New canon shots

Just a couple of shots taken from my canon 30D. I've been told that the canon 40D may be out soon.

Nature's cruelty

At the beginning of this week I noticed that a collared dove had made a nest in our small apple tree. It seemed a bit of a pathetic nest to me as it consisted of just a few twigs laid flat on top of one of the branches. I later read they only lay 1 or 2 eggs, but even so I thought it must be hard to keep a chick safe in something so fragile and easy to spot. The next couple of days I watched to see if there was any sign of an egg but in that time she had not moved out of the nest so I could not get a proper look. Yesterday afternoon I was upstairs and happened to look out of the window and saw two collared doves chasing away a magpie. I wondered if one of them was the dove that had left the nest so I went outside to see. The dove had flown back into the nest but then she flew straight out again and on inspecting the area I saw the egg on the ground smashed. I was greatly disappointed as the chick had started to develop. Either the magpie had got hold of it and dropped it or the dove itself had knocked it out of the nest while trying to chase the magpie away. I was looking forward to seeing the chick hatch and grow and have been disappointed yet again. Last year we actually had a magpie build a rather big nest in our big apple tree, but later abandoned it before anything seemed to happen.

Waiting over

My camera finally arrived yesterday but not before I had to pay out even more money on the customs and exise. I still saved a few hundred quid though. Steve is very jealous and now wants his own. I say he can use mine but it's not the same he says. I can think of a lot more good uses the money can go on, but I'm not sure how long I can hold him back for. The temptation is just too great. I now have to get out and practice using it in different ways, other than just pointing it and pressing the button. There should be plenty of opportunities as we get out into the country quite often, which you can read about in Steve's blog. The weekends exploits saw us pinching the kids bikes to ride down a steep, narrow path. Something they were too scared to do. I thought that if I did it they would get the nerve up to do it, but Steve frightened them off by telling them what could happen. It's my birthday next week, maybe I'll have to buy a new mountain bike so I too can have some fun. The problem is transferring five bikes, aswell as two dogs, their cage, three kids and a caravan. Maybe we'll just have to go out on ours when we are alone.

While Steve was travelling to York to pick up my brother to go to see 'Porcupine Tree' in Newcastle, I decided to clean out my pond. Not a very good idea while still wearing my most comfortable, velvet, lace-up pumps. Before they got totally ruined with muddy water I quickly changed into my lovely pink floral wellies, which are now pretty useless as are split in quite a few places. These fashion wellies just don't live up to the standard that wellies should. Anyway, I thought I would probably rescue a handful of frogs as I've only seen a couple in there these last few weeks. The ones that were mating, mentioned in an earlier post sadly disappeared after I tried to clean the leaves out a few weeks ago, they obviously don't like disturbance, or maybe our pond just wasn't good enough. I coudn't believe that on counting them, while putting them back in, I actually had 27 frogs. That is from a very small pond, one of the smallest you can buy. I can't imagine how many you'd get in a large pond, or even in a natural pond, there must be hundreds.

When we first built our pond we named a few of our first frogs as they were quite distinctive in their looks. This one we named Homer because of his light green, almost yellow colour. Another one we named Nelson as he only had three legs. Sadly they never returned the next year but we get a constant supply each year to keep us interested. I am just waiting for the day we get some newts.

I am told I missed an excellent gig in Newcastle but am really looking forward to seeing two great bands at the beginning of June, 'Marillion' in Leeds and 'Dream Theater' at Newcastle. Roll on June.

Easter fun

Yikes!!

This is what I first thought, like 'Oh no, what have I done?' when I read earlier today that my ebay offer had been accepted on a brand new canon 30d with a 28-135mm lens semi-professional SLR digital camera. The buy now offer was already a good offer saving me £3oo on Jessops price but I was cheeky enough to make an offer a £100 below that thinking with an element of relief that it would never be accepted. What do I need with a camera that good anyway, the 350d at less than half that price would have done the job quite satisfactorily I'm sure. For that extra money I could get my hall, stairs and landing redecorated. What was I thinking, I'm only an amateur just starting out in the game after all. This is the camera that my husband had wanted that I had discounted for myself as being too expensive. He is a lot more experienced in the photography game, (although hasn't had the time over recent years while building up his business) owning expensive cameras such as the square format Bronica and Mamia and developing his own pictures, but which sadly all got sold as it proved too costly an exercise. So I'll at least have a teacher who knows a bit about what he's talking about. I just hope I won't be disappointed and it gets here in one piece and I did get an excellent deal, maybe I should have offered less and seen what the response was. Never mind!

Now that the weather is getting warmer it is time to think about holidays and weekends away, biking, walking the dogs and spending time with friends eating, drinking and having fun. In a few weeks time we shall be spending a few days away with these friends. I wish it could be here, where looking back at the photos a few days ago brought back fond memories of a holiday in Applecross, Scotland, unspoilt territory with just one pub and one restaurant. We spent most of our time eating and drinking and one evening the restaurant that we went to for our breakfast most days, which was due to shut at 5p.m stayed open just for us from 5-9p.m supplying us with food and drink, as seen in the photo. Oh what great hospitality! They even found some pizzas in the freezer for our kids and let us in their kitchen to cook them. Here's to lots more holidays like this one but probably not quite a fifteen hour journey, bearing in mind we now have gone upmarket from tenting and will have to pull a caravan on top of travelling with three children and two dogs. If you ever should go there you have to try the pubs fish and chips, superb!