An Escape To The Countryside

Although I’m a city girl at heart, there’s nothing quite like a trip to the countryside. The crisp air, the abundance of greenery, the fact that you can fall asleep to silence instead of the dulcet tones of the neighbour’s car alarm going off – it’s really quite glorious. It reminds me of being a kid and going on camping holidays during the summer and so the whole thing makes me want to build a den or attempt to climb a tree. Knowing me I’d give it a go and end up being unable to get back down again, so thankfully it’s an urge that I managed to repress on my last visit out of town.

Last week I packed up my suitcase and headed on a train to the beautiful Thyme Estate in the Cotswolds, with Lily and a few others from the blogger pack to give the new Olympus Pen E-PL8 a whirl. The place was beautiful with a cookery school, a farm and plenty of gardens and fields to get snappy in. I have to say that being a bit of a wannabe-Delia, the cookery school was the the highlight for me. You might have seen it on Snapchat (‘theannaedit‘ if you want to follow me on there), but we made Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli from scratch. I mean it took an age, but we got to use one of those cool roller things and the end result was not only pretty delicious (if I say so myself), but extremely satisfying. I’ve been googling pasta making machines since we got back.

We also had the chance to hang out with Reem and Carrie, who are mine and Lily’s new blogging crushes. We creeped on their blog picture shoot and basically took notes. They are style blogging QUEENS. Prepare to scroll and swoon people.

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The recent autumnal turn meant that there was plenty of picture-taking fodder too, so the Olympus Pen E-PL8 got plenty of use. It’s the newest launch in their PEN camera range and sits somewhere between something compact like the Canon G7X and a bulkier interchangeable lens DSLR like the Canon 700D (I used to use the 600D, but it’s long discontinued). All the pictures above were taken on the E-PL8 with just the kit lens that comes with it and you can see that the images are crisp and clear and you can get a decent amount of depth of field going on too, although that would be enhanced by using a lens with a lower f-number.

It’s a great little compact number and having the ability to change the lens on something so small is really handy and definitely makes this a good option for travel. It also performs really well in low-light conditions. It does have a rotating screen too which makes it good for vlogging. Although it pulls out underneath the camera which means that you can’t rest it on a surface and vlog at the same time. Also being a life-long Canon user, getting used to a new interface isn’t the easiest thing in the world (I’m such a grannie when it comes to tech). Lily is the proper techie one out of the two of us and she’s going to do a proper video review soon so keep your eyes peeled for that if you fancy something more comprehensive.

Right, BRB – I’m off to google pasta makers some more.

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