ABSTRACT THURSDAY - SOOC

The brief for today’s Abstract Thursday challenge was SOOC - or for the uninitiated, Straight Out of Camera and Ingeborg, who set the challenge  was quite specific when she said “No faffing or apps”.  

Well, I can put my hand on my heart and truthfully say that this is indeed Straight Out of Camera - it has not been titivated or even cropped, but I cannot promise there was no faffing during the taking of the shot!

I had taken a shot of a beautiful scarf I bought in Vietnam, but Mr. HCB said that was too easy and I should be more adventurous and use the macro lens on the new Canon.

So, I decided if I was going to use that lens, then I needed also to use the tripod - sadly the spring on the piece that attaches the camera to the actual tripod broke, so I got the old tripod out.  I had to get it to the right height, and then try to put on the part that attaches to the camera - by this time I was rapidly losing the will to live and got all hot and bothered and uttered the words “Perhaps I shouldn’t have bought the camera and lens” whereupon Mr. HCB, in his wisdom, said that if I didn’t practise, then I would never get to grips with it.  

At this point, I decided we ought to have some lunch, so went out to make it but when I dropped everything in sight - and Mr. HCB muttered “It’s not your day”, he was almost wearing the sandwiches!

However, here is my offering and I doubt anyone would guess that it is a bottle of Dunhill aftershave, given to Mr. HCB as a gift a couple of years ago.  I have always liked the bottle and thought it would be an easy subject - how wrong could I be?  

So what has this saga taught me:

(i) I can do something if I set my mind to it
(ii) Even if it’s not perfect, at least I have tried
(iii) Don’t always listen to your husband

I’m pleased to say that my foot is almost back to normal - although the bites are still very itchy, but at least I can get sandals on now rather than walking barefoot, so we went out for coffee this morning at Jack’s.

Mr. HCB has just been to look in both nest boxes - we knew the blue tits had fledged, but I was holding my breath when he opened the box that the great tits had lived in - and JOY OF JOYS, there was nothing in the nest!  We are both so happy that whichever parent was left managed to get the babies out the next morning, so we hope they are now flying free.

You might like to see this video I made a couple of years ago of our great tits fledging - in fact, it might even have been the same ones who came back to the more “upmarket” nest box this year.

“A bird in a nest 
     is secure, 
          but that is not 
               why God gave it wings.” 
Matshona Dhliwayo