Another bird food escapee! This was just glowing in the sunshine, with shadows all around. POTD done.

It's very rare that I upload only the one photo a day on Flickr but having been so busy of late, but also because what I do on a daily basis is very much web based there's nothing I love doing most than to sit and read for a total recharge .

One of the many planted by Swansea City Council in Glyncollen Woods. Still a bit under par so Huw drove me the short distance - make what you will of the caption.

Another 'bad weather' day so we took advantage of the Christmas Gift from our son and partner, of an Afternoon Tea for two at The Celtic Manor Resort, Newport.

www.celtic-manor.com/dining/afternoon-tea

A phone shot uploaded at the time though I did take a number of shots with my Compact Camera, with the heavy traffic on the M4 I wasn't sure what time we'd get home.

Lots of photo ops in the garden today including a hummingbird hawk moth buzzing around a pelargonium but it was too fast to capture on camera . I captured these instead before cutting a few and bringing them indoors.

Southern Enduro mtb race at Pippingford Park.

Three shots of different riders at the same feature. (Not taken on burst facility).

Difficult lighting conditions, so ISO higher than I would have liked. Some interesting routes taken by competitors!

Lots of classic American cars in Steyne Gardens, Worthing on Sunday. Sadly they were so shiny, this female dragonfly thought she was laying her eggs in water :-(

Once again not my intended shot for POTD but we've been tied up helping our son move into his new home today and no sooner than we poured something refreshing, this idea came to me.

PS. Exhausted is understatement , catch up with commenting as soon as I can.

A visit to Highdown Gardens before the camera club coffee morning in the reopened tea rooms.

We'd had a frost at home, but on the other side of the Downs it looked as if it had only been a heavy dew.

Later in the day, we had sleety snow, which settled briefly on Chanctonbury Ring. Shot through open car window past driver in comments...

A bike ride in Friston Forest. The wild flowers and butterflies were magical, but this caught my eye for my POTD. Around 3" in diameter, obviously not a dandelion.

A play with the Lensbaby on the camera club photoshoot to the bluebell woods. .

Trying to "shoot through" the ones in front of my subjects as well as maximise the Lensbaby effect.

Treasure Hunt Monthly Project 04: April Lensbaby Image

Captured through my open kitchen door this morning in awful weather conditions.

A garden spider .

My Dad used to sing this song “when the red red robin goes bob bob bobbin’ along”

Awake with the dawn chorus at silly o'clock today, so caught this just before it dipped below the trees behind the garden.

.... " Long ago it must be...

I have a photograph,

Preserve your memories "

Father's Day in the UK today and as a rule I'd put up a shot of the gift from our son to Huw. However we stopped him coming to visit today because Huw is rather poorly with a virus. Instead this is a photo album that my own father brought home for my mother when he served in the Middle East during WW2. As a child I used love poring over the pictures inside - one page of which, I've added in comments.

I watched these two yachts motor down the river south to the sea

A bee and a ladybird on Cosmos in my garden. Since we turned a part of our garden over to plants for pollinators, I'm astonished as to what I see when I check the garden each morning. I tried to capture a Green Lacewing head deep in a Morning Glory before this but it didn't turn out too well, neither did the shot of a Green Shield Bug Larva I tried to get a few days ago..

Taken at Lower Swanwick looking across the River Hamble. So captioned because Swanwick has become particularly popular with visitors, because the river and its landmarks are where many of the scenes for the former television series Howards' Way were filmed. 'The Jolly Sailor' Public House, a pub made famous by the former BBC television series Howards' Way can be seen from Bursledon Bridge, which carries the A27 across the River Hamble, when looking west.

Photo in comments is of The Jolly Sailor taken on one of our visits many moons ago because it's hidden behind the masts in this.

Woken by this ship blasting the horn as it crept through the mist

101 Things you never knew you needed: A Giant Peg.

Gadget: a small mechanical or electronic device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one.

Note: As a gadget becomes widely used, it is no longer referred to as a gadget.

I'm sure a peg was novel once, and I still think it's ingenious, especially if you have to try and repair one, when it becomes intractable! Quite how useful a giant one is may perhaps be debated...

Treasure Hunt 31: Gadget

I'd initially thought of captioning this simply 'Bookend' until I realised how much history is in this room. It's my very significant better half's study . The bookend is new but the books are a set that his late dad gave him once he'd retired. They're so old , yet Huw uses them, reads them on a regular basis and takes notes from them .

However this room was my own study many years ago, also the room that my late mother lived in for three years whilst I gave her 24/7 care as she was dying from cancer. In later years, it was the room used for my son's friends for sleepovers .

When he grew up it turned into a junk room, but in the last few months Huw needed a room of his own to continue with his work .

“The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and everything is …. ..........42 !” ( Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

The reason for the caption is that today we celebrate our 42nd Wedding Anniversary - we’d intended travelling to one of our ‘special places’ in Pembrokeshire for the day but the heavy band of rain put pay to that, hence a photo of one of our cards .

I’ve also updated my blogspot to include what I consider to be an amusing tale about that day. Read it here…

stillstumblingalong.blogspot.com/2019/07/in-sickness-and-...

So there we were yesterday, doing what we do- Huw gardening and me photoing, when news broke that we we were featured in this you tube video 😳

If you can , then listen to it - it's very moving

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACno0VSul7g&feature=youtu.be

I couldn't figure the other day why I was approached for a photo of both of us - I'd prefer to be behind the camera and Huw by nature is camera shy. We appear about 3/4 of the way through the youtube vid, but instead of forcing anyone anyone to watch it, I've brazenly put it in comments, one of the group that I captured last year and finally the lady who inspired the song.

