Day #139

Title: Grazing On A Sunday Afternoon
Location: Walnut Tree Farm, Great Waltham
Camera: Canon EOS 300D / 24-105mm EF f/4 L IS USM
Notes: Have been kicking myself that I didn't go out this morning when there was more sun to be had, but I was busy with jobs before lunch. I managed to have a pleasant potter around the village of Pleshey this afternoon, enjoying a cream tea in the churchyard, which they serve every two weeks (proceeds towards the church restoration fund). On the way home, I also stopped for a look around Great Waltham which has a nice church and Elizabethan Manor house. But the sun wasn't really playing ball, so I drove home across the back lanes via Chignall. I noticed these two horses grazing in a field at Walnut Tree Farm, and was taking pictures when the pheasant rather obligingly wandered across the field.

Day #138

Title: (Castor) Oil And Water
Location: At home
Camera: Canon EOS 300D / 24-105mm EF f/4 L IS USM
Notes : Confession time - this is real lazy photography, I'm afraid. I've been busy all day and it's been raining steadily, so I literally poked my head out the back door for five minutes to see what I could find. My poor, drenched Castor Oil plant (Fatsia Japonica) was looking soggy in the Autumn corner of my garden - quite appropriate, since it's felt like it for most of the day. I hope the sun shines tomorrow.

Day #137

Title: In The Garden
Location: At a friend's house
Camera: Canon Ixus 850IS compact
Notes: Inspiration was just as lacking as the sunshine today. I still hadn't taken a picture by the time I was going out to my photographic club this evening, picking up a friend on the way. I had the compact with me, so took this shot in their garden before we went to our AGM.

Day #136

Title: Gone With The Wind
Location: Piccadilly Circus
Camera: Canon Ixus 850IS compact
Notes: The London OpenCoffee event has been running on a weekly basis for some time, but yesterday was the first time I had been able to go. An interesting mix of people, most of whom I haven't bumped into before in the London web community. It was a dreary, drab day in the West End, but I was lucky not to get the drenching which the weather forecast had promised. Perhaps the rain had Gone With The Wind? Or was it the traffic? I also met up with a friend in the afternoon, then went on to another monthly networking event in the evening. Consequently, I spent rather too long camped in Starbucks, drinking coffee and working on the laptop. Was feeling rather buzzy by the evening - I haven't drunk so much coffee in ages!

Day #135

Title: The Cowparsley Bridge
Location: Good Easter
Camera: Canon EOS 300D / 24-105mm EF f/4 L IS USM
Notes: I attended a training course in Margaret Roding for most of the day, but it had finished by 3pm, so I took a detour to Good Easter on the way home and had a potter around the village. There is a pond with bullrushes (and big, splashy fish). The pleasantly cool church was open for visitors. I particularly liked this scene, at the rear of the churchyard, where a footpath crosses a stream on a little wooden bridge. It was surrounded by gently waving Cowparsley and numerous Dandelion clocks.

Day #134

Title: Stinky Bob Is Hairy At Heart
Location: At home
Camera: Canon EOS 300D / 50mm EF f/1.8 + 12mm extension tube
Notes: Stuck at home working all day, I've been listening to some good music but haven't felt very inspired visually today. I took a potter out into the garden to see if I could find a picture, and my nose was assaulted by the wonderful smells of the neighbours' dinner cooking, which drifted out of their open window. So I was distracted for a while. But then I spotted this little plant in one of my herb pots - I'm ashamed to say, it's a weed - Geranium robertianum (Herb Robert, aka Stinky Bob) - which is doing rather better than the actual herbs! But I did like its hairy red stalks backlit by the sun.

Day #133

Title: On The Edge
Location: Ardleigh Reservoir
Camera: Canon EOS 300D / 24-105mm EF f/4 L IS USM
Notes: I took a trip over to Colchester this morning to book my EOS 30D in for a sensor clean. It's needed doing for a while, but I've been putting it off until the end of the rugby season, as it could be away for up to two weeks. But having looked closely at some of the shots I took on holiday, I couldn't really delay the inevitable any longer - I've spent ages "spotting" unsightly black blobs of varying severity out of some deep blue Sardinian skies, and enough was enough! Ardleigh Reservoir isn't far from the Canon repair place, but unfortunately there's no public access to most of it, only if you're an angler. I found this tenacious flower blooming on the lichen-ridden side of the reservoir bank, close by the road - where you can get a look at the water. Of course, I'd got the backup DSLR (my old 300D) on hand to take the picture - I'll be using it until the 30D is fit again.