Health and safety

Health and safety is something we must all take seriously, expecially when using heavy machinery, whether it be in a factory, industrial area or farm.

However whilst out taking pictures  on a farm yesterday, and possibly pushing my luck a little bit, it struck me, if something happened, it wouldn't be me that got in trouble, it would be the business owner. In this case the farmer  Is this fair?

Years ago when I first started, working you could virtually do anything in order to get the picture, now year by year it seems Health and Safety rules get tighter and tighter. I agree things needed to be tighten up so people who in the past were  expolited are not and yes there needs to be a set of guides lines, but surely there should be a diffenttiation between people that come onto a property and choose to take the risk, and someone being asked to do something that may comproisme health and safety.

The time I really started to notice a shift in attitudes was in the last decade. In the latter half I was shooting an agricultural show for the exhibition company who were organising it. It was a two day event and one of the shots I need was a view of the show from the air, with no budget to hire a helicopter, over night I hatched a plan, to ask one of the tractor manufactures if I could go up in the bucket of a Telehandler, that was on display. There was one positioned perfectly in a corner at one end of the show ground.
Next morning I approached a sales people and ask if they could oblige. Well I was surprised by his reaction, however after hearing what he said, I could fully understand.

He said if they did that and got seen by H&S, potentially they could be fined up to 50,000 GBP . Whether I got hurt doing it or not. This is my point, it was my risk, my responsibly, so why should they be sanctioned for it.

Clearly the shot I was after wasn't going to happen.

To make my point about having to take risks, to get the shot here is an image I took some years ago on the cliff's of the Seven sisters, nr Burling Gap, East suxxex. This image was shot with no harness just me a camera and the envireoment I was in.
 I took a bit of  a risk getting it, but it was a calculated risk and at least no one would have got the blame if  I fell. Not been up there for years, but it wouldn't surpise at all it was not fenced off these days.

I have choosen this image purely as an example as to what I mean about taking risks and for no other reason. I have not used a farming image with this blog as I wouldn't want any come back on anyone.


My main point to this, is surely if someone with no connection to a business and  not likely to hurt anybody else but themselves, should be allowed to take responsiblity for their own actions, without the risk of  someone else being in trouble with the health and safety executive.

These are just purely my own views from the experiences I have found, being a photographer over the last 20 years.

Cows are characters too!

On Saturday decided to go and shoot some images of a herd of Dairy cows.

Being a bright sunny day the sky was a deep rich blue which made the perfect background.

As I arrived a Black & white Frisian cow came towards me and started to show some interest. I started to shoot some images and the cow lapped up the attention.

Then other cows came over including a guernsey, and I took some shots of her.




However the first cow was having none of this and after realising she was no longer the centre of attention, walked the few paces to where the guernsey was and joined in.


That wasn't enough for her to share the limelight, and the next thing I knew she had head butted the guernsey to try to move her away.








Turns out he Frisian was called Millie and was head of the herd, and clearly enjoyed the statue that brought with it. So to have an upstart take away her moment was clearly too much for her to bear.

Cows clearly have Diva's in their midst too.

To view more of the images from the shoot go to
http://tinyurl.com/6ayqced

Roasted Mackerel and poatoes in Curry spices

Found this recipe the other day, when looking on the internet for a different way to cook Mackerel.

I love curry. However as far as I am concerned Curry and fish do not mix, people talk about tandoori salmon, byt for me Salmon just has a too delicate flavour to be be ruined by Curry spices.

Then comes mackerel. I thought ok I will give it a go. Mackerel has a fairly robust flavour and I considered could take the hit. I was right.

The combinations of the oil fish and the fragrant spices of the the curry paste work together beatifully, creating a brilliant healthy dish, that is fairly cheap  and relatively quick.to cook.

To view the recipe for this dish , please go to 




BBC Good Food








The  dish is from BBC good food.co.uk and is well worth a go. I tend to vary the quantities, depending on how many people I am cooking for using around 1 potato per person and the same for the curry paste.

Agriculture finally comes out of winter

The last week or two has seen a big improvement in the weather and with that the tractors and sprayers have been out in full force on the North Downs, Surrey and Sussex, from Power harrowing, Ploughing, nitrogen spreading and Spraying.

