Vanity

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Toggers! Here’s an excuse to blow your own trumpet (if you’ll pardon the expression).

I was uploading some lousy sunset shots onto Flickr when I spotted the Your Best Shot 2015 group being advertised. As you might already have guessed, this is a group into which members are encouraged to upload the ONE shot that they consider the best that they took and uploaded to Flickr in 2015. And as you might also already have guessed, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, there are a range of shots from the extraordinary to the… well… rather ordinary.

Butterflies, beaches, birds and black and white feature prominently, but being such a diverse collection, it’s difficult to pick a favourite.  There are already around 20,000 images submitted (presumably) by around 20,000 individuals, and having gone through the first few pages, nothing has jumped out at me screaming “Ignore any potential copyright restrictions and put me on your blog!” yet.

So here’s one of a lighthouse.

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It’s from here.

The group is worth a look (click through on the link above) if you have some time. And it’s also got me thinking about which shot I would choose, if I were so asked. If I can be bothered (and I manage to stay awake long enough), I might have a go. (I might not.)
If YOU were choosing your best effort, what would it be?

Current Affairs

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It’s actually quite hard to blog when you’re not watching the news, reading the twitter or doing anything except planning your next week off work. Thus, I don’t have any incisive insight into the current state of affairs in SA or the world in general, because I actually don’t know what that state of affairs is right now. Look, based on previous experience of these sort of things, it’s probably not great. But if you were here for that sort of cutting edge opinion, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. (Spoiler: you were going to be sorely disappointed anyway.)

Instead, I bring you a photo of a butterfly (I’m no expert, but I think that this one is an Acraea horta), taken this morning while walking the beagle (us, not the butterfly) in Newlands Forest.

It was a nice walk in the shade of the trees, and we all had fun. The beagle was less impressed when it got bathed when we got home, but cheered up a bit when it got fed. It’s worth remembering that a beagle’s favourite food is anything.

The rest of the afternoon will be spent preparing for a trip down to Agulhas for New Year, during which time you can probably expect shorter, photo-filled posts on here, increased Instagram activity and the already bulging Summer 2015 album on Flickr to swell even further. I’m determined to relax, drink beer, walk on the beach and listen to some music – sometimes all at the same time – while I’m down south.

Come live vicariously through 6000 miles…

P.S. The game last night finished 4-0. I was finished long before then though.

From St Mary’s

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Six hours of Boxing Day braai’ing at a friend’s house this afternoon has led to evening laziness and back-to-back football matches from opposite ends of the UK (Newcastle 0-1 Everton and Southampton *-* Arsenal (we’re still watching) for my future self reading this).
I shall therefore write more tomorrow.