I keep asking myself, how did I get here apart from the obvious when I prefer wildlife and the great outdoors ?

So captioned because this Painted Lady in my garden, I swear has been papp'ed today as much as Julia Roberts in the film

Today we rose early to get to Newborough Forest Anglesey in search of Red Squirrels. We arrived at 7 am and sat waiting till 7.30am before we saw any . What a treat to see four separate ones but also to watch them scamering up and down the trees, in and out of the feeders until we left at 8.30 am ( two more shots in comments )

I feel a certain sadness using this as today's POTD because as a rule on St. David's Day, I'd put up something pertaining to that and my day would be spent photo'ing the events in Swansea City Centre. Seeing as I'll be spending the day and evening involved in a Charity Event , this is one of our Auction lots . An old friend from school and teacher training days gave me a voucher for Colliers Photography for me to auction a canvas of one of my photos, Here it is at home ready to be taken to the venue . Catch up with commenting once the world slows down.

PS I can't let this day go though without a bit of "Welshness" so below in comments you'll see something I captured many moons ago....

Reflection patterns in the harbour at Ålesund.

Treasure Hunt 59: Reflection

Captured on the Pier at New Quay, Wales whilst waiting for a boat trip. That morning I'd caught a feature on BBC Breakfast News warning people not to feed or attract these gulls

I'm beging to get concerned that I'm verging on the obsessive with so many moon shots - my last upload for the day yesterday was of this. However, I thought best get my POTD in the bag early due to an Opthalmic Appointment later and depending on which drops I get I may not be able to view the screen for a number of hour after it.

The prayer flage were looking lovely in the morning sunshine outside my den window (shot from inside with the window opened).

Woke up to the first frost this morning but by the time I got myself out to the garden, it had already thawed. Later on I picked this from a Passion Flower that's overgrown and running amok in my garden.

Captured with a 60mm Macro Lens and given a large crop because at the time I was busy trying to get shots of water droplets on the plants in my garden. I'm not exactly built for speed so by the time I went to get a longer lens, this had flown off into the bushes

桜 is the Japanese symbol for Sakura, otherwise known as Cherry Blossom. This is a small cluster of cherry blossom growing from my drooping cherry tree in my front garden.

Two years ago Huw bought a bird box but I queried whether it was too bright to attract any birds, also where he placed it because 12ft high on the back wall of our house right above our kitchen door didn't make sense to me. Yet it's the only place we knew that out of reach for any cats to get at. Look what we saw this morning 😃 two more in my photostream

A day spent in Brighton. Sadly the photography mentoring for people affected by homelessness I was there for was cancelled, but I had already gone earlier hoping for rough seas.

I got the tides wrong, but was able to go back after following an Extinction Rebellion protest, and the waves were behaving very well (or not so, as I got a soaking soon after this!).

Out between 9.30 and 10 waiting for the ISS, which I then nearly missed. Midged twice through walking trousers :-(

Two images merged in PS.

FCB 52 Week Challenge week 30: High.

A day spent in Carmarthen today with 'business' in the morning followed by a visit to our son and also a bit of Christmas Shopping. I've uploaded two alternative shots from there, but seeing as we followed this all the way home in the car, I found it impossible to ignore it. Taken with my Canon 70 - 200 mm lens therefore a huge crop of the original from outside my front door step when I arrived home.

Link to the 'business' :-

www.mssociety.org.uk/care-and-support/local-

support/my-ms...

Link to my fascination with the moon

stillstumblingalong.blogspot.com/2019/09/i-love-moon-moon...

What to give friends who pop in unexpectedly when you've run out of mince pies.

Today I went out with four friends that I made many years ago from WelshFlickrCymru..

We started the day with a spot of birding from the Cafe at Penllergare Valley Woods (photo in comments) before moving on to WWT Llanelli . The weather was too dark and dismal to take many photos there, not that it mattered because spending time with friends is in my books, time that is never wasted.

The most wonderful day today at Westonbirt Arboretum . But oh so many people taking selfies against the trees, and also many people constantly looking down at their mobile phones as they followed the throngs, oblivious to the beauty around us. This is Huw in a moment of despair / teasing about it asking the above.

Not as full as expected given all the rain we've had of late,

Nadolig Llawen i'm holl ffrindie ar Fflickr/ A Merry Christmas to all my Flickr friends.

I'd have preferred to upload a photo more in the true spirit of Christmas i.e. one of our Nativity Set but in arranging it, a shepherd fell and broke a leg 🙈 (oh no he didn't! Oh yes he did 😉)

A day spent with 10 others and Viveca Koh, working on layers in Photoshop. Multiplicity was the final challenge.

Seeing these supports, I was taken back to games of "It" on similar pillars in front of the pottery sheds at my primary school.

Memories of other things happening there as well, but that would be telling tales ;-)

Motherwell train station

Subtitled : this as far as I got .

So today with another atlantic storm knocking on our doors, I thought I'd put up the Christmas tree and decs but I've had to call it a day by now due to physical constraints, therefore you could also call this a Work in Progress.

of Hector the mindful dog

Oh Hoh Hoh .....oh No......

We arrived home lunchtime from our morning meeting to this- Elvis Duck swimming around in circles in our muddied bird bath, can only assume he'd been at the 'cooking sherry' whilst we were out. Of course this is not the first time Elvis has made an appearance around this time of year ( see the one in comments...)