Jack, I personally love this image the way it is and what you did to it.
I guess its a matter of personal taste from what I notice from the previous comment.

I tend to do the same to some of the close up images of my little ones. Not all of them but when I spot any that would look good by smoothening the skin like the way you did it I just go ahead and do it. And in my view it does look very nice. It gives me that soothing lighting impression all over the image and radiates that lovely silky feeling to it.

This one in my view you have really made it very appealing without overdoing it. Very nice, I like it

I also can believe it to be very possible. Am right in the middle of one similar situation and wanting to sell a lens that I haven't even attached to the body. All I did was open the box, well in this case several, to make sure there was a lens inside and check the full condition of it and then just close it back.

If there were any at any of the Dixons at Heathrow I would have managed to get hold of them by now, but last report I had they were all gone.

I have a few more left at the price I got, although not as cheap as they were going for but cheaper than their usual price.
Park Cameras had no stock left at £479 a few days ago, unless they got hold of some more now.

I do have a few more to sell and if interested let me know. Same price as I have sold the ones before at £400 plus postage.

cracking images Mike,
I love the greyish tone of the sky you have on that background although the other ones also are very nice.

Would have loved to be there but unfortunately no bigma for the K20 and even if I had one I bet my images would have come all blurred. Got to hit the gym again as soon as possible and build some muscles ha

Really enjoying the images you got these past few days. A cracking collection. Have you considered doing this full time?

Number 1 for me, same reason that others have mentioned about scanning from left to right. I managed to take in all the picture visually when I looked at the first one

thanks for your comment jon.dc
These are all directly from the camera, just tidying a little the background and using level/curves a little and then touch of USM, that's all processing gone into it.

The rest is as simple as just using patience and persistence. Oh sorry, forgot to mention also that what helped was taking 700 exposures, breaking lots of wine glasses in the process (I now have a collection of wine glasses that would be an envy of a wine connoisseur ), messing up the whole floor, getting food colouring all over myself, having a colourful shower from the liquid and spending 7 hours in the shed locked in surviving on cold sandwiches and lucozade, and also getting threats from the lady of the house that one of these days I am going to end up being locked out and then having to sleep in the shed .

thanks everyone for the kind comments.
You can imagine how I was after the fourth glass , totally plastered.
And good thing I didn't decided to have a smoke after the drinks or else I would be stoned too ha

Last of the day, , after this one I was already way above my limit

I agree Stefan, its really fun. Only problem is the cleaning up at the end . You should see the mess when I am finished . But sometimes its all worth it in the end.

Stefan,
That reflection was on purpose, I could have cropped it off but I like it the way it is. If the composition allowed I would have included a bit more of it but it wasn't possible. I kind of like that reflection on the base