Nothing Much Happened

Our week in France was dominated as ever by walks, reading, my photography, log fires and lucky weather. We also managed to see friends and go for a restaurant meal.

The weather steadily and slowly got warmer, so we ended up with a feeling of spring almost. I never had to use the snow shovel, which I had put on top of all the luggage, just in case. The car journey was comfortable and uneventful, helped by the iPod on full random! It's really great to have sudden switches between music styles, from Mozart to ZZ Top for instance.

On our walks I always carry my camera, and once I actually carried my tripod with the mounted camera, because I had seen nature photographers do that on TV, on your shoulder like any other long-shafted tool. I thought I would get sharper pictures if the camera with the long lens was not in my sometimes unsteady hands.

I anticipated finding myself short of time when the target was moving, since it takes a few seconds to spread the legs of the tripod and put it down, but it was not too bad. I even managed to capture two French jet fighters thundering over our heads. I found to my great surprise that it was not too heavy either.

I won't show you the jet fighter pictures, but I leave you with some others.

As we started to heat the house, and before it had dried out, we had quite a lot of condensation on the windows.

The rising temperature indoors made this beauty turn up, totally out of season.

Outdoors we came across a flock of lapwings taking off in their typically chaotic way.

And then there were signs of spring.

(Some of these images might appear later on my photo website Pictura Digitalis.)

Now I just have to work a little on the rest of the pictures and update Pictura Digitalis.