Bored, ignored and muddy

Jake in a slough of despond. He hates the weather, he has mud up to his eyebrows and worst by far I didn't take him shopping with me earlier.

I think this sums up the odd days between Christmas and Hogmanay, I've never got my head round them. The weather is crap, there is no daylight and no one seems to know what to do with themselves.

Not having been out of the house since Christmas Eve I decided to venture forth today before I completely lose my sanity. My ex mother in law, always a generous soul, sent me some money for Christmas so I decided to go and get a semi decent digital camera. I'm tired of snapping what I can for Blip with phone or ancient relic of the dawn of digital. As I've said before, my decent cameras are still film but Blip is so addictive it's pushing me to get something up to the task. And so out I went shopward into the Oxfordshire floods. I have been ignoring the hail battering on the windows over the last couple of days and had convinced myself that at worst the surrounding countryside was as under water as it was before I shut myself away, it therefore came as quite a surprise to find myself driving through the Thames where the road is usually a couple of fields away from it. Very desolate and grey it all was. Passing a gap in the hedgerow I found two beautiful horses standing on a tiny spit of ground, surrounded by what was now a lake, their hooves deep in mud. I'm ashamed to say that in addition to my immediate concern for their plight and horror that they hadn't been moved there was a distinctly selfish little excitement at the extraordinary picture they presented against the expanse of flat, drowned landscape behind them. As I was on my way to get a camera I didn't have anything other than a phone in my pocket so I decided to stop on the way back, take their picture and then think about finding out who was responsible for them and registering my displeasure. Fortunately by the time I returned they were gone. Unfortunate for my pre visualised photograph but that's a small price to pay. Tomorrow I'll try and venture out and do it all justice, see what my new Canon Powershot sx150 can do.