Emergency ladybird

I thought I'd been clever and careful enough to escape it - but no. In the small hours of this morning, Baby B's virus caught up with me. With a vengeance. I can only apologise if I gave it to anyone else before realising that I was infected.

I'll skip the gory details, but suffice it to say, I lost almost all of today. There was just half an hour this afternoon when I managed to struggle into some clothes and walk down the garden in search of a photo, and the effort of lifting the small camera with a macro lens attached was almost too much for me to manage. Luckily this ladybird sat still enough for the photo to be (more or less) in focus.

Comparing notes with R, who had this bug last week, my illness is following exactly the same pattern as his. This means that I expect to be half-recovered by tomorrow, and back to my best self (arf, arf) on Saturday. Fingers crossed.

Anyhoo - enough of that. In the circumstances I could have done with an easier job judging the Tiny Tuesday entries this week, if I'm honest, but you all decided to make it hard for me by posting a great selection of photos, so it was difficult to whittle them down to my favourites. Sigh.

In no particular order, my hearts this week go to:

Maureen6002 - for great detail and sharpness in her portrait of an elderly female Common Darter.

isbi - for some absolutely delicious spring blossom from the Southern Hemisphere.

stevvi - for more stunning detail in a portrait of a Sphaerophoria hoverfly.

KangaZu - for an amazing cicada - almost unbelievable to those of us who've never seen one of these insects (so jealous!!).

Paola - for a tiny predation photo - this time, plant eating fly.

And my Honourable mentions this week go to:

chrisf - for a very handsome sawfly larva - well, I think so, anyway!

Hanulli - for a rather dramatic mono beetle.

SandraSuisse - for a beautiful little gaillardia bud.

Sheol - for giving us us both a common carder bee and a speckled bush cricket.

Barking - for the exquisite eyes of a tiny fruit fly.

Kipsie - for the lovely metallic patterns on a little spider.

I hope you'll enjoy looking at these photos as much as I have, and that you'll all play again next week, when the tag will be TT330.