my REAL May Bank Holiday project, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's a Bank Holiday here in the UK, and with three days off you would think that me and Elena would be off on adventures with your postcards or I would be paragliding the skies above the South Downs.

But this is England, where Bank Holiday weekends can only mean one thing.

Rain.

So with paragliding rained off and our trip to Kew gardens butterfly exhibition called off we decided to do what most newly settled couples do and get some DIY done around the house.

Initially reluctant, I finally got into the swing of things and by lunchtime we had already managed to put up our first thing in the house!

The hanging kitchen utensil rail has been propped up against the wall since we bought it about 4 months ago, waiting for the moment when the two of us would have the time to drill some holes into the wall.

Today we finally done it and after 5 other major drill jobs in the house we moved the REAL calendar into the kitchen and had a well deserved cup of tea.

I've never posted a picture of someone else's REAL wall without a postcard from me on it before, but I feel I have to give an honourable mention to Tracy from South Africa, who writes at Tracy's Topics.

A while ago, in one of my less busy phases I was searching for other people who may have created cool postcard walls on the web and intended to send out postcards to them to create REAL walls, for the your REAL wall section of the site. One of the coolest ideas I saw was on Tracy's site. Using a pin board and some ribbon, she had created a postcard board that you could easily slip cards in and out of.

I knew I had to get a postcard on there!

However, as you may have noticed from my recently reduced output of REAL walls, I have been increasingly busy this year, what with being given a football team to run, paragliding courses, study, photography team and carnival commitments and a full time job and girlfriend to juggle (yes she is going to slap me silly when she reads that part) I haven't got around to sending a card.

Still, Tracy has just posted the latest shot of her REAL wall, complete with all her other cards up at her blog. Check it out!

An honourable mention then, a new category created just for you Tracy!

my REAL creepy eFit, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Back in January I met a whole bunch of folk at a photography exhibition and
before long I was talking about, suprise surprise, postcards and my REAL
wall.

It was no coincidence that, as usual, I had a whole set of postcards in my
bag, and Vlad the Russian amused himself greatly with a series of eFit
postcard photos.

It's been a while since these photos were taken and I wondered what had
happened to them, then by some stroke of luck I bumped into Russian Vlad on
the 94 bus last night!

So here are my eFits made from your postcards a little belatedly. Enjoy!

my REAL wall at the Lutherian monument in Geneva, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

A long time in the past, Geneva was the unofficial capital of the Protestant movement led by John Calvin.

I'm not too hot on history but me and Elena are still sore from just how much Switzerland costs. Let's hope that someone can reform the currency exchange rates soon

my REAL wall does Alpine Switzerland, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Last week I spent the week in the mountains in Annecy, France paragliding before Elena came out and joined me for a walk in the mountains in Switzerland, where your postcards got some good fresh mountain air.

Here they are set against mount Illhorn in the French Penine Alps, as we made our way from Sierre to Montana, a path that was signposted to take 2 hours 45 minutes but somehow took us nearly 8 hours to walk.

my REAL exhibition opening night, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

It's been a hectic few months for me and Elena. As well as taking up study courses on top of our full time jobs, over the past few months I've been busy with a small team of photographers putting together my first photography show, which opened last night!

The show featured the works of 4 photographers including me, who followed my carnival group on tour last year. I've been doing Notting Hill carnival with the Yaa Asantewaa carnival arts group for nearly 10 years now, making the costumes with the team after work every summer as a volunteer then touring on the road. You may have seen some of my carnival photos on my flickr site over the years.

A few years ago I started getting into photography and decided to spend one year behind the lens instead of in front of it on the road for carnival. Although the pictures for that year were great I felt like something was missing from them, namely me, so over the years I have slowly convinced photographers to join the group, so that I could spend more time in front of the lens where I belong, and this year my photography group toured with us on the road to France and Germany as well as at Notting Hill in London.

Last night's opening showcased the works of these great photographers, Olga, Manuela and Jana as well as some of mine. The photos will remain on the wall until the 23rd of May at Tabernacle, so if you didn't make it to the opening you can still catch the photos until then.

More shots from the opening night can be found on Olga's flickr profile.

my REAL wall - 04 May 2010, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

my REAL wall today is made half from some brand new post from regular contacts and half from old post that lived once on Elenas wall in her house.

Lately, me and Elena have been far too busy to write REAL post, and as a result these days I've narrowed my send list down to some of my favourite contacts, who get postcards whenever I get a chance to write plus the occasional random treat.

Among those on my postcard list are the senders of these new cards featurd today, so if you see one of your cards on the wall, then you know you're on list!

The older cards have come down from Elenas wall, where they have lived for nearly a year. As Elena has been doing live-in work, she's technically not been living with me sine we met, but just the other day she made the decision to leave that job and come and live with me! Now, slowly but surely, all her post is going to make its way over to my REAL wall, so keep your eyes open for your stuff if you've sent stuff to her in the last year!