ailbhe | Anuna and Venture: Venture (Reply)

After hearing Anuna last night, this morning I set off with Rob and Linnea for breakfast at McDonalds. It was vile. May it be another 10 years before I buy there again.

But we then went to have our photos taken, because I won a voucher for taking part in a Marks and Spencers survey. Hm.

They called us up to make an appointment, and again to change the appointment, and a few times to tell us what to wear and do and bring - no patterns, no stripes, zigzags, spots or dots, bold colours, trousers, no skirts, long sleeves, no shoes or socks allowed in the studio (if I get a verruca you'll know why)... they were quite firm that I should be careful what my baby wore, because "little girls usually wear quite pale, pastel things." "Not my little girl," I said firmly. Very firmly. I also explained that I sometimes have to wear skirts, because of physical problems which I could detail if they wanted to hear them but I didn't think they did. They didn't. But they called me back about that, too, asking if it was for religious reasons - no, just physical.

After all this, I felt a bit defensive when we finally showed up, and it was mainly because I never win anything that relies on luck that I made us go. I'm glad we did.

The photographer asked what we liked and didn't like about their style of shooting - all the family groups I'd seen in their brochure were in the same style, so I made sure to say that I didn't like the bleached out look some of them have. Then we went and romped with Linnea for an hour in a white studio with a boy with very trendy hair setting off bright explosive lights at us periodically. It was really nice to have an hour dedicated to active, interactive, hyperactive play.

Some of the shots were so nice that I think we're going to fall for the marketing poly and pay for prints in addition to the free one the voucher covers. Oopsie. But Linnea was at her most enchanting and Rob and I achieved "relaxed and happy in front of a camera", which is rare. Perhaps we can, oh I dunno, remortgage or something. They don't sell loose prints or digital images, only Framed And Finished Works Of Art, which is fair enough but pricey.

It was fun though; the photographer kept saying "If you sit her here - oh, I forgot about the crawling." She moved quickly enough that he had trouble getting the shots he wanted unless we got her to crawl the same route - in an empty white space, mark you - twice in a row. He wasn't all that interested in making her pose, though, just in having her be herself within camera range; when she did something particularly gorgeous and he missed it, he tried to make it happen again, and sometimes succeeded. She liked him.

We were very happy with the session; it was fun and amusing and Linnea had a whale of a time wheeling the light reflector screen into the wall.