Photo Prompts

Encouraged and inspired by Lorraine, I checked out her link to a photo challenge  - a month of prompts. The list is found HERE; Clare is a blogging friend (as I am) of Lorraine.
I copied the list into a file on my phone, and thought I would try to hit at least some of them.

...
4. New
5. In your bag
6. Broken
7. Upside down
8. Ordinary
9. Makes me smile

The 4th was my first day back at work, so that's when I started - and my photo is a new Christmas decoration this year, from my sister.

In my bag: it's slightly apocryphal, but it's alleged in work that if anybody needs something, it's in my bag. Sellotape, jumbo markers and the map of Dublin are all in my rucksack, but if it's a screwdriver, penknife or scissors, they are all in my handbag. Along with a French translator, my external back-up (spare camera battery and memory card in the case too), bandages, tape-measure and lavender oil for burns. The lavender oil is what kept C going during the more whiffy low-tide estuary parts of our day in the Le Teich bird reservation last summer. Other first-aid basics are there too; pain-killers and anti-histamine.  A sewing needle and some threads are in the same pack as the plasters.

Broken - and new, too. I have a pair of little baking mouse ornaments - one in a mixing bowl and one on a "gingerbread" star-shaped cookie. The one with the bowl fell off the tree and the bowl broke. Superglue didn't do much for it - so I bought a pack of Fimo and made a rough-and-ready new mixing bowl before packing all the decorations away again for next Christmas. It's definitely on the rough side, but at least I still have my pair of mice.

I passed on Upside-down, no inspiration on the day and no time on Friday to catch up.

Ordinary - my ordinary vinegars, flanking two more expensive and special ones. Friday was a busy, busy day so it's just a quick phone-photo.

Makes me smile: today dawned bright and sunny. So did yesterday, but it was, as mentioned, a busy, busy day. Today we visited Farmleigh, and also took a quick walk to the duck pond in the park. The mandarin ducks always make me smile! And...thank goodness for the spare battery in that case that holds my external back-up. Without that, I would have got the photos in Farmleigh but there wouldn't have been any of the ducks. There seemed to be a definite pair-bond between a particular drake and the little female, they were always together.