Bedford — River Gt. Ouse - walk with Camera

        Combining a trip to the Supermarket for food, and an afternoon along the river seemed like an excellent way to mix essential travel with exercise and time spent with a camera covering some of Bedford’s wildlife.
        Although I had experienced a few drops of rain on the outward journey, and there were still some dark clouds, the weather held for the entire time I was out, and very few people were in the park — notably, young mothers with pre-school children and retired people singly and in pairs, taking exercise, sometimes with their dogs. Once again, I had only my monopod to support my camera, which gave me freedom in terms of weight without limiting my ability to have a stable platform. Only occasionally was the light low enough to limit my exposure. I did learn that on occasion I had failed to take this into account, so will take greater care in future to keep a check on exposure settings.
         I did observe both butterflies and dragonflies, but none settled long enough for me to take any photos despite several vain attempts, the sunshine presumably kept their energy fully replenished, as I barely had time to frame them before they flit elsewhere, but I made the attempt on several occasions, and overall their numbers were low. Whilst on the subject of observations, once again, I spotted discarded face masks, so I feel perhaps, I will arm myself with a thin rubber glove and a small polythene bag, but this thoughtless behaviour is so selfish, since these open spaces make no charges, and will be lost to us all if this continues.
         I gather we are due more sunshine, so I hope to be able to travel further afield for my exercise and mental therapy. 

DigiCluster Summer Gathering— Clock House

  I drove to Product Designer Peter Carr’s home in Harpenden to collect him and drive on down to around Hunton Bridge the home of Clock where the DigiCluster Summer Party was being held in the gardens of an erstwhile Schoolhouse.

  Above were somewhat thunderous looking clouds, and on the journey down there had been a few drops of the wet stuff, enough for me to give the wipers the occasional flick. However, we do not appear to have troubled the gods, for the entire evening, despite the few drops on arrival, the sombre clouds passed us by, leaving us a warm and welcoming evening. We were not the earliest arrivals, but we had arrived in good time, and whilst I sorted out my camera, Peter was already in conversation with other guests.

  Although I can never be sure of the full content of many of the conversations, certainly many definitely displayed interesting interactions and much good humour, and I did manage to capture some of these, even if I was not party to the content, but I hope some of the participants may well relive the repartee where I have strung together the elements of the flow and expressions I witnessed. One really animated interchange of conversation I even considered separating from the whole, but decided to simply edit it further but leave it within the gallery. Also, to avoid unnecessary delay in getting it up to the blog, I made no alterations to the flow, and so the chronology is true time-wise, and hence runs out of content on the final page. Once again I was using the Canon EOS R, and relied entirely on the available light, which served me well.

  Thank you to all who prepared and supplied the delicious food and drink; when Peter and I left there was enough left unconsumed to hold a further banquet, I do hope that not too much was wasted. I hope that the images in the gallery help to remind everyone present and reprise some of the joy and interest in the event.