Maria in her shawl

Yesterday, we drove down to Bristol airport to pick up Helena's niece, Maria, who is visiting us for less than twenty-four hours between flights. She had flown in from Heraklion, in Crete, where she lives with her parents, Nicky and Ben, who is the elder of Helena's two brothers. She comes to visit most years so she can see her many cousins and Granny in Argyll, where she will arrive this afternoon after we have taken her to her flight to Glasgow in a couple of hours time.

As Helena mentioned yesterday, Maria was rather offended by the grilling she received on her arrival at passport control. She had followed all the immigration control rules, having checked she had the correct identification documents, but the euphemistically named Border Control Agency (notorious for their recent lack of success) had other ideas. Hopefully all will be better today since she is on an internal flight.

After breakfast, whilst I was having a strong coffee, we chatted and I asked if she minded my taking a photo of her. I only had time for three quick pictures and regret that I didn't ask her for a little more time to get my focus and exposure correct. I really like the purple colour of her shawl, which she did need to keep her warm, as it was distinctly chilly today compared to the heat in Crete.

I then showed her my camera which was much larger and more elaborate than her pocket Olympus that Ben has given to her. But Maria seemed very keen to know more and perhaps she may be a blipper yet. That would be great as we could then have another member of Helena's globally widespread family recording and sharing their views. I heard that Connor, one of her Scottish based cousins, who is studying photography at college, has been taking photos at a music festival by Loch Lomond this week, and getting them published. Lets get him blipping too.