Smile for the camera...

I've had a very quiet Bank Holiday Sunday. Mind you, when you're self-employed a Bank Holiday is much like any other day, but with more traffic! As it was rather grey first thing, I spent the morning sitting at the computer report writing - and amazingly quite enjoyed it.

By mid-morning the sun had decided to make an appearance, so the dogs and I headed off to Ring Haw quarry to do some vegetation quadrats. I don't usually take the dogs with me when I work - when they were younger they were just too much of a liability - but now they're old and sober it's OK.

They seemed a bit bemused by the first quadrat, watching me use their leads and my camera bag to mark the corners of a 2x2m plot, and then crawl all over it on my hands and knees (the vegetation I'm surveying is about 2cm tall). On the subsequent plots they got quite into the swing of snuffling about with me, though when the sun came out they did lie down in the middle of the quadrat!

All that surveying, together with investigation of many rabbit holes, meant they became quite hot and thirsty. I took them down to the pond where they normally drink, but unfortunately it had dried up.

Not to be defeated, they found this lovely muddy puddle to wallow in. I took a number of shots, but in the end I had to post this one. This is Gemma, doing her very best to imitate a human smile. She usually does this when she wants to appease me (although this time I'll swear she was posing for the camera) and it's the only time I've ever photographed it successfully.

I heard from Alex last night - apparently conditions at the Leeds Festival are fairly grim - everything soaked through, acres of mud and he's lost a shoe. His initial text read 'I miss home cooking, books and baths.' I think he'll be pleased to be home tomorrow and I've promised to spoil him for a day or so!

PS Thank you so much for all yesterday's comments and favourites - I think it was a very photogenic dragonfly!