So you reckon you are Wellard young man!

The flower images were taken last night with this flash equipment. Pause….no, I’m not a robber baron. The ring light and flashlight are made by Neewar. The flash is identical to Nikon’s speed-light, at a fraction of the cost, the same goes for the ring light. Have a look on Amazon and surprise yourself. 

It was drizzling, the slugs were cheering, then as they invaded the plants like a torrent of advancing Comanche they stopped. What was that? The Sun? No, just the bloke with the knives, “Oh sheeeeeeet!” They ran, they ducked they dived, to no avail. :-) On the Aubretia you may count seven slugs, there are more, believe me. 

Tales of yore. I was “fortunate” to be trained by two men who had been there and done that in places such as Aden (Yemen) and Malaysia. They were big, knowledgeable and tolerant, to a degree, of our ineptitude and callow youth. For example, they would hurl rocks at us if we missed a target. Incentive! One of them, Jan Nankerville, Jan Nanks, became a friend. He saved both our lives, or certainly our faces one day. He was squatting over me, watching through binos, as I shot at electronically activated targets at a range of 300 metres. I had hit 8 out of 8 when suddenly the 9th target did not fall. I was taking aim for 10 when the rifle left my paws. Jan stripped it and took a very deep breath. The ninth bullet had been a dud, the bullet was stuck in the barrel. Had I squeezed the trigger we would have been shredded as number 10 hit number 9 in the barrel. 

When I went to my first unit Jan was already there and became my section Corporal. He drew me aside one day, “Keep it zipped, listen and learn.” He had plans for my future. Months later the section was sent out on a night patrol; this was in 1972, a couple of years before any form of night sight/thermal imaging became available. We were on a hillside, possibly in Crete, the ground was limestone, rough, covered in Sage, Thyme and another Garfunkel herb. Around us in the dark we could hear the gentle tinkle of goat bells, the animals moved away as we approached. Reaching a rocky outcrop we stopped to take a few lungfuls of air. Suddenly the “rock” stood up. There were a few expletives as we all froze in fear and then aimed our weapons, which was a waste of time as they were loaded with blanks. The rock was a shepherd, he had made the usual Mediterranean shepherds protective cape of goatskin, which formed an arch over his head, protecting him from the night chills and rain. Standing up in his cowl he was well over seven feet tall. 

A few days previously we had landed in a small village and being a cunning linguist I had discovered the Greek for “Hello.” Out of my quivering mouth came, “Kalimera.” He replied and we had a new friend. Jan broke out his cigarettes, had difficulty lighting one for his new pal. I promise you that Adrenaline is incredible stuff in a panic and quite often brown in colour!