, incase you don't know what VSCO is or who they are, here's some brief information. VSCO stands for Visual Supply Co. According to their website "VSCO is passionate about creating beautiful and efficient digital tools for the modern creative." Amongst the products they have is one of the many photography apps I use on my iPhone - VSCOcam. If you don't have it on your phone then I highly recommend you download it now as it really is a comprehensive photo app with many features and filters that you can use to tweak your photos to make them look their best. I tend to use it for the good stuff. The stuff I want to keep and post to my VSCO Grid - which you can view on the web version of VSCO. 

You can find and follow other people's VSCO Grids too but as far as I know you can't 'like' pictures in the way that you can on Instagram. I don't mind that though since you tend to get a better quality of picture over there. Well, less pictures of food and cats and certainly no selfies (yeeha!). At least I haven't seen any selfies on there.

I was overjoyed by this and RT'd it and thanked them very much for selecting me.

About an hour later I got a notification that I'd been tagged in one of their Instagram pictures too. (They tag all of the people they feature). That was very cool. But soon after that I started to get loads and loads of notifications of people 'liken' my pictures and following me there. I don't know how people with thousands of followers who regularly get millions of likes, cope. Turn the notifications off I suppose.

I thought I'd share my little brief piece of fame on the Internet with you. I know it's not much but I was thrilled and I've only been using it a short while. I've been on Instagram from the very beginning and still haven't had one of my photos featured anywhere by them.

What are your favourite photography apps? I'm always looking for new ones.

Angela x

Driving for Doughnuts - Krispy Kreme

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks you'll know that Krispy Kreme has now opened it's first Scottish hotlight store at Hermiston Gate in Edinburgh. I first tried Krispy Kreme doughnuts exactly 2 years ago when I went for a little weekend away down south and was heading home at Luton airport. I spotted the stand and bought a half dozen to take with me on the plane. They were tasty. Very tasty. I never had one again... until last weekend.

First of all my sister, two nephews and I headed off on a wee road trip last Wednesday night. It was gone 7.30pm by the time we left the village and we thought it would be quiet. Wrong. When we approached Hermiston Gate roundabout we saw the queues of cars. These queues weren't your ordinary queues. No, these queues were the kinda queues that once you enter them there is no getting out. Not for at least an hour. On the approach Connor had fallen asleep in the back of the car. When we saw the queues Ryan proclaimed "What are they queueing for? it's only a doughnut shop!". Probably what a lot of people were thinking, right?

We headed round the roundabout into the retail park. People had abandoned their cars on the main roundabout and had queued on foot at the shop. It was around the side. We sat for a few minutes until Ryan decided we should head back to McDonalds at the Newbridge roundabout. The doughnuts would be eaten on another day.

They had a cheeseburger meal, i had some chips. It's all I could manage with my brace in. We sat there and watched a few planes take off and land. Well we could see the lights at least. Then we headed home.

On Saturday I decided it might be a bit quieter and headed through myself in the car. Bummer. There were queues again. But since I had time to kill the queues didn't bother me so i parked at the retail park and walked across to the store itself. The queue was around the building again but I waited in it. Surprisingly enough it took 40 minutes from when i arrived until i was out the door with my double dozen freshly baked Krispy Kreme's. Yum.

Once the queue reached the building door you could see the doughnuts being produced, glazed and boxed. Pretty cool.

Most people were buying dozen boxes. Some were buying double dozens and there were a few even buying four boxes. Gold mine! I bought 12 of my own selection and 12 glazed for £15.95. Good deal. In my own selection i chose strawberry gloss, chocolate iced, chocolate kreme, chocolate sprinkles and millionaire's shortbread flavours.

strawberry gloss; choc kreme, sprinkles, iced - yum

glazed

They weren't all for me! This 2 dozen was to be split between my sis and the boys too. I headed home and distributed the doughnuts. The boys lapped them up as did the parents. My sister was left with the glazed ones as they'd eaten the chocolate sprinkles and kreme ones. They're really quite tasty and not very stodgy like supermarket doughnuts I've tried before. The glaze is just the right sweetness and they were so soft I could even manage to bite them with my brace on. Result.

Connor certainly enjoyed his chocolate sprinkles!

I've saw people bemoaning the queues and wondering why people would queue for a doughnut. Well all I can say was my time was worth the queue and my belly thanked me for it.

Angela x

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Thursday thinking and Tuesday blues

So much to think about just now. Haven't blogged for a few days. There'll be my usual Friday Five tomorrow. I have got a post lined up on another of my favourite photo apps, Camera+. I did have it set to go live last night then i noticed someone else done a post on the same thing so for now I'm holding it back.

