Nothing better to do

This is Marvin, my rather large very friendly ginger cat. He talks to me a lot, and here he is sitting at the top of the stairs having a chat. I used 'Paint' to convert him into a painting - it took rather a long time but at the time there was some really boring TV!!

Achoooo!

Might be best to give me a miss - don't want you catching anything!

Three little spotty frogs

Sorry they are a bit out of focus, but I was having to kneel down, hanging over the pond sideways on, with the macro lens - a point and shoot camera may have been better in this situation!

Teeny tiny frogs

I have a planter in my pond which is home to about ten baby frogs ranging from the size of my thumb nail to my little finger nail. I am amazed that they have only just transformed from tadpoles and hope they survive the winter. They seem to like each other's company and sit in a heap-I love them and have to check  up on them every morning. They are obviously finding something to eat so I hope the mild autumn continues so they are fat enough to hibernate.

Autumn bounty

A Wayfarer tree at the start of my walk

I went for a walk with my camera on Sunday at my favourite spot for a breath of air and to 'stretch my eyes' (it is good to have a distant horizon to focus on rather that the end of the street). I thought I would see how many different kinds of berries I could collect. Popular belief would have it that a bountiful crop of berries indicates a bad winter ahead however naturalists would put it down to the previous seasons' weather. We had a mild and wet spring so this may be the reason for this year's berry laden trees. So here is my count.

Haws

Blackberries

Elderberries

Rose hips

There were also some sloes, but the bushes weren't accessable for close-up photography - perhaps next time

Glorious September

I am feeling much better and this glorious weather is helping. I'm back to the land of the living after a few days of a cold and I have been enjoying sitting in the garden with my pen and water colours. This is what I was looking forward to when I retired, last year's miserable autumn was such a disappointment. So far we have had mostly blue skies for at least a couple of weeks. I feel obliged to make the most of every hour so I have been gardening and out with my camera, cleaning windows and doing plenty of laundry. The garden seems to be having a last flush of flowers and there are plenty of insects about. I want to plant bulbs and move some shrubs, but the ground is so dry I am postponing these jobs 'till we've had some rain. I'll share some of the photographs I have been taking later.

I'm a bit disappointed wth the way this has come out even though I adjusted the colours in photoshop they seem to be really unsubtle - I just need to experiment.

Fed up

To bed with a hot lemon  - say no more