Hipping and Hopping

Today the kids and I accompanied mrs tsuken to a meeting with others from the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation challenge she's about to finish. We went for a walk through the bush, then had brunch at the Conservation Hut.

While waiting for everyone to arrive before setting off, I snapped a few shots of the kids with my long lens. This is one of them. I had a reeeeeeally hard time choosing a photo for today: I got a bunch of really good ones of the kids, a nice panorama view, and some shots of a Grey Shrike-thrush who hopped up to within a couple of feet of me. I felt rather oddly privileged.

Anyway, I had too many shots to choose from, as well as a hard choice looming between colour and B&W. In the end, this choice is somewhat out of bloody-mindedness: I processed it so many times (trying to stop his jacket turning into a big dark featureless blob) that I thought I damn-well better blip it. ;-) It was one of the stronger contenders anyway, as she looks exactly like she does in one or two of my other potential choices, and he looks hilarious. ;-)

Larger monstering here.

I might stick some of the others in my blipfolio when I actually spend some more time on the iMac. (Don't hold your breath....)

I did a bit of running in the bush, with the kids dictating periods of walking interspersed. Mostly walking, in fact. My medial shin was feeling fine, so I decided to go for a run... I made it a short run, because ouch. Not too much though, and ice on the spot on my return helped hugely. I am still feeling pretty good about the resolution of these damn shin splints. 8)

And as for the lad's running ... I really do love how beautifully he runs. Miss 6 can do, but she sometimes gets a bit clumpy. He on the other hand runs exactly as I'd like to. Just fabulous.