On golden pond

Last night the photography competition award ceremony was thankfully very quick and we met Luke for supper afterwards. I know this sounds crazy but I really did not want to win the prize - as this was a competition sponsored by Leica, there was one prize for the winner of £10,000 worth of Leica camera equipment. When I entered the competition I said to myself I would be delighted to get an image in the finalists list, and I achieved that by having two images in that list of twelve images. I am so heavily invested in my Nikon gear, and in the last year or so I have spent a small fortune (due to an unexpected windfall) in getting the equipment I wanted, so the last thing I needed was thousands of pounds of equipment from another system that does not suit my needs. While Leica has a reputation as a very expensive camera brand it does not compare to Nikon/Canon cameras for wildlife or even landscapes, they are superb little cameras for street photography which is a genre I never do. I was interviewed as I had two images chosen out of 836 images submitted and that was good enough for me. The winner has been a Canon user all his life and likes wildlife photography too so not sure what he will do with Leica equipment - we were joking to check on eBay over the next few days for some new Leica equipment!

Today was beautifully sunny again, although that faded by the afternoon. I even got too warm at my golf group lesson as the golf bays face into the sun!

I also managed to find an engraver in the next village who would engrave a sports shield while I waited - it was something that Tommy required for his university rugby club and I was pleased it was done so quickly. 

I am very relieved to finally have a night at home when I can relax and watch TV. I need to catch up with GBBO, my favourite from the beginning has been the young lad Dylan. Only 20 years old and he bakes like a dream and holds his own against the older and more experienced bakers - plus he is very easy on the eye :)