When I was frantically Christmas shopping in the last couple of weeks of December I found everyone on the list fairly easy to buy for. People had given me a few hints and I love finding little bits and pieces for our loved ones.

But when it came to my Mum I struggled a little. She has a wardrobe full of clothes, handbags, jewellery, perfume and her home has just the right amount of trinkets on shelves. And then I realised, my mum is actually the easiest person to buy for. Because all she ever wants is time. 

And time is what we get the least of. She juggles her job at British Airways, welcoming travellers into Heathrow Terminal 5 at 5am and kindly assisting exhausted parents with buggies as they check in, with helping my sister looking after Yasmin. She finds time for her friends, for swimming dates, for girlie lunches and looks after her husband who has recently had some serious health issues. 

In amongst her incredibly busy life, she manages to find time to blast down the motorway to us, pick up the boys from school, act as our fairy godmother and power wash and iron, a wildy out of control household!

When she comes to visit, she always offers to stay in and man the sleeping boys whilst we have a precious evening out, and 36 hours can go by and we have barely and a cup of tea together. So for Christmas I wanted to spoil her. Take her to somewhere lovely and spoil her with special time, just the two of us.

We headed to our family place in Southbourne this weekend, a place that holds nothing but happy memories for both of us. I had my first holiday at the flat when I was just 6 weeks old and now my boys are reliving my childhood with holidays by the seaside. When you walk into our flat you feel instantly relaxed. It has an almost magical power that sweeps over me and I love that our friends feel the same. 

On Boxing Day we all divvy up the year, booking in weekends and our Summer weeks, and I text our friends to see if they can come and make some memories with us on the beach. BBQ's at the beach hut, sandy feet treading back up the zig zag path and glasses of something lovely on the balcony as the sun sets, with the sunbeams streaming into the living area onto snoozy woofers, worn out by long days tearing up and down the shoreline after 2 excited boys playing in the tiny waves. 

But it was so nice to just be there together.

At just gone 3pm she checked her watch and said "Good grief! It's gone 3pm!" Now that's what you call a leisurely lunch! The Captains Club in Christchurch is the perfect venue for a special but not pretentious lunch date. Beautiful food, elegantly styled and a cocktail list that makes it almost impossible to choose.

It was the longest we've talked in forever and I loved it. We strolled round the town centre, popped in a few gift shops, had a peek in the charity shops and then headed back for the last half an hour of opening time in Southbourne high street. We took in the view of the serene harbour and laughed about my sister's hen party when a dozen of us dressed in purple cocktail dresses tottered off a narrow boat for cocktails at exactly the same hotel.

Southbourne has changed beyond all recognition since I was 6 weeks old. Our favourite bakery is still there but the high street is now bursting with independent restaurants, delis, a coastal art gallery and lots of lovely gift shops. We are so lucky to see these changes and enjoy them. 

This Summer I will be giving our beach hut a little make over and trying to freeze frame those moments which I watch our boys literally relive my childhood holidays. Jumping off the same set of groynes, cycling along the same promenade.

My mum looks after me. At 33 and 3/4 I still really need her. But it's the best feeling when you realise we need each other. Best friends, mother and daughter.

Happy Christmas (ok I know it's January) to my lovely mummy.

Linking up with Mummy Daddy Me and #theordinarymoments

Hooray time to get #backtobasics again.

You might want a refresh and read What is Aperture? and What is Shutter Speed? before you read on, as it will help you to understand the three main principles of photography. Once you have grasped them, it will feel like a weight has lifted and I guarantee you will feel less scared of the DSLR in your hands! At least that's how I felt!

ISO (Pronounced as in the letters I.S.O.) is your camera sensor's sensitivity to light. So the lower the ISO number the less sensitive your camera is to the light available. The higher the number the more sensitive. 

When you are capturing images in bright light, like on a sunny day outside, you would use a lower ISO number but for darker, low light conditions, you would want to increase your ISO to enable you to take photographs without a flash. 

BUT, you will notice that as you increase the ISO number, your image will appear more grainy or fuzzy. This is called noise. 

Sometimes I like a bit of noise. It can add atmosphere, a rugged texture and really suits a more earthy photograph, but generally, you want to avoid noise and grain if you can. 

Different DSLRs will have different ISO scales. Each will have a Base ISO. This is the lowest ISO setting. On my Canon 6D, I can adjust my ISO from 100 to 25600, which means that I can shoot well past dusk and just about get away with a "rustic" image!

I work in natural light and being able to crank my ISO setting is a great benefit in the darker, grey Winter days. 

Think about ISO numbers as a scale low to high. As you double the ISO, the sensitivity to the light doubles and the speed at which you take the photos doubles. 

So, an ISO 200 setting will be twice as sensitive to the light around you as an ISO setting of 100.

An ISO setting of 100 will take 1 second to capture, when you double the ISO setting to 200, it takes 1/2 a second to capture the same image.

So think about shooting a moving object like your child running in the garden. You might want to increase your ISO to say 800, to take the image at 1/8th of a second. However, the trade off is that by increasing your ISO number, you increase your camera's sensitivity to the light and could end up with a whited out, or over exposed image. You know, when people's skin looks like a ghost! It's a trade off, to capture the moving object in focus, in the best light conditions. 

Here is a cheat sheet for you to help with different light situations you may shoot in. 

I set up this photo of the Wintry roses at 4.30pm on a dreary December day. I used a tripod and as I lost the light I snapped the same image using different ISO settings to show you the impact of increasing your ISO number.

FIRST ISO 100 - The first has very limited noise in the background, the centre of the pink rose is crisp.

SECOND ISO 1600 - To compensate for the fading natural light I increased the ISO but the orange roses become more grainy, although the image is still sharp enough to print. 

THIRD ISO 25600 - Even at the highest possible setting on my camera the grain engulfs the image. Definition and detail is lost and the picture appears fuzzy and unusable even online at low res.

It's an extreme example but try setting up your own mini shoot at dusk and see how your settings affect the picture quality. Remember, what may look sharp on your display screen may look quite grainy on your computer screen. 

Photography is all about balance. It's about balancing the three principles that effect exposure. Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.

I like to think of the three, like the three legs of a tripod. So if you change one you have to adjust the others to balance each other out. 

The best thing to do is play! Play and practise and challenge yourself.

I will be shooting a recipe book this Summer and have been taking myself off for an hour here and there to practise in low light conditions and playing with different lights. 

Improving your photography is a never ending process. So go and get snapping and enjoy seeing your pictures improve.

Next up is composition and we can start playing with props!

What a start to a colourful new year!

We have decided to work through all the colours of the rainbow again and my January blues have been well and truly washed away!

I definitely struggle at this time of year. I like sunshine, bare feet and flowery drinks. A Summer baby who hides in opaque tights during the cold months. Whilst I love a frosty morning and am secretly praying for snow to capture our home in the snow, January is a month I feel most uncomfortable in. The house feels bare, stripped of all the Christmas decor and twinkling fairy lights and the post Christmas catch up on work and emails feels never ending.

But this week I have been overwhelmed with beautiful blues. Blue party decorations for my brother in law and a vodka party with all their great gang of friends, and my Instagram feed has been light up with every hue of blue you can imagine!

My week of blue looked something like this...

And I loved these captivating images from the #capturingcolour gallery.

But this just had me at hello, or rather love. I LOVED this image! Pop over and check out Cecilia Bohm's inspiring gallery.

Join in with our new week of PURPLE!

#capturingcolour is a weekly tag on Instagram with over 6000 posts to the colourful gallery. Share your purple images this week and use the hashtag #capturingcolour for your chance to be featured. 

You can find my gallery here :)