"I've got a pocketful of bees".....

Having spent sometime now suffering the indignity not to say inconvenience of the dreaded 'man-flu' that culminated in being woken one night by the sound of my own voice calling out "I've got a pocketful of bees"  (yes, I was asleep but had dreamt I had a pocket full of live bees!),I was so pleased when today at last I felt the urge to pick up the camera again.

My enforced sabbatical, probably not the best choice of descriptive word actually, as I believe a true sabbatical lasted in excess of 2 months and even I couldn't claim my suffering was of those dimensions but it did keep me away from the real world for a while and long enough for Lennon's terrific 'Watching The Wheels' to keep running around my head-alongside that is, the little guy with the lump-hammer trying to blast his was out of my skull.

Yesterday when I rose from yet another fitful night's sleep (you don't think I'm laying this flu thing on a little too thick do you?........ Oh good)- my other half said to me " You're still coughing quite badly" "I know" I said, "I've been practising all night too".

I'm rambling already-perhaps I'm still delirious? Nurse! Nurse!....

Ah! I remember now, photography.....

What I was thinking of impressing on you was that in terms of insects and bugs to photograph, I didn't really miss out. The weather has been so poor of late in this part of the world that subjects would have been next to impossible to find anyway.
And so, (finally, he's arrived at the point of the blog entry?),to ease myself back in with nothing more stressful than a stationary target, I decided on taking a few photos of the ice that had formed in our back garden.

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO VIEW LARGER & ON BLACK

(These do seem to show more detail against the black background)

These shots were all taken of the ice that formed on our bird-bath. I used a diffused flash as the light is still quite poor at this time of year. It's amazing just what patterns and formations there are. I could look at these for ages and pick out different things each time.

The ice pictured above is just something that formed on the very edge of a plant pot.

This last image is a closer view of an ice block

After an hour or so in the garden taking these photographs, I began to realise that it wasn't quite as mild as I had assumed from my chair in our cosy living room and probably the best course of action would be to 'leg-it' back to that very same chair!

By then my camera hand was f-f-f-f-freezin' cold,so much so that I made myself a hot coffee and then spilled it in my lap- but actually enjoyed the sensation. Yes, it has been a cold February in Kent, so much so that when our electricity bill arrived this morning it had a letter of condolence attached to it.

Freezing temperatures, a dose of the flu (did I mention that already?),a dearth of inverts to photograph, that has to be winter's last efforts to depress me right? From now on things are set to change-I can feel it in my water, although, thinking about it further, it may not be change I can feel in my water? It could be 'Lem-sip'?

No, that's winter's last hoorah! I'm sure of it.

Until the next time then...

Postscript: The news of my work in print that I spoke of a couple of entries ago has now become a reality and I shall be contributing an article with photos to a local free paper 4 weekly from now on.
I'll try and post a copy of each one as it appears on the 'Published Articles' page of this blog. I have already added the one for Feb.