At last the rain stops

Several things play games with me ~ seagulls, the wind and the weather in general. Seagulls are some of my favourite birds, despite so many people not sharing my great fondness of them. Understatement, they have a policy to cull the seagull population by removing eggs from the nests where I live. I love to photograph them, but they do so like to taunt me, flying right down low past me when my camera is not to hand, creating beautiful shadowy shapes when they fly directly overhead that I cannot capture for the same reason. I have plenty of near miss seagull photos, the tip of a wing just showing in one far corner and heaps with just plain sky.

Ditto the wind. As soon as I see something I feel drawn to capture, camera in hand, poised - along comes the wind out of nowhere, petals suddenly folding over, stems, grasses, branches going crazy, leaves blowing back and forth. Nothing stands still!

And then there's the weather. I hang my washing out, it's dry when I do so (otherwise what would be the point?!). I come back in, the clouds start to thicken overhead, the rooms go dark inside. I know what's coming. Down the rain falls. I peer out through the window, check for signs of it being a temporary set back... it continues raining. I wait ten minutes or so to see if it passes over. It doesn't. It's continuous. Out I go, fetch it all back in. Ten minutes later and the sun's back out, laughing at me.

Today, after hanging it out and bringing it all back in again twenty minutes later, slightly wetter than when I hung it out, it continued to rain steadily nearly all day, finally stopping five hours later when I hung it out again just before I started on with tea. This photo is taken from my back kitchen doorway, looking out onto my yard. Although not great, it will have to do as today's entry!