… do the following four hotographs all have in common then?

Apart from the obvious fact that they were all taken from exactly the same viewpoint.

And I’m sorry about the choice of viewpoint, but if anyone really thinks that I was going to look for a more scenic viewpoint in all of the torential rain that we had for most of the day yesterday, then they are mistaken.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that about a week ago I told you that I had just made (yet another) major expense.

And I also said that the other day I’d had a visitor. The visitor was the man from FEDEX and he had brought me my parcel from Germany.

And I’m now the proud possessor of a new camera.

Cost me an arm and a leg too, but I’m sure that it will be worth it.

The Nikon, after many vicissitudes, has temporarily given up the ghost. It needs a new lens at least I reckon, and I have just the aforementioned – sitting back in Virlet. No good there, of course.

So being rather stranded for my holidays, I’ve splashed out.

Rhys (and a couple of other people too) are extolling the virtues of these new mirrorless digital SLR cameras – small, lightweight but very rugged, and there have been some good offers going around just recently.

And I’m now the proud possessor of a Nikon 1 J5.

It’s quite small, not the thing if you have big fingers or are wearing gloves, that’s for sure, and it’s comparatively heavy for its size, but it really is pocket-sized, which will be very handy.

And it’s with this camera that the first two photos were taken.

The lens with which it comes is a 10 – 30mm, so it’s a 0.6 to 1.6 zoom – the first photo taken at min and the second photo taken at max.

With all of the photos scaled down to 800×533 from their standard format of … gulp … 5568×3712, quality to 60% and size to 170kb from … gulp … 11,000kb, they aren’t bad at all

As for the following two photographs, the camera was not the only thing that I bought.

While I was at it, seeing all of the fun that I had had with a cheap telephoto lens, I lashed out and bought a zoom lens.

30-110 zoom it is, so with the focal length of a standard lens being 18.5mm, this is something like a 1.6 to 6-times zoom.

Not as powerful as the big one that I had, but these cameras are in their infancy and good second-hand stuff is hard to find right now.

The first shot was taken at maximum zoom, and the second one is at minimum.

It’s a little grainy and not as sharp as I would like at maximum zoom, but like I said, it will be a while yet before decent second-hand stuff comes on the market.

So when I was wondering where most of the day went, now I know.

I was up early – and reasonably brightly considering my late night last night – and I did manage to dodge the rainstorms down the pick up the baguette – but that was about the limit. No going out for butties on the wall, I’ll tell you that.

I cracked on with the blog for the morning and I’m advancing quite well, but knocking off for a coffee round about midday I started to play about with the camera.

Later this afternoon I was invited for tea round at Liz and Terry’s. Vegan home-made hot-pot followed by vegan glazed apple flan and soya cream. Terry is busy plastering the living room but has hurt his shoulder and finding the rubbing down of the joints very painful.

So in a moment of weakness (my spirit easily succumbs when it’s tucking into Liz’s baking) I shall be out working on Monday – and maybe for a couple of days afterwards too. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

But the drive out to Roncey was a nightmare. And living here might be bad for my health – I’ll tell you that.

Grockles wandering down the street pointing to the sky going “oooh look Doris, a seagull” and stepping off the kerb without looking – I bet that he had to go back to his hotel and change his trousers when Caliburn let fly at him with a volley on the motor horn.

And perishing grockles driving along at 10mph admiring the seagulls when I’m in a hurry. And bleeding grockles simply driving out of side streets totally oblivious of give-way signs and road markings – I bet that he had to go back to his hotel etc etc.

And blasted Belgian grockles who can’t figure out how the cash card reader at the petrol station at the Casino supermarket works (and I bet he had a surprise when I told him what I really thought of him – and in Flemish too!).

And the flaming road closed at Donville-les-Bains as they lay out the street for some kind of street festival tomorrow.

I didn’t go for a walk either – what with the rain this evening.

Ahhh well!