Rule of thirds

Today’s guest picture comes from my neighbour Liz, who lives just across the road but who has sent me this photograph of a geyser in the Maori Village at Whakarewarewe,New Zealand, from the other side of the world (where she is on holiday).

We had a bit of a shock when we woke up to find a second consecutive sunny day in place.  Although there was an early frost to go with the sun shine, Dropscone and I only had to put back our morning run for an hour before we could enjoy our time in the sun.  The wind was not a severe as the last time that we had gone out together and we had a more evenly paced run to Waterbeck and back but took about the same time.

After coffee, I took a walk round the garden and found an new flower in bloom.

An anemone crouching under a daffodil.

And I couldn’t resist taking a picture of one of the many established scillas which don’t seem to mind the wind and the rain too much.

After a church choir practice,  Mrs Tootlepedal made herself busy collecting manure and then doing good work in the garden for most of the rest of the day.  I checked on the frogs….

There were hundreds of potential frogs in the pond.

…looked at the chaffinches…

Resting peacefully in the sunshine.

Hovering for the photographer

Coming into land

…before going off to play some trios with Mike and Isabel after lunch.  We played a very nice sonata called Il Pastor Fido which claims to be by Vivaldi on the frontispiece but when I looked it up on the internet, it turns out to be by Nicholas Chedéville who got it published under Vivaldi’s name.  It is still quite delightful.

When I got home, Mrs Tootlepedal was having a restorative snooze between the gardening and her evening opera society performance so I went off for a little walk in the sun.

I started by admiring the wall along the Wauchope beside the park.  It is moss heaven.

Then my way took me past little glens….

…up little hills…

…along broad tracks….

..over new bridges…

…past lichens at the Auld Stane Brig…

On a fence post

On the bridge itself

…along the road with celandines in the verge….

Pretty enough on the roadside but a pest in the garden.

…past more mossy walls…

…on which a nuthatch might be found….

…and finally past some ivy on a tree by the old manse which was catching the sunlight in what I thought was a very attractive fashion.

I got home in time for an enjoyable lesson with my flute pupil Luke who is going to take his grade examination in a couple of weeks.

Then while Mrs Tootlepedal went off to wow the audience at the Buccleuch Centre, I drove Sandy over to Newcastleton for the final Liddesdale Camera Club meeting of the year.  This was the occasion when all the top three images and prints from previous competitions during the winter season are put up for judging for print and image of the year.  Aspiring photographers are often advised to pay attention to ‘The Rule of Thirds’ and I paid a lot of attention to it tonight as I came third in the prints, third in the digital images and third in the season long points competitions in both prints and images.

Must try harder, as it used to say on my reports from school.

Still, as a consolation, the judge said that the photograph which he and his wife had enjoyed most, even though it wasn’t the most technically refined of the entries, was this one.

Birthday fun

It is Mrs Tootlepedal’s favourite too.

Thanks to the sunshine, I was able to catch a fine flying chaffinch today.