Ascension Day is a national holiday. It always falls on a Thursday, but is to all intents and purposes a Sunday. We had a lazy day, but did manage an excursion towards late afternoon and, oh wonder, a few pictures!

Old and very old: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f5.6; 1/400s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

Lamps: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f4.5; 1/200s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

Corridor: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f2.8; 1/5s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

Alps: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f6.3; 1/400s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

Similar Alps: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f5.6; 1/500s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

The first week of May brought us some beautiful sunny evenings with typically dark clouds, rainbows and all sorts of interesting stuff. As usual the camera was idling at home while I had to make do with my mobile phone.

Lush meadow: Sony-Ericsson W995 mobile phone.

Evening 1: Sony-Ericsson W995 mobile phone.

Evening 2: Sony-Ericsson W995 mobile phone.

A sunny day in the garden today…. not getting my hands dirty, but creeping through the undergrowth to capture a picture or two of some busy bees.

Apple Blssom: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f6.3; 1/500s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

Dandelions: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f7.1; 1/500s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

More Dandelions: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f5.6; 1/320s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

The people who design light fittings have obviously never actually had to fit them to a ceiling. Or perhaps they have four child sized hands and the strength of superman.

There I was, up a ladder, holding the light fitting in one hand, a screwdriver in the other and trying to ease the wire into a hole plainly too small for the job with my spare hands, suffering with acute arm ache and sweating profusely. Suddenly a shout of delight resounded from below stairs…. “Oh!! Look out of the window! There’s a rainbow!”

I couldn’t even see a window from where I was perched.  Loosing concentration for a moment, the wire jumped out of it’s hole again, the screwdriver lost it’s screw and I shouted “Oh Super!“ and ran excitedly to the nearest window to feast my eyes upon one of nature’s wonders.

Luckily my camera wasn’t far away so I decided to capture the moment before it was all over.

Rainbow: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f/8; 1/500s; ISO 400; Developed with GIMP

Rainbow: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f/8; 1/500s; ISO 400; Developed with GIMP

Title: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f/8; 1/500s; ISO 400; Developed with GIMP

Unfortunately I couldn’t get back far enough to do the rainbow full justice. On the right of the picture, well out of the picture’s frame,  the arc even continued through blue sky. I suppose posting a black and white image of a rainbow tends to defeat the whole reason for taking a photograph of a rainbow in the first place…. but enjoyed processing it.

Now that it’s quite officially Spring, I suppose one could expect pictures of blooming  flowers and things. Be patient. The garden now has one or two splashes of colour, a primrose or two here, a bunch of snowdrops there. But the big blobs of yellow daffodils are saving themselves for Easter.

Ploughed fields: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f/5.6; 1/250s; ISO 100; Developed with GIMP

Freshly cut: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f/4.5; 1/200; ISO 100

Helped on by the warm sunshine, definite Springy feelings have been making their presence felt this weekend.

Sauntering around the village on Saturday I was greeted by folk I haven’t seen in months. Neighbours were spotted pottering about in their gardens and I actually took the car for its biannual excursion to the car wash.

First a good wash: Sony-Ericsson W995 mobile phone.

Then under the dryer: Sony-Ericsson W995 mobile phone.

Then a final pollish: Sony-Ericsson W995 mobile phone.

Wise old weather prophets are forecasting cold weather for the coming week, and the village elders are suggesting that we haven’t seen the last of the snow, so I hope these buds are hairy enough to survive the next cold spell.

Hairy buds: Panasonic DMC-LX2; f/2.8; 1/5s; ISO 400; Developed with GIMP

While the media presented us with the usual images of new born babies and chatted to various teenagers who have only ever celebrated four birthdays, I thought I’d bring the world a further ‘Day in the life of….’ article. Alas I failed miserably. My camera sat patiently in its case all day, and despite the brilliant spring weather didn’t actually see daylight at all.

As luck would have it, we decided to go for a quick drink on the way home, in a bar overlooking the town. This spontaneous excursion at least enabled me to take a couple of blog pictures. OK, I agree it’s not exactly New York, but it was pleasant enough up there.

Both Photos, taken with the Panasonic DMC-LX2, are ‘straight out of the camera’ and taken using the ‘Night Scenery’ setting… not very professional perhaps, but easy:-)  Unfortunately the view from the bar was not optimal. Tripod stayed at home this evening so I had to sit the camera on a table, thus pointing it straight out over the town instead of angling it down a bit to where things looked a bit more ummmm, towny