ITSA*

*It's Those Swans Again.

Another lovely day. At least this time I got out and enjoyed it, unlike yesterday. I needed to go over to Swords to drop in a payment to my accountants, and decided to combine that with another trip to the nearby Broadmeadows estuary. The swans were out in force again, and I got a decent crop of shots to prove it.

None of those fully rocked the boat, and it came down to a short-list of three from which to choose today's blip. A close runner-up was this cheeky chappy who came sidling over and took me by surprise; or there was this other inquisitive creature too.

I finally dragged myself away from the swans and set off walking along by the section of the estuary which floods the waterside 'roadway' at high tide. For some reason I decided to switch the G9 to fully manual and played around with settings I remembered from the days of using my dad's Rolleiflex. Some of the results looked good on the G9's display and weren't too bad when transferred onto my iMac. One of these three could just as well have made it into the Blip frame: foreground growth with background house; grassy clump in placid estuary and dog taking lady for a walk.

I didn't feel time passing, which meant that I was late getting to Ashbourne for one of my wonderful evenings with friends Derek and Rita. We had a beautiful meal, sat in the garden enjoying a coffee afterwards, and then retired to the living room for a good old natter. Somehow we got round to talking about photography and cameras. I've been disappointed with the G9, I must admit, and I've been toying with the idea of maybe getting a second-hand DSLR instead. Totally out of the blue Derek asked if I'd like to borrow his Olympus so I could get some hands-on SLR experience and see if I'd like it (I've always felt that using a viewfinder might prove difficult and uncomfortable because I wear glasses). So I headed home with Derek's gorgeous Olympus E-510 to play with for a while. Thanks a million, Derek. Thanks also for the loan of a higher-spec DAC than the one I'd borrowed from Carl. I'm going to be a busy boy tomorrow.

I other news: Carl and I have decided the outward leg of our forthcoming holiday for which we'd already booked the return flight. We'll fly to Lyon on 19th September, spend a couple of nights there and then take the TGV to Marseilles, where we'll spend another two or three nights. That leaves us with a week to fill before we arrive in Sitges on 29th September for a wedding we're going to there on 1st October. Who knows where we'll end up between Marseilles and Sitges. It's all really exciting, and I'm looking forward to it enormously.