Spraying Oil seed Rape in West sussex with Herbicide and Growth Regulator

Drilling Tipple Barley on the North Down

Spreading Nitrogen and Sulphur on Winter Wheat

Ploughing the Soil in Nutfield, Surrey

Spreading Granulated Nitrogen on Barley 

Power Harrowing in Chipstead, Surrey

Potholes. Patching holes.Is it the answer?

They say a picture is worth a Thousand words, in this case it might be true and I think proves my point. sorry words below.

Possibly one of my most successful picture themes last year was Potholes. Sad I know but they are the bain of every ones life, and cause countless damage to all forms of transport, that use the road.

One road near me is  particularly bad. It is officially a side road, although used  a lot by people travelling between South of Redhill and Reigate.



A year or so ago the council surfaced dressed it, making what was a reasonably good road a nightmare. Now a reasonable proportion of this road is in a very poor state of repair.


This has been particularly brought to light by a large hole that appeared in  March 10. The council were quick to act and put cones out and within a few days repaired the hole.

Now comes the crunch. It is February 2011 and low and behold where the previous pothole was, a new hole has appeared, admittedly not as bad as the last, but still there.

Clearly filling holes doesn't work as can be seen by these images, please give us back decent roads, after all we pay Enough Road Fund Licence to drive on them, surely we should be entitled to have roads that are not going to destroy our vehicles.

I realise all the arguments about the money from car tax going to central government, but maybe it is time to look at this again and ring fence some of the money,to give us a decent surface to drive on, after all they take enough from fuel duty for everything else, use car tax for road repairs.

Beef Tataki Salad

This has to be be one of the quickest Steak salads to make. Fry your steak to your liking, personally I like my steak still mooing as they say, but that is up to you.

To assemble salad. Finely slice radishes and Red Onions and mix with Rocket.

To Make the dressing mix together 2 tbsp Soy sauce, Juice of 1/2 lemon and 1tsp of sugar. Sesame seeds can be added if you fancy.

Then just eat.

Roast Gammon Shank

I mentioned this cut the other day when I did the ham and veg soup and it really is a cheap way of getting ham.

The recipe I use is in the initial recipe I mentioned in the soup and can be viewed here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bakedham_2810

Nearly all the recipes I cook come from using Google and I simply type in the food I have for the night and see what comes up. Yesterday I ended up with curried Mackerel, as I had some mackerel in the freezer and it needed eating. It may sound weird but it was great. Recipe was from goodfood .com. I don't normally like curried fish. I find the  flavour of fish is too delicate to adulterate with Curry paste, but because Mackerel has such a robust flour it was brilliant and with Oven baked cubed potatoes and onions also coated in curry paste it was to did for. Will be showing recipe and pictures on here soon.

Anyway back to the Baked Ham. Not much to say really but as they they a picture tells a thousand words. Here it is.

Try it out. It's a great recipe and for the info Morrisons sell Gammon shanks on the meat counter and I am sure all good meat retailers sell at all good Butchers and other supermarkets stock it as well.

Egg and prawn open sandwich

This is a recipe inspired from the restaurant at Ikea.




A very quick light lunch which doesn't require much effort. The bread traditionally would be rye bread, but as I didn't have any to hand I just baked a slice of brown bread in the oven until crisp and golden.

At the same time I boiled an egg until hard boiled some where around 7 minutes.

For the seafood sauce, mix some Mayo with Tomato sauce and a splash of Worcester sauce and Tabasco.

Now to assemble the dish, tear or cut the lettuce into strips and lay on the bread. added sliced tomato to his.

Now slice the eggs and lay on top of tomatoes along with a few prawns. Lastly top with the sauce add a few more prawns and sprinkle with paprika.

Vegetable and ham soup

This recipe was kind of throw together from what I had in the Cupboard.

Originally I had bought a Gammon shank, which is a very cheap way of getting a small joint of Gammon. I got mine from the butchers counter at Morrison, but I am sure they are available at other outlets.

This was soaked in water over night before adding to a saucepan with around 500 mls of Cider, an onion a few cloves, peppercorns, a carrot, garlic and 2 tbsp Brown sugar along with a bay leaf or two. This was then topped up with water and gently simmered for around an hour until cooked.

Strain off the stock and use as required.

The meat was then covered in melted marmalade and lemon juice , before being baked for around 20 to 30 minutes in an oven at 190C.

This is a cut down version of the gammon recipe,  I got this from the BBC Recipes but it can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/3y8wu5q .

To make the soup.

