Blue

Apart from yesterday's PC problem, the night before while taking off all the coats, scarves, gloves etc after the evening dog walk, my good Nikon camera fell from my neck and on the top right-hand corner with the most dials etc, landed 6 feet later on quarry tiled floor. Picked it up and pressed on/off button. It started and the screen showed a photo. Phew!

Yesterday had the camera along, fired it up, got subject positioned and hit the button - nothing. Tried and tried again. Think it can be pronounced dead. So today took an old camera that is quite handy as it's small and was quite pleasantly reminded that it isn't all that bad, Then remembered it was the macro function which had annoyed me a few years ago,

So for the moment will give her a runout and hope I can get the battery rejuvenated. I guess a new one won't cost much.

So today's photo is the first one again for this camera after coming out of retirement. Taken on the pure blue, cloudless sunny day. It was -11°C first thing this morning and still about -6°C during the walk. But felt like +10°C with the sun now having some power. Flash and I had a pleasant OAP stroll on part of the "Schickling" walk.

Some may have read about a friends dog being hit by a car near our house. Much of the road between us and Ottobeuren has recently had a 70km/h speed restriction put in place. Annoys a lot of people and to an extent, I can understand them as it is dead straight and much of it is over totally free fields with no houses. Why the restriction doesn't extend to our village and another 2.5 kilometres of very dangerous forest section with it's very steep banks directly on the edge, is a mystery to me.

And as it was as I entered our road in Ottobeuren a school children minibus came up behind me and tried attaching it to my tow bar for the entire 2.5km, 70km/h stretch that I drove at 75km/h. Waved as MrsB passed a few metres before the no restriction sign and then I could see the van starting to pull out and get impatient with cars coming at us. I knew what was coming, increased speed to just under 90km/h (max 100km/h) and then the school bus flew past me. Good to see those trusted with our children take such care. I can't legally publish the film I took.

As an extra, a photo I took a week ago, almost exactly at the spot the dog was hit. Taken driving towards Ottobeuren. I think you can imagine there are many who think 150km/h is too slow and in summer, several bikers who must be close to 200km/h. Think we have at least one collision with wild animals here a month. And the odd person killed!