Waiting for a walk

Today it rained for most of the day. Thankfully I did not need to take Xena for a walk in the lashing rain as she went out with P the dogwalker today. She hates the rain but when she is out with other dogs she has such fun I don't think she notices the rain too much. Here she is waiting to go out, and I quickly took this photo of her. Unusually for me I have converted it to mono. I used to often present my images in black and white but lately I have gone off mono, and think it is only suitable for certain images. I don't think it suits a dog of one colour, you need the tonal range of multi colours with highlights and shadows for the mono to look interesting, so not sure about this.

I went to get some groceries but did not have much to buy as we are going to Cambridge on Saturday for the weekend. It is the Cambridge Half Marathon on Sunday and Adam, Meriel, Inca and her dad are all running in it. Adam runs the Rome marathon in two weeks time so he is treating this as a training run and won't push himself. Amazing how Adam never did any running until about two years ago when he started training for the London Marathon - he used to be a power lifter (representing the university team) and played rugby for the university so he was enormous, now he has slimmed down due to all the running and looks so much better for it.

My new camera bag arrived today. It's only taken me about 2 months to decide on this bag!  I have more camera bags than I need, but they all serve different purposes, and as my cameras have changed over the years, so the bags have had to change. ( I will sell or donate the bags I no longer use). The Nikon Z9 is a big beast and does not fit in most of the bags I have, which necessitated yet another camera bag. As I get back ache Gavin encouraged me to get a bag that fits better, and supports my load better. Shimoda do a women's range that has straps to accommodate the female figure, an adjustable waist strap, has a height adjustment on the shoulder straps, and it is meant to be the most comfortable bag ever. The quality is exceptional, best I have ever seen. I contacted the design team a few times with questions, I drove all the way to Park Cameras near Brighton to have a look at it (as not every camera store supplies them) and I finally made a decision this week! I can drive myself crazy at times deciding about a new purchase, I can never be accused of being an impulsive buyer!