February Favourites

 Thin on the ground  - it was a very tough and stressful month on a couple of fronts,  plus we had a houseguest for a week - no stress there.  During that week it rained and rained and rained - we were lucky to get one reasonably fine morning to go for a drive and a walk with him. Even he decided that walking along the canal towpath would be too hazardous and slippy on account of the mud and rain. 

This morning we snuck in a visit to the Botanic Gardens after doing a charity shop and Dog's Trust donation run - it was too beautiful a morning to pass up. A couple of photos attached, the album is HERE. 

This month's header, in a throwback to my first blog post ( April 22, 2009)  is magnolia - this one taken in Farmleigh last March. 

Wild Lights (photo heavy)

I do have just a couple of cards to share later this week. November was NOT a productive month. I seemed to be busy with work, not doing much creating and sick both at the end of October and again now. We did go to Wild Lights in the Zoo this year, after having given the previous two events a miss, so here are some photos from that. The theme was biodiversity, and it was so well done. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and would almost go back again. 

This is a selection. If you want the full length show (well, not quite. I've culled it down from about 300 to 166 photos), there is an album HERE. In view of the fact that I still haven't had time to edit and upload any French photos, I decided to upload these unedited). 

Christmas Treat

We treated ourselves to a trip to the Wild Lights at Dublin Zoo - and I was so glad that I got round to booking before it sold out. Since I came home with nearly 200 photos, and culled that down to 75 to upload to an album, I'll share the album link here for anybody who wants to see more, and just a few of my most favourites. I probably took almost as many of them as of everything else put together. Their tails lit up in alternating sequences, so there is a short video in the album too.

The lanterns are made out of some sort of fabric (described as silk), lit from within,  and I was very happy with my first attempt at night photography with my Nikon. Spent some time converting my tripod into a monopod - and as we walked up to the entrance, I heard something fall to the ground. When we got in, I discovered it was the little fitting which slots into the top of the monopod. Although I'd heard the fall, I didn't think it was anything of mine, so I hadn't looked. I've never lost one of those before - and luckily I still have a spare here. And even though I couldn't lock the camera into it,  the monopod was still useful as support to rest the camera on and hold it steadier than simply hand-held.

Look at the end, there were even some mandarin ducks on the lake.