Lazy Day

My good friends, Ann and Ken, were planning to come to the island for a visit starting today, but phoned this morning to say they had developed bad colds and thought it wisest to postpone the visit. So....I had a clean house, a well-stocked fridge, laundry all done, and nothing written into the next four calendar days.

It was a beautifully sunny morning, so I did give some thought to taking off in the van to explore a couple of places I haven't been yet, but between the price of gas and Charley's health, I decided just to hang around home. Sort of.

I took each of the dogs for a short morning walk. And a short afternoon walk. And a short evening walk. And, as has been our custom lately, we may even go for a short late night walk. (There is something incredibly relaxing about walking around our small village after the sidewalks have been rolled up and the villagers are all fast asleep. Not a single car, not a sound to be heard except the barking of the sea lions out on the reef. Love it!)

In the back lane a block over, we kept encountering this cat, sentry of the back lane, watching us watching him. And just like the Guards at Buckingham Palace, he never moved a muscle or blinked an eye as we walked past.

Back lane sentry duty

Fruit is still plentiful in the backlanes of Crofton,with apples and plums, grapes and blackberries cascading over fences. One surprise was this cherry tree still loaded with fruit at the end of September!

And I was taken by surprise to see this very colourful shed peering over the brick wall - I swear it was brown last time I passed by. The owners of the house are summerfolks, only using the house for their summer vacations and the occasional long weekend, and I know they left just before Labour Day. When did they paint the shed? Surely I could not have missed anything THIS bright?

In between walks, I didn't do much of anything though somehow I seemed to be busy all day. I did play with the camera at dusk, trying to get interesting pictures on the macro setting with the flash and some background-softening settings.

Everbearing Strawberry continues to bloom

I took about a dozen photos of  one beautiful blossom. I found shadows were a bit problematic as the flash sometimes didn't light up the whole blossom:

I had better luck when I photographed the last blossom from below, but then didn't capture the full shape and beautiful colours of the centre:

When I widened the angle, to include other flowers, I had a bit more luck:

But my favourite photo of the day was this one:

La Belle Rose

It is Belle's rose. And I thought the bugs and mold this year had killed it. You can see the dead stems and leaves in the background. Yet sometime in the last couple of days, one solitary, perfect flower was born. Hi Belle, how're ya doing? Thanks for letting me know you're only a rosebud away!