Gerbera

I have had a very boring day and have not left the house. Gavin took Xena for a run this morning so she did not need a her morning walk. I was meant to be going to London to attend a Skinners Company lunch, it is an annual event and I was very much looking forward to it -  but it was cancelled earlier this week due to the train strikes as no one can get into London. I am getting pretty fed up with the train strikes - I was initially sympathetic to their issues, now very much less so as the strikes go on and on, and people cannot get to work and many lives are impacted. The boys were all meeting at Adam's home in Cambridge for dinner tonight and that too has been cancelled as Luke cannot get there from London due to the strikes. 

I then decided to pop in to RHS Wisley to see the flowers but it was cold and started raining so that idea was soon shelved. I did spend time watching Youtube videos on my camera function buttons, it is quite complicated and there is so much choice that it does take time to learn how to use it properly and how to set up the shooting banks.

The good news is that Gavin found his missing Naturalisation certificate so he does not have to apply for a new one at a cost of £250. It was amongst his papers for his mother's estate. That by the way, is an example of how inefficient things are in South Africa. His mother died during Covid in June 2020 and here we are three years later and absolutely no progress has been made on the winding up of her estate. The executors are a large national bank, as is common practice there,  and apparently the person assigned to this task keeps moving departments and the job is forgotten about. The truth is these kind of things don't get done unless you are there greasing someone's palm or paying for a facilitator to get the documents through the relevant home affairs departments. Its been very frustrating for Gavin and his brother trying to deal with this from abroad.

I had a long phone call with my sister in SA, they were about to have load shedding again for a few hours (power cuts) so we spoke until the power went and she no longer had wifi to be able to use Whatsapp audio. Whenever I think Britain is broken I just have to think about SA. We are getting excited for her visit next month.

I wandered around the garden before the rain came, this is a gerbera that has been focus stacked but only using a few images.

Cold and raining today, but 20C and sunshine forecast for tomorrow, yay, bring it on!