Monday's photograph (no painting today)

Fibromyalgia has eased somewhat, still taking and doing everything I know to try and sort it.
Itchiness is still raging. My arms and legs are the worst. The sun appears to aggravate it.  I am bare armed and bare legged in this hot weather, and I am not particularly in the sun, only just going out a few minutes to dead head some Buddliea flowers (so it keeps flowering for the butterflies who appear to be late this year), or to the garage and potting shed, or sitting on my swing in the shade. Antihistamine and lots of creams and sun creams, but it still itches badly. I will look online for some alternative remedies later.

Popeye is okay although he was wobbly on his legs late afternoon, but then so was I by the end of the day. Two oldies...

I do literally get hundreds of sparrows in my garden every day at the moment. When one flock of sparrows leaves, another flock is waiting on my garage roof for their turn and they swoop in. And so this goes on throughout the day...

The sparrows are beginning to 'tolerate'/get used to me. They don't fly away now when I stick my phone camera out of the window to get a closer shot. They carry on feeding. Also when I am sitting on my thatched swing outside, I can stand up from it with phone camera in my hand and take photos. But if I step closer to them they don't fly off, but fly into the nearest bush and rustle the small branches and leaves next to me, and then fly right in front of my face to the bush opposite and rustle those branches and leaves. They are doing this behind me and in front of me as I am walking round the garden, or when I am dead heading the Buddleia. At first it was an eerie sensation like I was in one of those horror movies where the bushes rustle next to the person and they never see anyone or any thing. I got more comfortable with that sensation. I will try again later  today. I would just like to get right up close to them so I can take a photo with my phone camera.

Many years ago I was in Hereford with J. It was in the cathedral grounds, no one was near me. I was eating a sandwich, then a little sparrow landed on my hand and I fed it breadcrumbs from my sandwich. So while J was looking inside the cathedral at the architecture, I was communing with nature....

Anyway, here  is a composite photo of sparrows, and a bumblebee, and a Holly Blue butterfly. I was taking the photo of the Holly Blue butterfly right into the sun. And I could see nothing, and I got nothing. Then I tried an experiment, I turned the phone into portrait mode, and aimed even through the butterfly was too far away. I got three shots and this was the best one.

Have a good day.