Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to everyone who reads this blog. I'm not used to my new camera yet but hope to do so over the holidays. The first photos were taken by my daughter in Edinburgh and the indoor ones I took with my ipad.

Well done Karen for getting it all in.

Very elegant

I love the red colour in this.

my advent calendar full of chocolate, at least it was.

Christmas tree,dressed with the help of a two year old.

Tis the season to be jolly!

Splish ,Splash,Splosh

What can one do on a boring wet day with a two year old? Yes! put on the wellies and jump in puddles.

When you splash in puddles you need a stick.

Yeah! I caught some water action!

There's something interesting in that mud.

If I could just get a bit closer.

Then he sat in it. Drip,drip

He splashed most of the water away,only mud left.

I think he had a good time.

Everything had to be washed.

Really Looking

Since I have started taking photographs I am looking more at the world around me. I walked round the garden and as I have said before on my writing blog, I am no gardener so anything that is growing is there of it's own accord and when I really looked I was amazed at what I found.

These toadstools are so delicate that when I tried to clear some blades of grass away they were breaking up.

These were slightly different with tiny white spots

This is attached to the stump of a tree it might be another kind of toadstool or funghi but it is solid and you couldn't break it off.

It grows on the other side of this stump next to the fence so I can't photograph it from that side.

My friend's two year old says the knarl in this tree is like a dinosaur's eye. (he loves dinosaurs)

I tried to take a photo of this squashed moon but the camera wasn't good enough to really capture it. It's like a UFO.

I wish this had turned out better because the colours in the sky were amazing.

I wouldn't have paid much attention what was growing in my garden if I hadn't had my camera and I know these photos are not great but my new camera is coming this week so I wanted to post these first then next week I will post some with my new camera and I'm hoping for a vast improvement,fingers and toes crossed.

My Elusive Visitor

I love watching wildlife but living in an urban area we don't see much in our doorstep. There are some foxes who come out at night and dart across the garden. I feed the birds but the most exotic would probably be,robins and blue tits and the bully boys,the magpies.
Recently I have been so pleased to welcome a new visitor, one which many people will be used to seeing everyday but to me it is a treat, a little grey squirrel.
He can move really fast and as the shutter speed on my camera is not that good he is making me work for my shots.
This was my first one.

On the wall of next door's house.He sat like that for ages.

In a tree in the garden

A little closer. Look how bright his eyes are.

Next I decided to put some food on the garden table and photograph him through the window.

Quite a few shots were of him scurrying away

He's so cute

I love this photo with his reflecion on the glass table

In his reflecion he looks like a huge cat.

Nibbling on a nut.

As I was writing this he came back so I couldn't resist another photo

He's like a stuffed toy here.

Grey squirrels don't get good press but they are very cute and I'm enjoying watching him.

He nibbles a few nuts then buries some in the garden, maybe next year I'll have nut trees sprouting up. Hopefully when I get my new camera my photos will be a lot clearer but these were taken through a window.

Welcome To The Ball

Hi Everyone, Whether you've came here from twitter or my writing blog,Is Anyone There? welcome. I decided to have a photo blog as I found I was posting more and more photos on my writing one.
 It was very hard to come up with a title for this as everything I thought of had already been taken by other bloggers or websites.
My daughter suggested Shutterbug so I googled it's meaning.

Shutterbug: An avid hobbyist in the field of amateur photography. It is also an insulting term for a professional photographer.
As I'm not a professional I'm not insulted and the term describes me very well and as  I'm having a ball with my camera, then that will be my blog title. Thank you Karen for your input.

Welcome to the ball, there will be wine and cake to celebrate my first post, help yourself,but please wash your glass before you leave.

My first photos are of The Little Loch where we walk our German Shepherd dog Sam. It's 15 mins in the car from our home. He's not too keen on dogs he hasn't been formally introduced to and on a Saturday and Sunday morning this place is very quiet except for two sheepdogs in a field that he enjoys barking at.
We used to come here when the children were young with the dog we had then but the loch is now out of bounds as it's used for fishing although we have never seen anyone fish. I hate it when the countryside has barbed wire fences it really spoils the view.

A Scottish autumn Sunday morning

I love the swirley patterns in the sky

I changed the light in this photo to make it look like dusk.

Little Loch through the trees.

Just discovered my camera takes black and white photos.

He usually runs when he sees the camera.

Trying to get Sam's attention to take his photo.

so peaceful.