Emperor

The sun finally came out again this morning for a few hours, it didn't last long before the rain came this afternoon. Still, it was long enough for me to go to Natural Surroundings in search of dragonflies and butterflies. It was 21C and mostly sunny, so there were quite a few dragons and damselflies, but still only a few butterflies. This is an emperor dragonfly taking a brief break from patrolling the pond and chasing off interlopers. I've added an extra of some other photos I took. It was so nice to be warm and in the sun again, if only briefly.

This afternoon I walked into town to collect an order and to have a look round three art exhibitions that are part of the Holt Festival. I thought the exhibition in one of the church rooms called German Expressionists & the Third Reich was very interesting and at times challenging. There was an exhibition in the church hall of entries for the Holt Festival Art Prizes - as with all such exhibitions there's quite a mix of styles, some I liked but a lot were not to my taste. I also went to the annual Keiron Williamson exhibition at the Art Gallery. You might know his past reputation as the 'mini Monet' and the exhibition included some of this early work, including one when he was only six years old that I quite liked. He's a very good artist and most of the paintings were local, so I enjoyed having a look round. I preferred his paintings that focussed on light changing in different seasons and times of the day in nature. A lot of the exhibition was more on animals and people and looked almost like photos, which was less to my taste, albeit showing impressive skill. He was in the gallery doing a painting. There were only a few people in each exhibition. Nice to have a bit of culture in town!