On the woodland floor...

Last night we had a brilliant evening at camera club, a highly experienced judge critiqued our images we submitted for discussion. For the beginner 'club class' he actually showed them how to improve their images by editing, cropping and improving the image. We all learnt so much, it was a very good session. What judges say again and again is we tend to include too much in the image and should crop out the distracting, uninteresting bits and only leave the main focal interest in the image. Cropping can change an image from okay to something special.

This morning I met up with a group of friends I have known since Adam was in the same class as their children when they were all aged four years old! We met for breakfast at The Ivy, and while it was wonderful to see them again and catch up, the food was terrible. Their breakfasts used to be so good, and we have often eaten breakfast there but I won't be rushing back as I have noticed a decline in the quality of the food and today was just horrible - I had poached eggs on avo toast. While I did ask for my eggs not to have runny whites - I cannot eat eggs like that - they were so overcooked I could have played golf with them. The avo was a meagre topping and completely tasteless. The coffee was pretty good though.
 After breakfast I took Xena for a walk, when I took this fungi image. On a dog walk with no tripod etec but I placed my camera on the ground to stabilise it. The mushroom was slightly nibbled but I liked the upturned gills.

Then later this afternoon I had another dog walk with Xena where we met up with a friend whose son was in Tommy's class when he was about five years old - long standing friendships. We had a god walk and the dogs got on well too.

Gavin is away for work until Thursday so I can eat leftovers for supper! (I made a good veggie curry last night). 

Tommy had to get his degree certificates notarised and apostilled for the university in Munich, and Gavin offered to get it done thinking it was a simple chore. What a run around, getting the certificates to the Foreign Office to be apostilled and it all cost hundreds of pounds to be notarised! There has been an extraordinary amount of paperwork that Tommy has had to get through - once he arrives in Munich he has to still go and register his new residence with the authorities within two weeks.