You need 

 Leek thinly sliced

Onions sliced

Garlic crushed

potato, cut into 1in cubes

other Vegetables. I used celeriac, but you could use swede, turnips, parsnips or any other firm vegetable.

I gently fried One leek with some onions and Garlic until they were soft. The Potatoes were then added along with the cubed celeriac and any other veg you wish to use. gently continue to fry for a couple of minutes then add the stock and some more cider. 

Cook until the the potato and other veg is cooked and serve.

Edwina Curry on The One show speaking about eggs

As 'The One show' highlighted tonight, just maybe Edwina was right to point out that eggs back in 1988 may have contained more than we thought.

 At the time I was a photographer on a local newspaper in Surrey and had like most people no real knowledge of the Farming industry and was unaware of the problems.

I didn't get into agriculture until 1995, and only because of a contact from my days on the local paper.

The rest is history and I am now a real foodie and believer in Free range food.

Whilst working for the farming press I had the wonderful experience (not) of going into a Battery hen (factory),

The smell was unbelievable and some where no animal, human or otherwise should be in. others may disagree but that is my personal opinion.

I would far sooner have my egg from hens like these than from hens cooped up in what are basically factories. They deserved better and hopefully will now get it. In January 2012 battery cages are suppose to be banned let's hope it happens.

For cheaper eggs we still have barn eggs, but from somebody who has been in a Hen Battery hen shed (factory let's get rid of it now.

Redhill Town FC U11's

After all the bad weather we are finally back out on the pitch. Today playing away to Horsley FC U 11's, last time it was  a very tightly fought match and ended in a draw.

Today was no exception with Horsley scoring from a lob in the first half, but Redhill fought back to draw.

Then in the dying minutes of the game, Horsley pulled back with a very lucky goal, which required the referee's decision. But the goal shoot. Final score 2-1 to Horsley.


The full match report plus all the other Redhill town match's will be on http://redhilltownfc.blogspot.com/
in the next 48 hours.

Creamy Egg Curry

With the New year just starting decided to was time to revamp the blog and get it going again. The Football has now been moved to it's own page at www.Redhilltownfc.blogspot,com and I have decided the vary my entries. Food will probably play a major part in this.

So with this in mind a recipe I tried last week, which I have now cooked a couple of times and tastes great is Egg Curry. Very quick simple and cheap to make, and really easy to vary in size.

To begin fry up some onions, and add the Curry paste, Tikka masala is recommended by the Good Food where I got this recipe from, but any will do depending on taste, you can even make your own if you feel so inclined.

Whilst doing this hard boil your eggs.

Next you need to add a tin of Tomatoes and 200 mls of water or stock. Leave to simmer until you have a thick sauce. Then add some peas  and cook for a couple of minutes. Cut eggs in half and add  to sauce, until warmed through. Finally you need to add Greek Youghurt. Volume dependant on how creamy or how spicy you like it.

I also lke to add some baby spinach leaves and just stir them through.

Serve with rice and Enjoy.
For full details of this recipe please go to BBC Good food .

Also before I sign off a quick Tip. Do you ever have half eaten packets of pre-made  popadums in the cupboard. Yo know, the packet the you opened last time you had a curry and they didn't all get eaten. Trouble is they have now gone a bit soggy.

Well i decided to experiment with this and put them in the oven on a low head about 160c or gas mark 3 I think. Exact temperature doesn't really matter. Anyway don't leave them in their too long or they will burn probably around 5 mins. Take them out and you should have nice crisp popadums again.

I like to serve mine with chopped onion, coriander and lemon juice. but use what ever is your poison.

Redhill town Football club 8-9th Jan 2010

With the start of the New Year and the football getting going again with a slightly shakey start, due to the weather after Christmas, thought it was time to relaunch the blog. The reports below are as sent out to the local paper so mainly information from the teams with a few of the weeks, pictures.

Hope you like it.

AFC EWELL B 1 v 1 REDHILL TOWN U9 match report

  

 Redhill Town U9 stay 3rd in the table with a well deserved 1-1 draw against AFC Ewell B.

The first half was a hard fought battle in the midfield, soaking up a lot of early pressure until eventually conceding a goal in the 15th min to go in 1-0 down at half time.

       The second half saw the introduction of Haydn Puttick in midfield and Joshua Bayode in defence which gave a more solid shape to the Redhill town team. Luke Stevens and Haydn Puttick won some very important tackles and created some great passing moves down the wings to eventually set up Zach Layne to score his 12th goal of the season.