I feel a bit bleurgh just now due to eating too much chocolate fudge and sweeties whilst sitting in the cinema for an hour on Tuesday night and not a film to be watched. Disaster. Well, maybe a bit annoying really. Booked tickets to an RBS Film First preview screening of Haywire. It was at the Odeon on Lothian Road in Edinburgh. I met Karlie for a lovely catch up lunch at Illegal Jacks, went for a wander around then headed to the cinema around 6.15. I handed over my ticket. He never checked it against my bank card, which they're supposed to do to make sure you are who you say you are. Anyway I headed in and it was screen 3, small screen which was already half full. I sat in the back row. I like to sit quite high up so I can see the screen properly through my glasses. Anyway, I opened my crisps and ate them. It was now full. I swigged on my juice. The lights went up. The lady told us due to demand that more people had turned up than they thought would and RBS generally over subscribe the screens in case no one turns up. I suppose it's a good idea in principle but in January when its cold and people have less money of course they're going to go along to a free cinema screening.

Anyway we moved into screen 2 which was much bigger and sat down. I opened my chocolate fudge ate a few pieces, then a few more. The music suddenly came on over the system. By now it was 6.45 and the film should have started. About 5 minutes later the lights came up and the lady came in again to say the film would be another 10 minutes (7pm) as it was taking time to load onto the servers. (Is this how they do films these days?)...

7.10 still no film. We were now onto All Saints greatest hits album over the speakers. People were getting tetchy. I saw a few people go out and then come back in. A lady told a few people what she'd been told and they got up put their jackets on and were leaving. Around this time i was tweeting and sending comments to the RBS facebook and twitter pages. Someone else who was in the same cinema was doing the same. A reply came via Facebook that they were trying to find out what was happening. After about another good 10 minutes I decided I was leaving. My plan was to watch the film and be out to catch the 8.38 train home to Stirling. If the film only started now I would be catching the 9.38 train and not getting home til gone 11pm. I decided to cut my losses and leave and a few others did too. It didn't really matter to me. I can see the film free on my Cineworld card but still, that wasn't the point. By the time i got out (with a free cinema ticket from the lady at the door, but no explanation) i decided to try and run to Haymarket. It was no use. I wouldn't make it so i double backed on myself and walked along a creepy empty Princes Street to Waverley. By now too my phone was completely dead. I had the iPad but its Wifi only. I arrived at Waverley with 40 minutes til my train was leaving - the 8.33pm. I managed to log onto The Cloud wifi - 15 minutes free. Then headed for the train. Good job i had my wee iPod to keep me company. I'd have looked like a right knob sitting with the iPad out listening to music haha.

That was a longer post than i'd planned. I bought more Haribo sour cherries tonight and have eaten half the packet already so you can imagine how bloated i feel. Spin class tomorrow though and i'm going to totally blast it. Friday night classes are my favourite. Oh and i'm double dipping on Wednesday. Two classes back to back from 5.45pm til about 8. Phew. My thighs will definitely look like Chris Hoy's at the end of this. Or maybe Cav's.

Angela x

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Five Things...

So I opened up twitter this morning and there was the usual mix of morning/breakfast/exercise/travel/weather tweets. If you can navigate your way through this river of greige, you can always find a few gems hidden. Like, there was also the much tweeted link to the little ditty played by Zoe Dechanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I decided to watch it and it was sweet and nice. I've followed both people here, well over on Twitter, for a while. They're quite good value.

In addition there was a post over here by @Whatleydude. Have a read. I decided that I'd try the five things list on this blog, after all, yesterday in my Mission 2012 post I did say that I'd like to get this blog going again, make it huge, and we all know I like a list! So here it is... Except it's not quite five things, it's from the past year so it'll be a little longer than five. Next week will be the five things list. Ok enough. Let's go...

