Lilac wine

Today has been a day of wind, rain, sunshine, and discoveries.
The first discovery was that the tree trunk poking up behind the acer tree outside my window is actually a lilac - yayee! Once it had been liberated last summer from the ivy which had been disguising it as just_another_lump_in_the_fence, I'd examined the trunk & scrutinised the leaves, and had concluded that it 'might' be a pear tree: this would have been Good News, as pears are one of the few fruits I can eat. But if it can't be a pear tree & has to be a decorative tree instead, then lilac would be my first choice - especially such a glorious shade of lilac as these blooms are; the only slight worry is that there seems to be an awful lot of trunk before the branches/leaves start, and it's been blowing about alarmingly in today's wind. It would be a great shame to lose it just as I've discovered it.

This brings me on to my next discovery, which is what that 'Tv' setting on my camera does. I've 'only' had my camera for six months, & had always intended to read the manual .... but, life's too short, right? Anyway, that Confucius knew what he was talking about when he said: "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." With any new technology I do always make myself read the 'quick start' guide, but how on earth you're meant to plough through - and digest - nearly 300 pages is beyond me; my eyes glaze over by about page 10, & in any case it's much more fun to just twiddle & fiddle & see what happens (which could explain the appalling quality of many of my shots). So it isn't until I encounter something I need to know that I actually bother consulting the manual - & then am usually hindered by the task of trying to come up with the correct terminology so that I can look it up in the index. Yesterday I wanted to know two things: (1) why had the flash stopped working? and (2) What was that little red light for, and why did it keep blinking at me?*
Anyway, somewhere around page 90, under Advanced Shooting, I stumbled across 'Action Shots', & the first instruction was to turn the dial to Tv; hmmm, I'd always assumed that Tv was something to do with movie shots, but it seems that it actually stands for 'time value'. Now, ever since I got the camera I've been periodically wondering how to set the shutter speed, & I did keep meaning to look it up in the manual, but then kept forgetting to do so; in the end I think I'd concluded that you couldn't actually set the shutter speed, & instead have been using the 'sports' setting to photograph moving objects. And all along, Canon have been assuming it would be blindingly obvious that a setting called 'Tv' was what you need to choose when you want to change the shutter speed Duh, who'd have thought it? Well, perhaps all other Canon owners did think it, & it was only me who had failed to grasp this fact. That would be about right.

Getting back to our windy weather, & the lilac tree that's in danger of blowing down; here is said lilac tree - which, at the time I pressed the shutter button, was rocking more than Bill Haley & his Comets; the fact that the yellow leaves on the acer in the foreground are more or less horizontal should give an indication of the strength of the wind, yet thanx to that little Tv setting I have managed to freeze the lilac blossom! Phew.

Beyond reading my camera manual I've done very little today, as I feel a bit like I could be fighting a bug; it's very unlikely that the bug will win though, cos my immune system is so permanently hyped up that I very rarely get ill like normal people - instead, the MS just presents me with a few bonus symptoms as a reminder that I need to rest more. Today's optional extras have been vertigo, painful legs, generalised weakness, & my old foe the 'MS hug'..... there's a chance that I'll wake up tomorrow back to normal (for me); equally, this could carry on for days/weeks (in which case there will be an awful lot of 'blips through my window'); whatever, I've learned that I just have to ride it out, & sooner or later it will pass. Makes it damned hard to plan ahead though!

Things we've learned about Jack
He would make a good guard dog (if we needed guarding). He normally sleeps right through the night, but last night woke us both up with the loudest barking we've ever heard from him; we did wonder if we were being burgled, but when hubby looked out the window he saw our neighbours over the road were seeing some visitors off, & those visitors had parked quite close to our boundary; presumably Jack had heard them getting into their car & thought they were breaking into ours?!

*the answer to (2) was that the red light is the 'access lamp', & it blinks when the memory card is either being read or written to; I have no idea why mine would start blinking as soon as I turned the camera on, & continue blinking until I switched it off again, but a quick format of the card & the annoying blink has stopped. I've forgotten what the answer to (1) was, but who cares? It's working now.

Talking of annoying technological symptoms, hubby has failed to cure the buzzing on his guitar, & judging by the flood of new & alien-sounding items which have appeared in my ebay watch list, it looks like the cure is going to involve me doing some bidding on his behalf.