       Redhill Town goalkeeper, Adam Barber, had a superb game, making several important one on one saves, to earn Redhill Town a well- deserved 1-1 draw.

                      Man of the match: Zachariah Layne

  

Epsom & Ewell League Division 1 – League Match 08/01/2011

West Byfleet Scorpions U11s 2   Redhill Town U11s 2

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Having not played for 8 weeks it was inevitable that Redhill would be somewhat “match rusty”.  Scorpions had the better of the early exchanges but the Redhill defence held firm.

Having soaked up the early Scorpions’ pressure, Redhill managed their first effort on target in the 14^th minute, and 2 minutes later they were ahead when Harry Williams tapped home from close range. 

Scorpions got themselves back in the game just before half-time when Redhill failed to clear a free-kick and the ball was bundled over the line following a goalmouth scramble.

Redhill started to get their game together in the second half, and re-took the lead in the 53^rd minute.  Joel Sowton’s free-kick from the edge of the box evaded everyone and crept in at the far post.

Scorpions, though, proved they did have a sting in their tail.  With just 2 minutes to go, Scorpions broke down the left and the resulting low cross somehow evaded Case-Green and trickled across the face of the Redhill goal before hitting the far post and crossing the line.

On the balance of play, a draw was probably a fair result, but Redhill will be looking to push on during the remainder of the season.

Rosehill AFC 6 V 4 Redhill Town U12’s

Match started with a 10 man Redhill team, rosehill afc scored the first goal, but Redhill fought back with a superb goal from tayla Payne, Rosehill afc went in at half time 2 up. Great second half by Julian Ramsay who scored a hat trick final score 6 to 4 for rosehill afc but a heroic game by Redhill under 12's.

Redhill Town FC U18's vs. Wallington Wanderers. 

Final Score after Extra time 4-4.

Final score after penalties 9-8 To Wallington.

On Sunday town's U18's side took on a tough opponent in Tandridge A league side Wallington Wanderers in the 2^nd round of the league cup.

The game set off at a quick pace with chances at either end. The teams seemed equally matched from the start, and it looked like a stroke of luck would be the only thing to separate the two sides. Luckily this went Town's way. About 15 minutes in town were awarded a corner which was scored directly by Nick Harlow on his Redhill debut. After taking the lead Redhill looked on top throughout, and Steve Buxton had many chances after terrorising the Wallington defence all game, however he was unlucky not to have doubled town's lead before the break.

Town went in 1-0 up at the break.  

When the teams came out for the second half Town started well and looked determined to keep their lead and progress to the next round. This was helped 5 minutes into the second half when Steve Buxton was played through after some good play in the midfield from Jack Caffyn, Nick Harlow and Ross Mcgovern. Buxton was one on one with the keeper and made no mistake in slotting home to put town 2-0 up.

Town started to tire towards the end of the game, and this showed as Wallington got a goal back to make it 2-1 with 15 minutes to go. Town were rocked by this but tried their best to keep their cool. Wallington were then reduced to 10 men after poor discipline from one of the Wallington defenders. However, Wallington then equalized with only 6 minutes of the 90 to go to send the game into extra time.

After a good talking to by manager Anthony Reynolds, town came out working hard and fighting. Unfortunately after a good break from town, Wallington broke away on a counter attack which lead to a goal. The reds looked defeated but didn't give up and gave 100% throughout. On the stroke of half time in extra time, Wallington doubled their lead to go into the break 4-2 up. Anthony Reynolds and the Club's director of football, Janet Creighton, spoke to the side at half time and it seemed to work. Town came out for the last 15 minutes battling hard and as a team. It seemed as though Town were to lose in extra time, when with only 6 minutes of extra time to go, captain Jack Caffyn picked up a loose ball, drove inside and smashed home into the bottom corner with his left foot to get one back for town. This goal seemed to lift the side and give everybody involved a bit more belief. With 30 seconds left to play, the ball was hit long by Town's keeper and man of the match Billy Brawn. Jack Caffyn leaped the highest to head the ball on target and with a slight deflection and in dramatic style, town were level and the game went to penalties.

Town were unlucky not to win this game after going down 9-8 on penalties. But the whole club is proud of the side after the passion and desire shown by the squad. It was a valiant effort and the boys did the club proud, they will now concentrate on climbing the league table.

Hopefully will give you an update to Jan 15-16th this week though not many matches will be played.