Another rainy window photo

I planned to wander round the garden with the camera between J finishing her breakfast and the rain arriving; but the clouds opened as I unlocked the back door, and I retreated. Instead I spent a few minutes looking at the blurred foliage through the rain-streaked window and experimented with settings, depth of field and ICM. I liked the colours, especially after a bit of tweaking.

It was an unusually sociable afternoon. First, J and I joined the 1Voice online Christmas party, with rock'n'roll bingo (supported by Widget symbols, which makes it accessible to J, who can't hear the songs, and to old people like me who only know a handful of them), time for chat and catching up in small groups, then DJ Oli's disco, which he controls with his eye gaze system. We've been part of 1Voice for twenty years, it's a small charity supporting children and young people using AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) and their families, and it's where we first found a peer group and role models to inspire and support us with J's communication journey;  later, J became a role model and I was a trustee for a decade. Now we just go back when we can to see old friends, and are glad to see so many new young families too.

A little later, my brother and sister-in-law and my niece and nephew (in Lowestoft, Glasgow and northern Germany) met us on Zoom to chat, catch up with news and play J's Outsmarted quiz game again. The technology all worked well this time, and we explored some of the new question categories J recently added. She knew all the Disney Classics, having watched all the videos till I knew the scripts, and we weren't bad at Christmas movies; the older generation who follow the news coped easily with "look back at 2023", while the animal kingdom questions proved surprisingly difficult for everyone. It's fun so long as one doesn't take it seriously.

We finished the day with P's excellent roast dinner and a bottle of not bad Chianti - so it was a very nice rainy Sunday at home.