Awful weather - typical Brits talk

-taff

Just hot here and nothing doing apart from some quick chopping down of things and a little watering for things that might live…More time to make plans though so not completely wasted [ybe would be happy, I need some bricks to cover up and level some concrete]..supposed to be cooler Thursday and Friday so will lotment on Friday.

Very annoying waiting round for people 2p, especially when you have the wrong day [ how do I know this?] Did go and pick some blackberries today though so made the MIL happy..fair exchange for some cottage pie :) Ouch for the contct lens..I have them because I'd either be blind as a bat wihtout them or sport some fancy milk bottle lenses else, been wearing them since I was fifteen, if you want something bad enough [ like not looking through crazy carnival glasses] you put up with it :)

Water butts almost empty here too and thick skinned tomatoes despite having moist compost soI will blame th weather…no real rain forecast although there might be a thunderstorm next week…

Dustyevsky

Off to the Fayre, but I'm on business, so won't be stopping. Mrs D and DD2 + kids will be attending, though.😃

Might get some digging in while it's quiet here. Managed 4 more barrow loads the other day and felt whacked, but doing the working out (250m x 4 = 1km of pushing a full barrow) so maybe that's why! 😆

Big moon last night caught me unawares, but I got a shot….of sorts. 😏

OT: Warm, but cloudyish, and not baking. Hope we get one off your thunderstorms soon, -taff!

Farway

Up early, I have fellow ex garden volunteer supposed to be coming to collect my spare tip layered Boysenberry and I wanted to get it bagged up fresh and not hanging about. Maybe with the late arrivals declared here he won't show until late afternoon now. Forecast is late morning.

Picked a load of blackberries while out there, and topped up the bird bath, supposed to be scorchio as well so hopefully it'll help.

Quick work on dentist Dusty, and NHS as well. Mine is NHS but keeps trying to push private "Plans" for which I have "Shields Up". At least they are still NHS, I was a bit concerned post Covid if it would change, but seems not.

2P Some flying ants around. The light reflecting on the wings of the one on my car looked like rainbows. Didn't have my camera with me 🙄 Very photographer of you, noting light on ants wings. By coincidence there were flying ants near my garage yesterday, no rainbow wings though.

Still can't get butterflies, or ants, to stay still for a portrait

While out this morning I found I do have a Sunset apple, just the one. Hooray for that.

And, even better, I have two runner beans, a glut! Not picking size yet, but it's a start. The plants seem to making more flowers now, I suppose having failed to set they chuck up more flowers to achieve their mission.

This is my Sea holly, I know I posted one before, but like 2P spotting ant rainbows, I spotted this glinting in sunlight and was amazed with the metallic blueness of it. Taken with old manual focus lens trying for effects

PS, just spotted Dusty Moon, says it's Buck Moon. Remember to add Aug 12th in, solar eclipse

twopenny

Love a sea holly. Such beautiful shapes and colours. You've caught that just right 👍 blues are tricky.

Taff it's the dry weather wot does it. I left them in too long because I thought I'd get away with it and the new bottle of drops had gone off in car heat. Live and learn - maybe. Now I have to wait for the eye to recover. A nuisance because I can't look in the camera viewfinder with glasses 🙄

Beautiful moon Dusty. We got the light through clouds the other night.

Electrician been. He tells me it's a special bell ringing this Friday 🙂 joy of local trades. Another job then off to the moors for a picnic to recover from yesterday's mayhem. Cooler up there.

Clear blue sky and heat, bit of a breeze now. It's been worse. Will water this evening.

So eclipse on 12th? And moon should be small. May help with viewing the shooting stars on that date. Eyes heavenwards!

LessImpecunious

Nice Eryngium Farway, and moon, Dusty - similar composition to one of my attempts at sunset last night (without sun, or moon!), lots of purple and apricot shades, not as successfully captured as would have liked …

LessImpecunious

Hmm, thought I'd try it full size and then edit to medium to see if it looks better, but seems I can't do that...rather than fiddling with it here is another from nearby, which sharp-eyed viewers will notice features climbing french bean Hunter, which has supplied one mini picking of beans so far...

Farway

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82084684#Comment_82084684

That pic has a lot of promise Less. Have you got it in RAW so you could adjust it more? Or bung it in AI of your choice and tell AI to do whatever you wanted it to look like. I'd "lift" the yellows of the sunflowers

With hindsight a flash may have been the answer

OT, the Boysenberry has been collected and drooping self seeded toms in cat poo trough have been watered

Dustyevsky

I agree Less's pictures are lovely and might benefit further from some tweaking. 😀

I like the sideways presentation of the Eryngium too. 😊

My picture was unredeemable, but as the others had the shakes, I made it greyscale. 😕 We'll get another shot at what's called the Buck Moon tonight:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw9q84g00lo

A very trying day here. 🤪 Up to the Fayre early to deliver the Garden Club's stuff. Back there again around 11.00 to deliver Mrs D and an extra pushchair. Then, back again at 13.00 to retrieve them. Finally, a last visit to collect the Club's leftovers at 16.00. Phew!

I didn't take photos after all.😭 It's a lovely event, and many photogenic 'characters' attend, but it's a very small community. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting our locals on here. Other towns / villages = fair game! 😜

Back at home, with a few hours peace and quiet, I thought, "Now, let's do that planning application online!" but it was not to be. They don't allow PDFs for plans, expecting you to buy theirs, and there was an unanswerable question too. 😫 So, that was that. 😡 Instead, the application will be done manually in quadruplicate. It's roughly 25 A4 sheets x 4, so we'll hand-deliver it, like last time, and probably use up all our ink.

Cooler tomorrow. Might actually get some work done, but Openreach cometh in the afternoon 🤠, and I'm getting bad vibes about that! 😉

LessImpecunious

Thanks for kind comments on my pics - they are all taken on my phone - my last proper camera was pre-digital, and I did do a bit of old school printing (B&W) in my teens, but have only had a smartphone with a reasonable camera for a couple of years, and have yet to explore tweaking editing properly… (I had to look up RAW 😁 - not sure that it's available on my phone, and seems that files take up a lot of space - something to explore once I've completed the (slow) process of deleting all the junk photos I've taken in the past two years…😫). Asking AI for help seems too much like cheating… but suppose they said that about cameras once…

OT, has been cloudy and almost cool at times for past couple of days…More of similar to come, some relief, but no rain on horizon…😐️

-taff

Less, you'e been very good t onlyhave taken that many on your phone, my hard drive groans when I connect my phone, and I still really don't re look at any of them, although maybe five are going to be printed and framed at some point [ not great photos, just of us and friends] That's a beautiful photo even without tweaking, never seen colours like it in the skt, always reds, pinks, oranges etc.

Well done for extended gallivanting Dusty, made me tired just reading that…I went to Costco and ikea today [ will never go to the latter ever again though despite my nose cutting off, I was incensed, so nope….]

Ooo, a special bell ringing 2p? A friend and I used to do that and she proved clumsier than me, ending up sitting on top of a ten foot cupbaord after forgetting to let go of the rope [ yes, it really happened!] Good job there was a cupbaord really, otherwise it'd have been a ten foot drop afterwards - it was very nearly anyway because there was no top on it…Fingers crossed for eye rapid recovery.

What are you doing with your blackberries Farway? Not bragging [ I am] but I've had eight ripe figs so far this year…It's made my year.