Orchid

I've been practising getting in-close today. Not as easy as I thought. I suspect that I really need to detach a flower from a stem to get the best effect and I'm reluctant to do so. I've was aiming to get as much of the single flower in focus as I could, not an easy task close-up and I'm not sure that I want to resort to focus stacking. Maybe I'll revert to my usual tiny bit of sharpness + soft focus.

I bought two orchid plants for the price of one in M & S (I know the deal is likely to be a bit of a con!) but the flowers are very lovely and these were to replace the one we had in the bathroom that lasted for about six years.

Insurance! We had a bit of a blow yesterday when we discovered how difficult it was to get insurance cover for making alterations to next door and then knocking the two houses into one. We could get buildings insurance (at a price), but the broker couldn't find anyone who would then insure our contents! Has the world gone mad - we're not moving out, surely the risk for contents is pretty much the same as now. As a result we've opted for a holding strategy and our original house will still be insured by our current provider. This will give us a bit of time to investigate further and find out what people normally do in these circumstances. We'll need to resolve this difficulty before we can go ahead and knock the two into one. Meanwhile the policy we obtained for next door will allow us to go ahead and do internal work while it is unoccupied.