Derek meets the new lens

It's a long-standing tradition that I spend St Stephen's Day with Derek and Rita, my long-time best friends. I left Carl's place shortly after 1.00 pm to travel across the city and out the Derry road to Ashbourne, in county Meath, where they live. Last year I braved the M50 for the trip but vowed not to repeat that dreadful experience this time (the motorway is undergoing major reconstruction, and is not a pleasant route to take at the best of times). So I decided to use the Dublin Port Tunnel for the first time, entering it at Dublin Port, exiting onto the M1 and then on to the M50 in the opposite direction to the logical one and finally taking the N2. It looks like a crazy route on paper, but it actually worked really, really well, and I arrived at my destination at 1.45, relaxed and in fine fettle to enjoy a lovely day in great company.

We'd barely gone through the most cursory meeting-and-greeting civilities when Derek wanted to know 'So, where is it?', meaning my new wide converter lens. He played with it for a while as Rita and I chatted away over a cup of coffee, and gave it the thumbs up afterwards. Indeed, this blip is the first since I began here which was taken by somebody else, since it demonstrates the capabilities of the new lens better than anything I took either today or yesterday. It also provides a nice group portrait of the three of us, from Derek reflected in the Christmas-tree baubles to Rita on the couch and me busily chatting on my mobile phone.

The rest of the day was devoted to a lovely lunch, great chat, more camera discussion and shutter-use, including my pretty desperate need for a decent camera bag to carry around my rapidly growing collection of add-on gear (which presently consists of lens adapter, filters, the new wide converter, a lens brush and a lens cleaning cloth and will shortly have a flash unit and perhaps a tele converter added to the pile). It all really makes a nonsense of the idea of having a 'compact' camera, but it's good fun all the same. The G9 has a hot shoe for an external flash, and I'll definitely have to get one if I ever plan to use flash with the wide converter fitted (the bulge of the lens converter blocks about 50% of the effectiveness of the built-in flash). First step is a decent bag, though. That will be my after-Christmas present to myself.

We lazed around in front of the TV until 9.00 pm, at which stage I said my goodbyes and came home, more than ready for an early night and some quality recovery time after the last few hectic days.

p.s. I've back-posted for yesterday if you care to have a look.