The curfew tolls the knell of passing day

... the lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea
The ploughman homewards plods his weary way
and leaves the world to darkness and to me

(Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard, 1751. The churchyard in question was probably in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire).

This morning, bright and early, we went down to Bristol. because I'd booked on a course at Calumet. It was a Groupon deal, and when I got there I found out there were just two of us on the course! Me and a bloke called James. There was some confusion caused by the tutor thinking the course ended at two, when we thought it was one....

Never mind, I think I might have learned something about DSLR use, though it's a bit like being asked to walk on stilts when (DSLR) I'm used to rollerskating (the compact). I haven't got my head around all the controls, though. That might take a bit longer than 3 hours.

Afterwards, we went to the health shop/cafe for some bhajis, because I was starving, and to the Chinese wholesaler because CleanSteve was getting tofu withdrawal symptoms. Then once we'd got off the motorway and had an in-car coffee, we decided to head for the South Glos village of Alderton, because I thought it had some connection with an artist I've mentioned here before, Marianne North.

It turned out that she was actually buried in another South Glos village called Alderley! We had camera fun in the village high street and church, taking snaps of swallows and exotic ducks on a pond, and a Siamese cat. So much so that a 'lady' came and asked us what we were doing. She didn't actually say that there hadn't been any non-local visitors to the village since 1986, when they closed the Post Office, but let's just say that it's the kind of place where sporting a camera might raise some eyebrows.

I didn't much care for any of the shots I took, since they were on Manual and there is SO much to learn, but I thought this was one of the better ones. Country churchyards are lovely places, if, like me, you enjoy rain-fresh grass, weathered stone, and the background twitter of birds.