11th October photo - apples

I quite like apples but sometimes I can go months without eating any - mainly when they are so old and stale having been stored by the supermarkets for months on end. But at the moment the new season of Cox's apples are out and they are fresh, crunchy and tasty and I can't stop eating them! So today's photo is my favourite apple.

I took a few other shots but I prefer the cut in half apple best.

10th October photo - misty morning

We woke to a lovely Autumnal mist this morning - it was too good an opportunity to miss - so instead of lounging in my PJ's all day as I had planned - I jumped up and ran down to the river by my house, armed with my tripod & cameras. And soon discovered a problem - misty mornings are lovely to look at but very hard to take photos of - especially when the sun is facing right at you!

This is my first shot - when I shot on auto it came out all dark so I had use some manual controls to get this one - its just ok.

I tried this one showing the mist covering Haughmond Hill - but something is missing. When I focused in more tightly - all I got was the white mist and nothing else.

So in desperation I jumped in the car and drove to Atcham - but by this time the mist was lifting and I got this photo - with the mist in the very distant background so not what I wanted - better colours this time though.
Again you can't even see the mist in this photo from the old bridge - so I gave up and took a photo of the bridge instead!

Not sure which one to use as photo of the day as none are brill or really show what I wanted to show. I have got a new photography book on landscape photography - better start reading it and try again if we have any more misty mornings.

9th October photo - Llyn Brenig

Today I had a fab day's geocaching in Wales. I didn't want to bore you with any more lake pictures as my POTD, so I tried to take some photos of nature instead. I have chosen this photo of some reeds at Alwen reservoir as my POTD because I like the contrast of the dark blue water with the light reeds.

I did take some pics of mushrooms but they have not come out very well. I tried to use my 50mm lens - which does not have auto focus on my Nikon D40 - so I had to manually focus it - I thought they were in focus - but in fact they are all blurred! I really must go and get my eyes tested. So Karen we are spared a copy cat blog photo this time!

I started the day at Llyn Brenig - this is one part of a 5 part series of caches around Welsh lakes this is my second one. It involved quite a long walk around the lake. This is the visitor centre there.

Then I moved on to Alwen reservoir and walked the 7 1/2 miles around the edge of it - it was a lovely walk. The dam was a real old fashioned one - it was nice - but hard to photograph.

As I don't seem to be able to do a blog post without a lake photo these days - here are a couple taken on my walk.

This is the bridge where I took the reed photo of the day.

8th October photo - Lake Bala again!

Today I returned to Lake Bala again - it is not a hardship as it is so beautiful. Sue Oliver joined me today - we had not been out together since February this year - so it was nice to catch up.

We were doing a series of 5 caches around the lake - which would give us the clues for the final cache - but frustratingly we could not find one! I think it must be missing as all the others were easy to find. Hope it will be replaced soon so that I can go and find the last piece of the jigsaw.

Not sure which one will be my POTD - either this one of the tree overlooking the lake or this one below of me & Sue.

Or even this one with Arenig Fawr in the background.

It was a lovely sunny day and even though I used my new polarising filter the photos still look a little washed out and don't reflect what we were seeing.

We climbed up a nice hill for one cache only to find a golf course on the neighbouring hill! What a great spot if you like golf.

7th October photo - Jessica's surprise!

This evening Jess & I went to Birmingham National Indoor Arena to see Michael McIntyre - he is not really my cup of tea but Jess loves him - so I bought these tickets ages ago for her and it has nearly killed me trying to keep it a secret! She had no idea that I had planned anything until Monday when I asked her not to go to the gym after work but to come straight home tonight, as we were going out. She sulked for 2 days because she thought I was taking her somewhere cultural like an art gallery or a classical concert!

Anyway tonight she still had no idea where we were going - even when we caught the train to Birmingham - she had some faint hope that we might be going on a late night shopping trip - her idea of heaven! As we walked up to the Symphony Hall she saw lots of people in black tie evening suits and was convinced we were going to a classical concert and her face really dropped - but she was delighted as I walked past this venue and on towards the NIA. There were posters outside for all sorts of acts, so she relaxed and started guessing, but it was not until we walked into the box office to collect the tickets that she saw a poster for Micheal McIntyre and realised that this was my surprise - she literally screamed out loud she was so excited!!

Her face was a picture and she was so happy and could not believe that I had managed to do anything so cool as this! (I am not the coolest mother at all according to the children!) She said this was the bestest surprise of her life and was actually glad that I had kept her in suspense for so long

I knew that cameras were not allowed so I had not even taken mine with me as I could not take the risk of it being confiscated - so the following pictures were taken on my mobile phone - so aplogies for the quality.

One very happy Jessica outside the NIA

The canal outside the NIA looked beautiful all lit up in the darkness.

Our tickets were at the back of this vast hall - but when we went to see where we were sitting the door person said why didn't we go and see if there were any returns for better seats -

- so off Jess ran as fast as she could and came back with 2 seats right next to the stage - she was now in 7th heaven! look at her happy smiley face!

We now had front row seats on the tiered section - I think these were the best seats - we were so close to him and no one blocking our view.

I surprised myself by chuckling a few times - I am not known for my sense of humour! But he was very good. Jess laughed and laughed all night - so much so that her sides really hurt afterwards.

One very happy Jess on the train on the way home - clutching her precious tickets. She is going to do a scrapbook layout with them - I have taught her well!

6th October photo - big eggs!

A group of us girls were talking the other day about eggs - a very strange conversation - not really sure how we got on to it. But double yolkers were mentioned and I said how sad it was that my children would never get to see such strange quirks of nature now, due to the stringent rules on food standards.

Well today I was presented with these 6 huge eggs by Karen whose husband is a farmer. Just look at the size of them compared to my normal eggs!

And just look how amazing they look in the pan.

and the kids think they are fab!! Thanks Karen.

5th October photo - pretty chocs

A friend gave me a little present over the weekend - this lovely box of Chocolates - she knew I had a sweet tooth from reading my blog - 'you never feature anything savoury - its always cakes & sweets' she said! Oh dear I think she is right.

Anyway I think the packaging is so lovely, I thought I would use it as my photo of the day.

This photo serves 2 purposes - it is also to show the effects of the new Tiffen warming filter, I have bought to use on my Nikon DSLR camera. The top photo is with the filter on and this bottom one is taken without - it was also taken with a different camera - so not a very well controlled experiment at all - but it show why I am quite pleased with this new filter. Now if only I could find the polarising filter I bought in the summer and promptly lost - we may see some better photos!

Right now I have photographed it - I can go and rip the packaging off and tuck in!!