No bloody camera...

I was down in Wales again at the weekend but this time without my camera!

'So where did these images come from?' I hear you ask. Truth is, I stole them from the WWW as a reminder of what was and what might have been if only.

Yes, I left my camera on the kitchen work surface and it wasn’t until I arrived in Wales and began to unpack the car that I realised. The realisation that I was camera free left me awash with emotion. I felt a quick moment of photographic nakedness, some not quite passing annoyance with myself, followed by a deep spasm of self realised stupidity.

Stupid, stupid me. I had no camera. What was I going to do?

So I gave it some thought and decided that it was going to be a wet weekend anyway (or so the radio announcer on Radio 4 had said) so there wouldn’t have been much in the way of photography to be had. Good rainy day pictures are few and far between, so no worries. I wasn't going to need a camera, not in the dismal greyness of all that wet, Welsh rain.

Just how wrong can you be? I'd forgotten that Radio 4 announcements only apply to the south of England.

The weather was great - warm and sunny, despite the rain that was forecast for the rest of the country. Still, a bit of good weather doesn’t mean that there are going to be any great photographs to be had does it?

So there I was early Friday morning, outside the cottage and drinking a cup of coffee when the field mouse arrived on the raised bed by the gates. He nibbled around the seed dropped by the birds from the feeder, then leapt up onto a big rock, stood on his hind legs, and kind of did a little stretch in the sunshine.

‘Just look at that.’ I thought. ‘He’s dancing. Now where’s my camera?’

Doh!

Later, as I watched the setting sun, glass of wine in hand, I was relieved that it was just an average sunset. No flares of luminescent requiring my photographic skills, no fluffy pink cloud sky causing me to snap off a picture or two.

And then a single paraglider appeared high above, silhouetted against the deepening orange of the setting sun – so I immediately reached for my camera.

Doh!

I went to bed a disgruntled, slightly worse for wear, camera-less, mess and only too aware of the opportunities I’d missed. Still, tomorrow was another day and with luck it’d be grey and rainy and I wouldn’t miss any more shots like the dancing mouse and the lonely sunset paraglider.

I awoke to brilliant sunshine and the suggestion that we go to Anglesey for the day. So that is what we did - some shopping, an impromptu picnic by the sea, and a wander along the rugged cliffs. I should of know better being camera-less and all.

The shopping bit was fine, no camera required - but some hours later as we drove home I tried not to think about how the Stenna Line catamaran had decided to arrive and do a really tight 360 degree turn just a few hundred yards from where we were sat eating our picnic.

I also chose to ignore the memory of the magnificence of the huge, now defunct, Anglesey Aluminium chimney pointing straight up into the bluest of skies as a flock of sheep grazed lazily in the verdant green and flowered meadow of the foreground.

I put the group six or seven comma butterflies playing in the bright yellow gorse bushes of the Penrhos Coastal Path, chasing each other in circles then landing in an almost choreographed grouping completely to the back of my mind. After all, who needs a photograph of performing butterflies?

And not once did I think about the brooding stone watchtower etched against the brilliant sky on the hill at the entrance to the coastal walk, or the old boathouse we stumbled across on the magnificent rocky beach - all stone arch and rusted iron railings.

Lastly I did not remember that standing stone in the field. The one with the single crow perched, solid black against a brilliant azure, on its very top - or was it a chough? I couldn’t really tell without my zoom.

And so it went on.

Last night as we walked back from Pooh Stick Bridge on yet another warm, fine evening, third in a row despite the forecast of rain I chose to ignore the Speckled Wood butterfly that landed on a leaf not a foot from where I was standing. I didn’t even see the wild butter-and-eggs, snap dragon, toad flax that’s flowering on the walls along the lane and will probably be over in a few days. I even decided that I wouldn’t look above my head despite the buzz of the engine strapped around that bloody paraglider’s shoulders – yes he was up and out there again.

No camera. Never again, there’s simply too much to miss.