Photography Course

I attended a photography course at the Nature Reserve in Thatcham yesterday. Okay but very windy  which made things difficult. Exposure liable to be wrecked by the camera moving. Quite cold.  I must have walked several miles ( 4 or 5) and found I was stiff by nine pm! Lots of ducklings to see. Actually not a lot of different species of bird. The birds on the main lake were mallards, tufted ducks, Canada geese (not a lot of them) and moorhens. In the reed beds there were birds singing but nothing visible.

But lots of ducklings.

 With one duck in attendance. There were three more ducklings over to the left. What on earth was she doing with 16 ducklings?

There were two or three mixed blood ducks were amongst the other mallards. Clearly thought they were mallards and hung out with them.

Peonies (Tree)

I love tree peonies. We had four at Malvern and they were all flamboyant. Indeed two were opulent in their flowers. Here I have two and they definitively can be described as opulent. The pink one is every bit of ten inches in diameter and the white one is eight inches diameter. Each flower only lasts a few days and the plants are only three years old and still small. My tree peonies at Malvern were 25 years old and were carefully pruned every summer after flowering.  I hope the current owners are loving them as much as I did.

Winding warps, Taking photos

The sunshine has gone but I have the garden in order. I need to check the greenhouse every day and add water in needed. The sweet peas have germinated as has the coleus. And the garden is positively bursting at the edges - as are the local woods. This photo was taken by The Kennet and Avon Canal this morning.

Jerry being photogenic by the canal.  Note the natty red harness. He goes crazy when he sees it in my hand. He knows that means we are going out.

I have been doing a lot of photography lately and thinking. I have decided that I am being too perfectionist. I have been reading a lot of books by high class photographers and comparing my photos with theirs to my disadvantage. And I suddenly realised that, of course, I do not compare with them. That is why I pay such a lot for their books. So I am cheered up. And I am off to North Norfolk next week  to spend several days photographing everything. It is not a course, that is, it is  a painting course for Dorothy and I am just a hanger-on. So expect photos of breaking waves. 

Apart from that, I suddenly realised that I might have made a serious error in the current winding a new warp. I forgot to check on the number of heddles. And yes I was right to be worried. There are not enough heddles on Shafts 5 and 6. Some hard thinking.  First thing to do to find out how many heddles I had on The Schacht. The answer is 150 on 1 and 2 and 100 on everything else. A re-arrangement  of the repeats and the draft and everything was okay.  And I have wound the first warp. I am splitting the warp into two because there are a lot of threads. I should be finished tomorrow. 

Sunny Weather

The current run of hot weather and no rain has made big changes to the daily round. Neither of the dogs like was king in midday so we have taken to walking them twice in teearly morning and once in  a very shady local wood. Twice incidentally has burst out with English bluebells in the last few days. But this morning we walked in Upton Nervet woods. Notable for meeting two lots of horses and riders. Jerry was struck with horror. You could see him thinking, they are large! As he hid behind me.

We have to be careful to garden early in the day and the garden is looking good. As are the auriculas.

I have started the cotton warp for a small tablecloth for the Guild exhibition in September. It will go on the Schacht.

Wisley in April

Wisley in April is very colourful. The alpine daffodil meadow is at its height. There are magnolia trees in flower and the Alpine houses are a riot.

Dorothy and I went there yesterday. About an hour and a half from here except that we got snarled up in two different traffic jams coming home and it took more that an hour longer. By the time we reached home we were both frazzled. The way we organised it. Dorothy is doing an online course with a lot of sketching in it so we went place where she could sit down and sketch whilse I prowled about with a camera. I have forgotten all that I did on the OCA course and, although I have been taking a lot of photos recently , I need to do far more. Anyway out of 66 photos yesterday, I onlt had to discard 7 which is getting better.

I have nearly finished weaving on the Schacht. In fact I have done a first!! I have run out of weft yarn before getting to the end of the warp! I have about 0l.5 metre left and have found some darker brown to finish off the warp.