Autumn poppies after rain

Just as there are those who listen out for the first cuckoo of spring, I suppose I'm on a mission to record the last poppy of the autumn. The first frost will see them off, but we haven't had one here yet. It took ages to pick the blip and for a long time it was this one because I liked the broken bokeh. But I was drawn to the informality of this one. In fact that's why I like poppies so much. They are informal. They don't grow in straight ranks, their petals flop and fold in the wind and the rain and they don't last long either. But I can't think of another flower that shows the light off so well, or that fills the moment with such freshness.

It must have rained heavily last night and the park was as wet as a Polish football pitch. I made a point of saying hello to everyone I met. Almost all were dog-walkers and some of them had come across Pippa before. They remember her because she dashes around like the greyhound she thinks she is. Everyone was very pleasant, even the council gardener who said: "Good morning sir!" Maybe I was too willing to rush to judgement yesterday.

Thank you for the kind comments on that blip and I'm glad there were blippers (Jan) to stand up for southerners. I don't think we'll ever get rid of the the north-south divide but, as some said, people are people and it takes all sorts. Not everyone can be cheerfully disposed all of the time. I certainly can't.

A man called from the Woking Informer yesterday (as newspaper titles go, that's a bit of a contradiction). They want to run some of my pictures. I could tell he felt awkward asking my age. It confused me too because I didn't know it, had to work back to the year of my birth and was irritated to find I was a year older than my first guess.