Sparkle Patterns.

This is straight SOOC, very unusual for me but I'm starting to make a decent fist of using all the manual settings properly on the new Canon now, so I decided not to tweak this at all. It was actually a lovely day today, but A and I didn't leave the house until much later on and were shocked at how warm it was despite the hazy cloud. When we woke up we were both feeling the effects of the wine last night, but luckily baby F slept late and allowed us a small lie-in! A cooked us a lovely breakfast of veggie sausages and mushrooms with home-baked bread which lefty us both feeling much more human, then we got ready and played with F until A's in-laws came over to see their grandson.

While we chatted and drank tea, F played with his new toys and kept us all entertained with smiles. He's 6 months old now and can sit up on his own and crawl fairly quickly on all fours - especially if A puts her iPad on the ground in front of him. He likes shiny things, the dogs' legs and anything that looks good to chew. Later on, I got a headstart on dinner. I hardly ever use ingredients like pre-made pasta sauce as I don't consider it cooking at all, and I'm not keen on preservatives or additives; but the Markies one I chose was lovely and seemed quite innocent when I read the ingredients list. Sometimes it's nice to just put a meal together rather than creating something, so I made baked tortillas stuffed with lemony ricotta, spinach and tomato sauce - YUM!

A and I took the dogs for a wander in the field opposite the house while F's grandparents fussed over him, and the dogs found the muddiest spot in the field to play in. Luckily they were also happy to play in the stream afterwards, and stick their faces underneath the water to hunt for stones.

Since it was so warm, I left A to chat to her in-laws and I walked to the back of the house and hunted for pictures. I took several I was pleased with as the light falling through the birch trees is just beautiful, and I reckon the 50mm lens lends itself to woodland scenes like this, but I ended up plumping for this abstract sparkling water.

When F's grandparents headed home, A and I heated up our dinner and watched the X-Factor with our food on our laps - bliss. We played a timed game of Scrabble later which I won at the last minute with a 'Q' on a triple-letter tile. Not much of a victory as A was still very tired and a little delicate after last night's wine - neither of us are big drinkers!