Travels with my camera

Woke up to grey skies and wet garden this morning, and thought, oh no, that's the end of the summer then, in my normal pessimistic way. However, it did clear about 11-ish and we had nice blue skies and hot sunshine again, but a very strong southerly wind, which near blew me away up near the aviary. I dread to think what it's going to be like up there now that the farmer has stripped all those bushes and trees away for protection, come winter. The wind whips across that field. Still will worry about that when the time comes, hopefully we have lots more months of nice sunny weather to come.
I had to go food shopping today, I have eaten so much salad these past few days that I'd run out of everything. I also called in at Matalans to see if I could get one of those elasticated stretchy belts. I am having a problem with some of my jeans at the moment in that I've put on weight round my bum and hips but apparently not round my waist, and the waists are a bit baggy, I hate that feeling that they are about to fall down! Normal leather belts and me just don't get on, I can't be arsed with the buckles for a start, they always stick in when you sit down, and keep having to undo them when you go to the loo! Anyway success, having traipsed round all the ladies and gents clothes with no success, I thought kids wear belts - and I got just what I wanted aged 11-13 years, lol. Buy one get one free, well I really only wanted one and would've preferred that option for £2.50 instead of a fiver, but still.

I also looked at the sunglasses. Now Sandi was amazed that I don't wear any when its so bright, but I just can't see through them properly. I have to wear glasses for driving, and watching tv, and putting on dark glasses just makes me feel like I've gone blind. I have tried clip-ons before but they were just as bad. However, I've only ever bought cheapo £2.99 things. I saw some Foster Grant clip ons which looked exactly the same size as my driving specs, £9, quite a lot of money, but thought to hell with it, go for it. Wow, I drove around for the rest of the day with this bloody great grin on my face! People must've thought I was a bit loopy, but I couldn't believe what a difference they made. I hadn't realised how much I must have been wincing before! The colours of the sky and the trees were amazingly clear. When I first fixed them to my specs I thought oh no, I won't like these, I could see two black things where the clips were, but within a few minutes I didn't even notice this anymore. Chuffed to bits. Little things please little minds......

We then went down to Ferryside, had to wait for a train to go over the crossing before I could get to the bit where I park. Not a good omen, as Emma is terrified of trains, but I sat her on my lap to watch it pass, and she was fine. It's only when we are actually out walking that she panics. I always keep her on the long extending lead normally now, but being a Sunday, once that had gone, I think they are only once an hour, so was safe to let her have a run. Turned right and walked through the woody bit, and out onto the estuary where I spotted a large pool of water - the tide was well out and I didn't want her going down to the river bit itself, as the sand is usually squidgy. So she had her paddle. They we walked back and had a quick look round the pound shop and then went next door and I bought an ice cream as a treat. I am being so good, I can't believe it, I resisted the urge to buy chips as usual from there. A nice man held her whilst I went in to buy it, as they had a lovely golden retriever. Sat down at the table with them and ate my ice cream and had a good old chat about dogs (well the lady did, I couldn't get a word in edgeways!) The only people I ever have conversations with really are people with dogs or who like dogs. Actually, it was quite spooky, as when I asked if he would hold Emma, his wife said Oh is that Amy? It quite freaked me out actually, as I used to have a Cavalier called Amy before Emma. But what had happened was she had seen my sticker on the back of my car window which says "I love Amy" which is my Dog's Trust Sponsor dog, and just happens to be next to the picture of a Cavalier I have on my window too! (Amy is a crossbreed from the Merseyside Rescue Centre) I have been sponsoring a dog for about 4 years now, I used to have one called Kim, but they wrote and said she had been found a home. I sometimes wonder though, because the dogs they put up for sponsorship are supposed to be those that can never be re-homed for various reasons. I wonder if she died, and they don't want to upset people. Anyhow, they then sent me a card from Amy asking if I would sponsor her instead, so how can you say no, and choose another one? I would feel awful. So now I have had two Amy's in my life, and an Emma! Very confusing, lol

Am still up, late for me tonight, as I wanted to watch a bit of the British Grand Prix from Silverstone. I always like to watch that one, and came home fully expecting to catch some of it on tv this afternoon, only to find it was at 11 am today instead of the normal 2pm because of the football!

Snuffles has only just come too, late tonight, but it's pouring with rain out there, so I guess he was reluctant to come out and get wet.

Will try and post some pictures now, don't hold out a lot of hope. I definitely think it was Firefox which buggered my CPU though, since I uninstalled it, I have been running all sorts of stuff at the same time, and haven't had that freeze up again, even downloaded two tracks from Limewire tonight, as well as running the cam, and browsing. Weird, I wish I knew what it was about Firefox, because I didn't even have the browser open, but something on it stuffs up my laptop bigtime.

Edit - Nope, still won't work with this browser, I shall have to try IE6 :(
Edit again - That doesn't work, and neither does Opera. This sodding blog is a joke. I have just been looking on the help pages, and there are hundreds of very pissed off people with the same problems. It seems the only way to load pictures is to use Firefox.

Edit, now Monday morning. I have given in and downloaded Firefox again. This time I have put it on the D: drive of my pc as that has more space, hoping that this may stop it overloading.
We shall see. The first time I get a freeze up though, its gone, and I shall start using Yahoo for my blog like Pauline does.

I immediately can download the four pictures below at the same time, could never do more than one with IE before even when it was working properly.

Emma does make me laugh. I say look at the camera and she immediately sat down and posed, lol.










Looking across the estuary toward Llansteffan castle in the distance












Lovely view across when the skies are so blue














A happy Emma believe it or not from her face!