Iridescent

Oh, the excitement! I popped out onto the deck halfway through my Saturday breakfast bagel to evict a small green caterpillar which had come inside on the handful of rocket I had just picked to accompany my extra mature cheddar - and there beside me, on a bright pink herb robert flower, was the unmistakeable iridescent green and the bulbous thighs of a male thick legged flower beetle. I rushed for the camera, which fortuitously still had the macro lens attached. The beetle was still there. I took a lot of shots, fiddling a bit with apertures, hoping some would be in sharp focus. I've spent a long time going through them all, zooming in, trying to decide whether I want well focused mouth and stamens, perfectly defined wings or a clear reflection in that gleaming thigh. Now I know why people enthuse about focus stacking - but if I had fetched and set up a tripod, it would probably have moved on before I returned, even if I had the patience and the software; so I think this is the best my time and resources can manage. The extra, looking straight down on the wings, required less depth of field so was easier to focus and shows the shape and colour well, but I've chosen the one I find more interesting as the main photo.

After this auspicious start, it was a fairly routine day: laundry, watering, helping J work through a trial of various potential switch sensors to see if the consistency of her computer access can be improved, and picking a big bowl of elderflowers from the orchard hedge to start the first cordial of the season. I've avoided the jubilee junketings, both local and  national, but was interested to hear that the prime minister was booed by the royalist crowd outside St Paul's. I imagine the majority of those who line the streets for royal events are small C conservatives, and this reception follows a forthright expression of disgust with his persistent lying and brazen bluster a couple of days ago in an interview on Mumsnet, which is also far from a hotbed of leftist antagonism to the government, so perhaps we are finally seeing more of the population rejecting his blatant lack of integrity or moral compass. Here's hoping!