It’s a Long Story.

It started sometime about Tuesday. Jnr brought his favourite lens to me for my specialist opinion – it didn’t feel right. Having only been home from university for a short while, he’s off again on his travels, leaving on Friday, for a month on work experience in Tanzania - doing some zoological research (he will find out which species and which particular characteristic he will be studying when he gets there) and then, since he is there, he will be off on safari.
 
But, back to his lens, it’s a push-pull 300 mm telephoto zoom for his Canon, and its push-pull felt a little stiff. I had initially thought of wiping some Vaseline on the barrel and then wiping it off again to see if that would help; I realised that there was an element of risk but would have been prepared to try it had the lens been mine but, looking on YouTube as well as at his lens, I realised the locking ring had only about a tenth of the travel it should have and that, as I was playing with it, the stiffness was getting worse. A few phone calls and Googles later revealed that it is a relatively common problem which is cured by spending £70 and several weeks rather than by smearing on lubricant. The lens is now languishing in a repair shop awaiting delivery of some vital parts.
 
Meanwhile, a safari without a telephoto lens is seriously deficient so I offered to lend Jnr my lenses and Mrs TD’s Olympus body. Although he has always been scathing about my toy camera, he was rather keen to take me up on the offer so he is now somewhere over the Sahara on his way to Tanzania with Mrs TD’s camera ,and my long lenses and flash gun - though he was generous enough to leave me with the macro lens (which I usually use in conjunction with the flash). Tomorrow, Saturday, I am off to the Isle of May for a bird photography work-shop with the camera club and a local expert to guide us. Thus it was that I found myself in urgent need of the where-with-all to photograph some birds. Mrs TD suggested that I should treat myself to a better lens so that my trip wouldn’t be wasted, the poor dear doesn’t realise how much my current equipment is worth – let alone what it would cost to upgrade; I settled for a second-hand bridge camera (fortunately I have researched them for both a novice club member and for Jnr recently so had a good idea what to go for. It arrived yesterday and I have spent a large portion of the intervening time familiarising myself with its menus.
 
I am posting this Blip on Saturday so can inform you that the Isle of May was cancelled as the weather was too bad to safely land on the island.   Buggrit!
 
The blip is of the building site that is part of the plan to triple the size of our village. The first building, and the only one so far, appears to be someone’s garage. I had a cycling friend in the dim and distant past who used to eke out his earnings by buying a plot of land, building a garage on it and moving himself and his family in, then selling his old house and finally building his new one around the garage.
The extra is of an earth-moving vehicle squatting for the night over a trench that is, presumably, due to provide services for the new houses; it reminds me somewhat of the latrine trenches we had to dig at scout camp at the beginning of our week’s holiday. Ah, happy days.