From the packaging:

“Vege-Gel is a vegetarian alternative to gelatine and NOT A SUBSTITUTE. Therefore it has to be used in a slightly different was to gelatine and it may be necessary to adapt your recipe.”

Easier said than done, I suspect. My marshmallows did not set. I’ve had a go at rescuing them, but if it works it’ll be a miracle.

Next time, I’m using gelatine.

Photo gratuitously borrowed from Giacopazzi’s website. Please forgive me.

It’s a fish and chip restaurant and ice cream parlour that’s been serving the village since it was founded by Lorenzo Giacopazzi in 1900 and is still run by his descendants to this day. Their fish and chips are great, of course, but this story relates to their fantastic ice cream. Ever since Lorenzo set up shop 113 years ago, all their ice cream is made on site, and their recipes regularly win national recognition and awards.

I can’t claim to be a regular customer; I’m only in town a few times a year, and it’s not always warm enough for ice cream in the Scottish Borders. But when I was up at Easter I did pop in, and chose a cone of their Chocolate Fudge Brownie, unable to resist the claim on the sign that it was the “Best in Britain”. And, while the rest of the family were getting served, I snapped this photo on my iPhone.

And, as I tend to do, posted in over on Flickr, and pumped out a link on Twitter and Facebook, and promptly forgot all about it. And then, a couple of days later, Giacopazzi’s replied.

@trevorcoultart Brilliant photo! Would you mind emailing us a copy? There’s an ice cream or two in it for you ; ) What did you think of it??

— Giacopazzi’s (@Giacopazzis) April 9, 2013

An ice cream in it? Yes, I know there’s an ice cream in it. It’s a photo of an ice cream. Oh, wait… what? So I promptly made sure I got them a copy of the original, and assured them I’d be back in town soon.

And, last weekend, I was.

But not only was I in town, I was celebrating a family birthday with a meal in Oblò, a bistro restaurant that’s also owned by the Giacopazzi family, and which – of course – serves Giacopazzi’s ice cream. Well, somehow the connection was made (I, ahem, may have mentioned it somewhere along the way), and sure enough when it came to desert our waiter announced there was a free ice cream each on the house. We were a party of seven.

And all because of my little photo, and the magic of Twitter.

So thanks, Giacopazzi’s and Oblò, for fabulous customer relations. These are businesses that understand how to use social media.

To anyone else, if you’re ever in the Eyemouth, make sure you pay both venues a visit. Heck, if our anywhere in the Scottish Borders, pop in to town specially.

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Note. This is not in any way a “sponsored” post. I did not receive any payment – or indeed ice cream – for writing this: I am simply choosing to share the story. (And in case you’re wondering why I’m specifying this, I’ve learned recently that there are strict rules about declaring when a blog post is sponsored or if you’ve received a freebie for review or such like. As this may have looked like a sponsored post, I figured I should state that it isn’t. Just in case.)

Photo by Sergey Melkonov via Flickr

What a lot’s happened in the six years since then…

This morning was the penultimate submission for this semester, and indeed this year. Rather than simply handing work in to the tutors, we sometimes first display the final pieces so we can all have a look at what we’ve been up to and this time we each had to take turns saying a little about what we’d done and why. Some of my classmates seem to hate doing it, but I love seeing everyone’s work up like an exhibition. There’s some really creative stuff going on here, and I was envious of some of the standard of work. This was only half the class, as we were split in two for today’s submission, and the rest went up in the afternoon after our lot came down. There was some good stuff there, too!

Just one more assignment to submit tomorrow (the book project), and that one will simply be a “hand-in”, so we’re off out for lunch afterwards to celebrate getting to the end of year one.

So… this time I’m jumping in with a suggested theme for each day, following this set-up by Australian Blogger Fat Mum Slim.

She suggests a whole host of places to publish your photos, but I’ll be sticking with my tradition of using Flickr. Not sure if I’ll post them here each day, but links will no doubt go out on Facebook and Twitter to annoy everyone who follows me there. (You do, don’t you?)

Seeing as I’m here, this is my Day One:

“I bought this”. (Well, it was the only thing I bought today!)

That is all.

(Photo entirely unrelated.)

Now, just two deadlines remain. One, for the “Digital Environment” module, I’m pretty much completed. We had to design and layout a photographic book showing a portfolio of our work. All laid out using InDesign (which I loved), my book is here and I’m really pleased with it. Just a few more notes in my workbook, evaluating the project and the results, and I’m all done. You can see – and even purchase – the book on blurb here.

The one I need to work on more is the last of the “Photography Practices” module. Architecture, Portraiture and Still Life are all behind us (though we’ve not had grades back for Still Life yet as our main lecturer for this module has sadly been off sick) and the last one is Fashion. Not really my thing, but I’ve done a couple of shoots for it, taking a simple approach of using my son as a (willing!) model showing him in “different clothes for different activities”. Out of several hundred shots, these are the four that I’ve just sent off to have printed up large.

You can see larger versions here:    Print 1   Print 2   Print 3   Print 4

[EDIT: I picked up the prints today. It's amazing how much less forgiving an A3 print is than a screen. Will need to re-edit a couple, and possibly change my mind about one of them. Grrrr.]

As well as the studio shots I also borrowed a lighting kit and did a shoot in the woods with him, and got some shots I really love, but – however I tried – I couldn’t get them to work as a ‘set’ with the studio ones. I have used one of them for the ‘becoming nature’ assignment that was submitted this week, and have some great shots to print up for family, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

My favourite shot from the woods.

But anyway, as you can tell (by the fact that I’ve posted this on here) I have loads to do before deadlines next week: I may have got my prints ready, but my workbook for this assignment (fashion ‘inspiration’, lighting techniques, research and so on) is decidedly empty just now and needs to be filled. Of course in an ideal world, I’d have done the research first. 

Maybe next year…

We all submitted stills, video and stills taken for time-lapses, and I took on the role of video editor to compile the finished short. It’s submission day today! This is what we’re submitting:

(*Disclaimer: No one has asked for it really.)

I don’t really ‘get’ Tumblr**. So I figured I might as well just put it here. 

* Does this make me sound old?

** Does this?