Westonbirt Again

We were booked to go to Westonbirt tomorrow with our friends M&S (nothing to do with the shop!) but in view of the weather forecast decided to bring it forward to today. A great decision as it has been a lovely day, a bit on the chilly side, but sunny.

As we did last year we booked a guided walk around the old arboretum. We got the same guide, so very much the same stories as then but I'd forgotten it all anyway so it was still very enjoyable. The way the arrival slots and walk times worked out we had enough time for a very tasty (and very large) bacon and egg butty before we set off on the 90 minutes expedition.

Last November we had missed the best colours, this year they hadn't really arrived yet.

In the extras, one of our guides, a badger paw print near a new sett, another view of Westonbirt School, a spindle tree and a magpie fungus (brand new this morning and expected to turn into mush very quickly).

After those enormous butties we only had room for cake at lunchtime.

Camera club 'Everyone's A Judge' last night went very well. There was some excitement as my co-presenter C came out! What I mean is he explained that some time ago he went on a judging seminar and selection day, and passed! So we have a partly qualified judge in our club. He hasn't gone on to the next stage of judging, under supervision at first, to become fully qualified, but he gave an excellent review of one of the sets of images we showed. I think he could easily become a full judge if he wanted.

In other news I booked our Christmas Sainsbury's delivery. Only 69 days to go now.

One year ago:
Mop Fair Again
I won a trophy in our annual competitions with a slightly modified version of this, without the blown out lights that judges don't like.