Whilst propped on the sofa attempting to cough my lungs right out of my chest this week I have learnt a lot about my photography. I was challenged yesterday to take a fresh look at it and today's #qschallenge of "Street Life" gave me an excuse to further challenge my own perception of a good shot.

I've never really been happy with many of my non-flower shots but a very clever man and excellent photographer challenged me to be less predictable and show a wider range of subjects, so with a little help from Instagram filters here is a selection of my other subjects:

For the first time in almost 11 years I really feel I'm starting to get my smile back. It's not that I've been miserable or depressed for 11 years, far from it, rather that I've had Bell's Palsy three times with very little recovery each time, which has left the left side of my face mostly paralysed.

Reports are that Aston Villa have agreed to pay Birmingham City £2m in compensation with Alex McLeish set to be officially announced as Villa's new manager by tomorrow. Although I admit to having spent a large part of today wishing for some sort of miracle where Randy has just caught up with reading my blog and realised that Quique is a far more attractive proposition, in more ways than one, now is the time to accept that the decision has been made and Quique will forever be the one that got away.

There have been a lot of people labelled the "bad guys" during Aston Villa's protracted managerial search from Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner to McLeish to Peter Pannu to sections of the fans and even Martin O'Neill (really, get over it), but the media seem to have borne the brunt of it.

Accusations have been flying that they don't know what they are doing, they are anti-Villa and even that they make things up off the tops of their heads and tell blatant lies. Don't get me wrong, I think there are certain news organisations that have distinctly warped moral compasses and certain journalists who certainly seem to have their own agendas, but on the whole they do not knowingly report untruths.

Ok, I think my heart may officially be broken. Randy has completely let me down and failed to deliver on the one tiny little thing I asked for for my birthday, and now I find out that Kinky Florist wants the Villa job!

So after all the rumour and speculation Aston Villa have declared that they are to interview Alex McLeish "imminently in order to make a decision regarding his candidacy to become Villa manager", which is exactly what Villa fans did not want to hear.

While it was just being reported by TalkSPORT and Sky Sports News many fans felt they could just ignore it, as the media are evil people who tell lies and make things up just to upset the fans apparently, or so they've been told about a million times over the past few weeks, but the club statement makes the appointment of McLeish a very real possibility.

Amid the debate and bickering over who people think should take over the managerial reigns at Aston Villa, the phrase "We're a big club" has been used almost as much as Jamie Redknapp uses the word literally; but are we?

What defines a "big club"? Is it the fans? The financial resources? Exposure outside of the UK? The trophies and titles won?

I'm now really quite gutted that El Guapo won't be heading to Villa Park, but the already huge respect I had for the man has just skyrocketed. There are not many football managers that would turn down the opportunity to discuss a vacancy at a bigger club out of loyalty to his current club and chairman.

At the time of writing this the fans and the media are no closer to really knowing who will succeed Gerard as Villa boss thanks to the "totally professional manner" in which they have conducted themselves and the speculation of smokescreens being thrown up by Randy.

I admit to getting slightly over excited yesterday amid unfounded speculation that Randy's jet had flown to Madrid, and surely that could only mean one thing - he obviously reads my blog and was going to fetch the Kinky Florist. Or not.

Apparently I'm terrible to buy for because I never know what I want, but I really don't need anything and if I see something I want I usually just get it. Having said that I always appreciate my presents, whatever they may be, so I don't really think I'm that bad.

One thing that does make my birthday list is Pep; not necessarily as Villa manager, just wrapped up and delivered to my door will do. Seeing as both of those things are about as likely as Wayne Rooney's recent hair transplant actually looking good, I'd be happy to settle for another swarthy Spaniard.

Our mission today was two-fold; firstly to see if VMF's regular menu stood up to the menu we were served at the food champion's evening two weeks ago and secondly to keep an eye out for anybody who looked like they may be even remotely associated with a certain Italian or Dutch football manager.

On the second point we failed, but VMF certainly didn't.

My son and I, with the help of a long forgotten origami book, paper from our arts and crafts drawer and a couple of 2 lev notes, decided to have a go at creating our own art from paper today.

Having being inspired by @quaystock and @The_LukeBarnes to go and get my camera out today, I decided to venture out into my back garden in the dark and have a mess around with the macro function to see what I might find.

Schadenfreude describes pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. We all do it; laughing at someone falling over, sniggering at the person that walks into the glass door, delighting in the relegation of Birmingham City. But at what point does this turn from healthy and cathartic to something more sinister?