Yvoire is beautiful. We were there last year and as we are going back to Chateau de Bossey in August we will very likely go back. Were the crepes from La Creperie d'Yvoire?

Britt welcome. If people knew what your budget was that would be a great help in being able to give advice. Are you also looking for lense(s) and if so do you know which one(s)? Are they included in your budget or are they a separate cost?

My advice would be, whatever advice you get here, make sure you go to a camera shop and see how they feel in YOUR hands. Never buy a camera purely on the recommendation of someone. For instance I have hands like spades, yours may be small, what feels comfortable in my hands may feel like a large brick in yours.

Good luck.

Just watched the lunchtime news. It appears that on the continent, (Scandinavia, the Benelux countries and northern Germany) have been hit even harder than the UK. 13 people have died as a result of the wind and the damage it has caused.

Come on Jerry, its Halloween, what do you expect.

Tom G, the news about the head injuries in American football reached here recently. It would appear that they think that as they have helmets on they can't injure their heads. Seems brain damage is quite prevalent amongst current and retired players.

Yes, some rugby players have had serious neck injuries, Matt Hampson to name but one (played for my local team, Leicester Tigers) and is now a quadriplegic, but for the vast majority it is the odd concussion, cauliflower ears, sprains and some broken bones.

Even the dog appears to have been well fed!

Real football tramsey? You must be joking! How many times in a game does the ball actually get kicked? Maybe these guys should take up Rugby, no padding, no time-outs (except for injuries) and play lasts for 2 periods of 40 minutes. Not a 1 hour game spread over 4 hours.

One can of worms opened!

Apparently, according to one weather report I saw today, the Midlands (central England) was in the eye of the storm and as a result we did not get the high winds that were forecast. Not quite sure how that works as the winds have to pass over somewhere for it to get into the eye of the storm.

Anyway, a fair amount of rain last night but I have seen no wind damage. Others have not been so lucky, the last I heard 4 people had been killed as a result of the storm.

We are very lucky here, we certainly don't get the wind storms you get in the USA but they are bad enough when we do get them.

If you go to the Apple web site and look under Maverick you will see that it can be downloaded for FREE.

I might wait a bit, so that the wrinkles can be ironed out of it first though.

Yes I remember playing with my father's WWII RAF dress hat when I was a child. I still have that hat, but not my own from 26 years service.

JR1. What is that monster your son has bought? With that sort of power what course is he doing?

What ever it is, good luck to him.

I agree with RiverLass, I really don't have the time, and probably if I'm honest the inclination, to look at every post and so I only look at those with interesting titles or if something catches my eye. Do I really want to read about all the treads on the President or someones thoughts on Obamacare, look at pictures of someones breakfast, go through a page of web pages on one topic or get involved in the debate on gun control? Not really

This morning there are in excess of 5 pages of new posts in Newest Topics (150+ items) , and that is a period of 6 - 7 hours.

So, I got my dates wrong, Nanaval. More importantly, what did you think of the pictures which was the point of the post?

Hi TennisCoach. You might get more response if you used an appropriate title rather than your handle. Just a thought.

The link below is to the web site of a young man I met in August at a conference in Switzerland. He is British born and is studying at one of the Universities in Berlin. His home is now in France, and hence the wide range of subjects from across Europe.

From what he told me, he had only been in photography for about a year. I really like his pictures and I would be interested in what other members of this forum think.

http://www.jayburtonphotography.co.uk