Travels with my camera

...... it's too hot! Friends, take a note of this in your diaries, Jan thought it was too hot. Unbelievably for me, I am unable to sit outside, except in the shade. The weather forecasters have said even hotter for tomorrow and Wednesday. Wowie. The thermometer on my back wall by the door hit 40c this morning, that's the highest it's ever been in the three summers that it has been there. That is in full sun of course, it was 25c once the sun moved off it.

On a serious note, I am really beginning to wonder what is wrong with me. I was really horrified at something that I did, well at least, didn't do this morning. My normal routine for the morning is sometime between 7.00 and 8 am I go outside and put the dove's food dish and breadcrumbs in the aviary, open the door for the budgies and cockatiels, put a couple of jugs of mixed corn and wild bird seed onto the bird tables, fill up the sunflower hearts, let the chickens out, open up the greenhouse, come back indoors, make coffee, go on my laptop and do all my quizzes, browse the forums and blogs, get dressed, and then about 11 - ish I go back up to my aviary and do the seed pots for the budgies, cockatiels, give them their millet (they are spoilt and get three sprays every day) give them their goodies (fruit or veg) do the water. So this morning, I thought, I wonder where the chickens are, couldn't see them under the bush where they have been of late because of the heat. Then I looked at their little house, and I hadn't let them out! It was 11 am, and the poor little sods were still shut in. I felt terrible, I opened their pophole and they went straight to the water and drank and drank. It must have been close on a 35c in their house. Much longer and I would have killed them I think. What the hell is up with me? I've never, ever done that before in 12 years of keeping chickens. I have forgotten to shut them in about 3 times though, which is almost as scarey, just lucky that nothing has been prowling in the garden during the night. OMG, don't say I'm going senile already. I mean it, seriously, was on the verge of tears that I could have done something so stupid.

I've just been down to the river at Henllan with Emma as I knew it would be cooler there under the trees and of course in the water! I had a good old paddle myself, the water is the lowest I've ever seen it, and I was able to wade across the width of it not even up to my knees, I guess the level is down by about 5 feet on normal for this time of year, and about 10 feet in winter. Emma actually had two proper swims where she went out of her depth, amidst much snorting and panicking (and that was just me!) no not really, she is funny once her little legs won't touch the river bed any more, she looks petrified, but once she gets out, there's this little nonchalant shake, as if it was no problem!

Was aggrieved last night as I found that my camera connector to the laptop appears to be buggered, it is not recognising my device when I plug it in to the usb socket or if when I tried it on my printer. Not sure if it's the lead, or the actual socket on the side of the camera, but thanks everyone who gave me the suggestion of a card reader - I had no idea such a device existed lol, so I learned something last night. I bought one from eBay for 99p! Postage £2.99, so can't be bad, for £3.98, and it's winging its way to me as I type this. In the meantime however, I remembered that my card originally came out of my old camera, which still works connected to the pc as a webcam or for downloading pics, so I can still use that temporarily. It's a shame about that camera, it was my first digital one by Jenoptik, took great pictures, but it won't work on battery, it just says Low Battery and switches off, very annoying when there's nothing wrong with the batteries. It was the second one I had too, the first one was exactly the same, and this was a replacement, which managed to last about one month out of the guarantee before that went the same way. The other good news is maybe all is not lost with my Praktica, as I still have all the original packing, receipts etc, and it's only 10 months old, and it actually says 2 year guarantee, I got it from Argos, but they don't do that one anymore, but I will take it in and see what they say. They are normally very good I have found with returns. I once took back a dvd player which was 11 months old which packed up, and they didn't even bother to take it out of the box, just gave me a new one. I could have filled the box with bricks!

I took two pictures of the sunset here last night, which was how I discovered my camera was kaputt. The cloud formations were very interesting, I love looking at clouds and the redness as the sun goes down. The cloud looked like a smoke funnel, which I found very strange. I guess someone who studies such things would be able to offer a logical explanation?

I had a surprise visitor in the kitchen too this morning. I was just about to make a phone call, and Emma started barking the place down from the region of the kitchen. Told her to shuttit, but she kept on so I went to look, and a dragonfly was in there! It was huge. I quickly shut all the doors and windows, didn't want to miss a photographic opportunity! How wicked. Well I got quite a lot, unfortunately for him or her, it collected a few cobwebs from my ceiling, (oops) but I managed to get them off before I released it. On Saturday, I'd had another visitor in the kitchen, which I didn't get to see, but found bird poos on the windowsill - inside! I think it may have been a baby robin, there's been two around the back garden area this last week.

Well there endeth my excitement for today. Now watching Deal or No Deal (yawn) gone right off it, but as it's so hot out, the living room is the coolest place and it's 24c in here! Not complaining though, lovin' it.