Project 365 day 348: new cones

This morning I went across to my neighbour C's house, to give him a bit of shopping he added to our supermarket order and see what I could find to photograph in his garden. There are still fuchsias in bloom, a couple of small yellow roses, the last few gazanias in pots beside the house looking bright and spiky, but my favourites were these tiny new cones developing in a small conifer - the more fully grown cone in the extra was about 4 cm long, so these are significantly smaller. I've no idea what kind of tree it is - I'll try to ask next time I see him, but neither of us are doing indoor visits again now, and he now struggles to hear much of what I say even with his hearing aid and especially outdoors, so we are communicating more by email than in person. I miss our Tuesday morning coffees and worry about his deteriorating health.

J has had more good news today: as well as receiving lots of nice feedback about her newly released animation Unbound, she heard that it has been selected for the Paris International Animation Festival in January. She was able to start entering it for festivals a little while ago, and this will be its first festival/cinema screening. Sadly, we won't be going to Paris just now; it would be a lovely festival to attend, in a cinema in the 5th arrondissement, near the Sorbonne and the Jardin du Luxembourg and about ten minutes walk from the street where I spent a year in a garret in 1983-4, and under different circumstances we would certainly have combined it with a short break across the Channel. With Omicron variant cases projected to be in the millions in the UK by early January, we will be staying even more rigorously at home than we have until now; but it's still good to know it will be shown on a big screen for the first time.