Common puffball

I enjoyed our first camera club competition last night, we had a large amount of entries - 96 images - so the judge certainly had a busy time trying to get through all those images in 2 hours, having never seen them before. He is an excellent and experienced judge and he gave very good feedback. My one image did well and my other image did not do well, but only the highest score counts so that was fine. 

Today was grey with rain forecast for most of the day. Our ladies group who play on a Tuesday afternoon cancelled our golf, as it's no fun playing in the rain. We will play later in the week when sunny weather is expected.

Poor Xena has to wait while I take photos of fungi on our walks, and today I remembered my glasses so I could see what I was doing! This little puffball was only about an inch high, so again I had my camera on the ground. These fungi are not easy to find, they are usually hidden by leaves and soil as they push through the earth, so it takes time to find them, and then you have to remove all the twigs and leaves from around them.

I have a very quiet week ahead of me as Gavin left today for Australia, he will be there for a week, and Tommy is away in Cambridge with Inca. It is lovely to make simple meals for myself and have time to do my own thing! Next week is by contrast very busy with a short trip to Dorset and a short trip to Switzerland so I will enjoy this calm before the storm of next week!

I have spent some time today selecting images for the annual Surrey Photographic Association individual competition, as suggested by the name one enters as an individual and not as part of one's club. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to enter this year but it's always good to enter competitions on a county level and see other work. I have a file of shortlisted images and tomorrow I will select the ones I will enter.