Fooling around with photos.

It seems I am on a new learning curve with this camera of my granddaughter's. It has macro, which is a feature my waste of money expensive camera has NOT got! I only discovered this yesterday after taking these new pics of flowers.
This first one is a grevillea, the one that the Shrikes so love.
I was also happy to discover a programme on the net called Picnik,
which can eat hours of my day, just playing about!

Here is a photo of Leo being a very good boy in the lounge in his little corner. We feel he is making good progress, & is already quite transformed from the horror he was a week ago.

The acid test will be when more visitors come to the door I guess. We had a visit from known friends yesterday, & they noted what a difference there was in his behaviour, & even Honey is benefitting from this new regime. So all is good on the dog front.
A note here, DogTech has a website if anyone is interested in checking them out. Just click on the name.


On other fronts, the weather is most peculiar, almost wintery in appearance. Windy, raining, & a lot cooler. Yesterday was so humid it was horrible to even move, but today is much nicer, though not cold at all.

This is another Bromeliad bract. I always wanted to own one of these when I lived in New Zealand. They were very expensive to buy, & I always felt if I did get one, it would surely die. Now I have them growing wild, in the garden. I love the exotic look of them, & I love the little blue/purple flowers.

This is another Bromeliad, showing the small bluey flowers peeping out of the water. They always remind me of little birds beaks, waiting to be fed. The ants seem to rather like zipping about on these.

This is actually perfect sewing weather! So what excuse can I think of today for my procrastination??

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On a drive past an Op Shop, on Sunday, I noticed heaps of 'donations' piled up outside the door to the closed establishment. The public have been repeatedly asked not to leave goods when the shop is closed. It attracts thieves, & the goods end up scattered about the place, often to get wet & ruined.

It is nice to think that people have good intentions, but often I think they are too lazy to find a proper dumping ground for their tat & trash, & so they kid themselves that they are 'donating', when they are just getting rid of their garbage.

Of course, not all of it is garbage, & the charities could surely make a little money to help their good causes.

There have been some interesting items on TV showing the dumpers, & the scavengers, rooting through the piles that others have left, & blatantly stealing anything they deem fit to take. It does seem a pity that charities have to resort to having cameras outside their shops in the hope of catching the thieves. Quite often these 'mongrels' are well dressed, & drive expensive vehicles, & certainly would appear not to be in need of theft as a way of gaining material goods.

As an op shop browser, I have noticed some of the charities have become rather 'expensive'. It makes me rather angry to see what I regard as rather steep prices on things that have been given in the best of intentions, to 'help the poor'.

Is greed creeping into the Charity business?

Joan Baez, Please Come to Boston.