I am honoured to be the first person from England to have the opportunity to present a Weekend Gallery. My sincere thanks to Darryl and BestFoto for giving me this chance to display some of my work.

I am 48 and have been happily married to Graeme for almost 25 years. I have three stepsons and 5 step grandchildren. I work as a Customer Support Representative for a firm of Consulting and Software engineers, a job I have loved for 18 years. I live in the historic and beautiful Roman City of Chester. The Romans came to Chester in the first century AD and founded the fortress of Deva - Chester's first name - as one of their major garrisons during their occupation. The fortress was sited on a sandstone ridge in a loop of the River Dee - a perfect location for a military base with its deep water harbour. It commanded one of the crossing points of the river and was a base for the Roman fleet. It is one of the few remaining "walled" cities in England and with its many Roman artifacts on display and a beautiful array of Black & White buildings, and unique "rows" I feel privileged to live here. For your interest I list a few other place's in the US and Canada with the name Chester. Chester Township, New Jersey, USA. Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. Chester, Connecticut, USA. Chester County, USA. Chester, Virginia, USA, Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada.

I have many hobbies and interests including cooking, salt dough craft and travel, but digital photography seems to have taken over my life somewhat recently!! My first mistake was purchasing a digital camera which I grew out of fairly quickly. I found I then wanted zoom and macro capabilities and also manual settings, so after a lot of research, I finally decided upon the Nikon CP-950. This camera is just made for Macro shots and has given me many hours of pleasure. It is my first winter with the camera so I look forward very much to cold frosty days and also hope we have some snow in England this year! Although a keen 35mm photographer for many years, I am still a relative novice to the digital world, but I am working incredibly hard to improve my technique and eye for detail with my Nikon. I have been spurred on by becoming a finalist in a competition in the UK this year which won me a wonderful Lexmark printer.

I am relatively new to submitting to sites like BestFoto and I want to take this opportunity to thank personally a few fellow photographers for their help, advice and encouragement. Charlie Brown for his initial help on shooting Panoramas; Brian Zimmerman, Greg Anzalone and Ali Hoolash for their constructive critique and kind words always. My new found lovely and fun friend in Canada, Carol Rawlings, whose help and advice is always welcomed and very special thanks Darryl Stair for making it all possible.

I want to dedicate this weekend gallery to Graeme, my husband, for his patience, support and for being a "Photographic and PC Widower"J (does that ring any bells!) and also to the Multiple Sclerosis Support Centre, in Chester where we have many friends. Please check out their site and see what treatments, help and advice is offered for people with this debilitating disease www.mssupport.co.uk
Please enjoy the photographs I have chosen for my gallery. If anyone is travelling to the UK in the future and would like to come and visit us, we would love to have you stay.