Fine When They Work

I have a kitchen clock which is guaranteed to be correct at all time to within one millionth or whatever of the Rugby Time Signal.  It's German technology (it doesn't actually say where it was made!).  It's great when it's working.  British Summer Time adjustments are made automatically.  But every now and again the battery runs out and a new batter has to be inserted.  So for the next x number of hours until the Rugby radio signal is sent (once a day) the clock doesn't work at all.  This week the battery ran out.  The new battery - duly tested - has been put in.  That was Wednesday.  The clock still won't show the correct time.  When I re-insert the battery in the clock it either won't stop just going round and round at a racing car speed or it won't start at all.  Actually it's a bit like some people I know are in the morning.  Sometimes - just sometimes, mind you - I think that this technology lark isn't all it's cracked up to be.  What was wrong with the old clock stuck on the mantlepiece or in the corner (few people have a mantlepiece in the kitchen now) which had to be wound every day, lost exactly 7 minutes between winds and was almost always set at the wrong time anyway?

Right I don't need a clock to tell me that the weather's fabulous - 18 deg is forecast here for today - and I have to finish painting fences. 

Kestrel

Whilst David and I were driving near Villeneuve one day (actually I should have said that we were travelling because only David was driving; I was simply a passenger) we seemed to come across dozens of Kestrels.  From a moving car and often through the glass I tried time after time to capture the birds in the air and on electricity lines.  Time after time I thought I had succeeded.  In fact I had captured many pictures but when I enlarged them they were all, predictably I suppose, blurred.

 

But I was rather pleased with the next one which was taken from the ramparts of the village of Soumensac down into a field hundreds of metres away:

An Autumn Morning in Villeneuve

I didn't post yesterday and if I'm not fairly quick I may well not post today either.   I've been pondering again.  I'm in that sort of mood this evening.  Anyway I've decided that that post belongs in another place.  So this post is hearkening back to our time in France which seems so long ago.  In fact looking back I posted very little of the three weeks in France.  Perhaps I'll rectify that over the next few weeks.  I shall start with two photos take on an autumnal morning in Villeneuve-de-Duras.

A Day Out With Gaz

Today Gaz and I had coffee at the Woodlands Centre and then set off for a walk to the River Creed in the Lews Castle Grounds where the Centre is situated.   Gaz had an idea for a photograph and he needed a dull day.  Now whilst I sympathise with him (and sympathised a lot more by the end of the walk) I was rather glad that the early morning heavy showers (which returned late afternoon) kept away and I didn't get wet and the sun shone which compensated for the almost gale-force wind.  

 On the way into Stornoway as I was about to cross the Braighe I tried to capture the turbulent sea and the rainbow but almost missed the latter.

 The Lews Castle makes a splendid background to the harbour - note the Wicker Lady in the bottom right of the picture.

 Gaz on a mission

 The path alongside the River Creed

 Dedicated - and wet!

A 'proper' camera

Yesterday my niece Helen in a comment on her blog posting which included some more dragonfly photos pondered whether she showed too many.  My view was in the negative.  You can never have too many photos of dragonflies.  Which is just as well.  I think that this is a male Hawker.  It looks to me like the Migrant Hawker in Helen's photo but then it also looks like the Common Hawker in my post a few weeks ago. (Helen will doubtless put me right).

Gaz taking his photo of the dragonfly (he had thought that he wouldn't need a macro lens today).

 He was very sluggish and I suspect not long for this world.

 In Memory of that Stornoway institution recently departed,  Smiths Shoe Shop and the Stornoway coves who worked and met there.

 And on the way back looking the other way along The Braighe the waves were still rolling in

Anyone who has read Johnathon Livingston Seagull will appreciate these gulls who were just riding the airwaves as they came over the waves and rose over the seawall.