•  Multicolour trousers - mostly from Topshop. Awesome. 
• Ryan starting school and getting on fine, what a relief. 
• Meeting Miss Laura Woods. An amazing person and friend. Also on that same trip south in February I met lots of Twitter people who really we're lovely. It can happen. 
• Getting fitter and losing weight. 
• Hello size 8 little black dress. Okay dresses. Plural. I bought two! 
• Three beaches in one day with Surfpunkian. Awesome awesome day. Thanks dude. 
• Finally meeting MisAKis. Fun, bubbly and lots of great stories about social media 'darlings'. Haha laughed so much. 
• My first Illegal Jack's. I'll be back. I did. A few times. 
• Loving painting my nails. With glitter! Me! Glitter! WOWSERS how times have changed. 
• Cycling 55 miles from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Fantastic feeling. 
• Giving blood for the first time. 
• Becoming unofficial aunty to baby Kai. Gorgeous. 
• Weekend cinema trips. A sanctuary. The cineworld card has been a godsend for me. 
• Favourite movies: Drive. Sherlock Holmes. 50/50. The Hangover part II (obviously). 
• Elemis skin nourishing body cream. Smells gorgeous and keeps my skin soft and err nourished. 
• Twitter. My love affair with it will never end. Not for the foreseeable future anyways. 
• Baking cupcakes. Several good attempts. 
• Seeing brilliant Twitter friend @pyllon finish one of his races. I was going to say "for the first time" but what I'd mean is I saw him race for the first time. He's raced loads. And done very well, thank you very much. These are no ordinary races, oh no, they're across tracked up and down hills and are usually never any less than about 50 miles!! No mean feat. 
• Meeting Miss Karlie MacGregor. A wonderful person. Damn straight. 
• My love of spin bike class. I can't miss any now. Except I am right at this minute missing one, but you get what I mean. 
• Seeing Mr Neil Fox (@drgonzolives) perform at the Edinburgh Festival with his fab Great Brain Robbery comedy mates. What a laugh! 
• Finding fabulous blogs to read, like Whatleydude's. I've nearly finished reading all the away back James!
• New Red Converse. Only my second pair in two years. I think I deserve another and I think I found them today! 
• Buying my iPad 2. Finally. Although it may be going on sale soon. I love it but... The screen thing still irks me a little. 
• The joy I had doing my walk with Instagram back in October. Me, my iPhone and Instagram. Walking around Edinburgh. Good day. 
• Taking the boys and my sister to the National Museum in Edinburgh. They had a ball. 
• Seeing Kings of Leon at Murrayfield in June. Sounded just like the cd. Great gig. 
• The Killing (Danish version). I love that programme! 
• My trip to London in April. Three days exploring that fab city. The weather was brilliant too. I'll be back.
• My trip to Philadelphia in August. Ok ok it wasn't the real Philadelphia but Glasgow. The film set for a new Brad Pitt movie. Hope it's good when it comes out. 

So that's a few of my most memorable good things from the past year. Next week it'll be just five things from the week. It'll hopefully be a regular post. If not, shout at me!

Angela x
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Instagram Worldwide InstaMeet - #InstaWalkAnge #InstaWalkScotland

Wednesday 26 October was the 3rd Worldwide InstaMeet day. What's that you say? Well Instagram is an iPhone photo app (one of my favourites) and an InstaMeet is a group of people who get together and chat, take photos all relating to Instagram. Well, that was the idea, but despite countless calls and few people saying yes, they'd come, I ended having a day to myself walking around taking pictures and posting them to Instagram, and Twitter.

As you might guess this is a picture heavy post so look away now if you don't like pictures. But I wanted to mark the day, my day, in pictures. I decided that i'd go to Edinburgh for this day that on Instagram and Twitter I called #InstaWalkAnge #InstaWalkScotland  I'll explain... The hashtag for the day was #InstaMeet - check the Instagram blog - with the name of the city attached to the end. But since there weren't many takers i thought I'd name it after our beautiful country. I mean surely we have enough going on in the wee nooks and crannies of our cities to capture. Yes we do and that's what i did.

I hope you like the photos. There will be more days like this soon so give me a shout if you fancy tagging along on the next one.

my pillow - the morning of Worldwide InstaMeet day

Connor - one of the angels

Stairs

Scott - The Scott Monument, Edinburgh

Never Ending - Princes Street, Edinburgh

Already Christmas

Occupied

Abandoned

Highland Dress

Pedestrians - Royal Mile

Tea Break - Hula Juice Bar

- - - , Greyfriars Cemetary

Rooftops

Skull and crossbones

Words, Sir Walter Scott

Edinburgh Castle

Castlebarns Steps

This one isn't an Instagram but these shoes kept me walking all day in comfort

White Building - Royal Lyceum Theatre

again, not an Instagram but a picture from food stop at Illegla Jack's

Stained

Castle by night

Door. Pillars

Trains

Last one of the day. Me. Ange

Hope you enjoyed my walk with Instagram. I certainly did. You can follow my photos on Instagram by looking for my username @Ange77H
And a big thanks to @Drgonzolives @CaesarLopez @Cheakodaman @littleembot @abzquine @nickdixon8 @ for the likes and comments on my pictures. Thanks for walking with me, virtually.

Angela x