Swan March

I was completely and utterly torn on today's blip - another wander up to Duddingston Loch had provided a whole load of opportunities. The colour of the Mallard's head, with his white collar, was enticing; the Tufted Duck was sufficiently 'different'; the Ministry of Funny Walks was, well, funny; the close-up shot of the Swan showed up the lovely colour of his beak; and on the way out we stumbled upon five Robins, stuck between eating and squabbling as the weather put them closer together than they normally would be, and occasionally they posed in picture-postcard-perfection.

In the end I went with first instinct. I'd shot this procession of swans making their way back to the broken water, then on a whim tilted the camera, and liked the effect. Mel preferred it horizontal, but again I stuck with first instinct.

The only annoyance of the walk was while we were feeding the birds in a little secluded spot (with seed, not bread) a group of four people turned up and proceeded to half a half-arsed snowball fight ten yards behind us. I thought they were maybe passing time till we moved on, so we walked back to the main human-activity bit of the lochside, where 2 minutes later the same four people made their way out of the park. All very odd. They'd seemingly walked to where they could actually be as near other people as possible to have a snowball fight, rather than any of the quiet bits they passed on the way. They also then promptly scared off the Pheasant (blipped on the third of this month) by basically chasing it with a camera. Here's a tip, if it walks away from you when you walk towards it, walking towards it some more isn't going to make it stop...

Other tip of the day goes to O2, who are sorting out an issue I'd had with my new iPhone. The tip is this: if someone orders an iPhone on the same account they've had with you for roughly 6 years, keeping the same number, simply upgrading to the new phone, then you should probably be aware of the fact that he doesn't have a 3G sim and therefore won't be able to access the 3G network. Thank you for sending one out in the post (at least, thank you once it actually arrives) but really, a joined-up thinking system might have meant there was one less drain on your customer service bods.

Finished off the day installing the nestbox camera which was blipped a few days ago, now in place and working beautifully. It'll be a diary of ups and downs watching from the house. Last year when I cleaned out the box there was one dead chick, this year there were three. They can apparently lay up to about 14 eggs (Blue Tits), so a lot survive, but it won't be so nice seeing those that don't make it...

p.s. back blipped yesterday. Forgot to mention the fabulous Pork Belly with Wild Boar and Mushroom Tortellini, preceded by Scallops on Stornoway Black Pudding and Apple, that we had for dinner. Best meal I've made in ages.