A nice day today. I had spotted on posts on Facebook that the wild flower meadow in front of Hampton Court Palace is in full bloom at the moment and so I suggested that we take a walk over to see them. Colin contacted out friend John and he drove over from Richmond to meet in the Pheasantry cafe for a coffee first. The weather was lovely, warm and sunny and it finally feels like summer is here.
The meadow was stunning, full of red, orange and even some white poppies and masses of my favourite cornflower in traditional blue but also pink, dark purple and white. There were little paths cut through the flowers and everyone was just walking through and enjoying them. John and I had our big cameras and I think I may even have got a new shot of Hampton Court Place which could be a possible new greeting card design.
We walked around and then back through Bushy to the cars and John came back to have lunch with us - sandwiches and fresh cherries outside on the patio under the sun umbrella - lovely. We also got to finally give him the chocolate that we had bought him a few weeks ago from a rather good ‘Backerie' in a remote little German village (in the pouring rain!). At the same time I got an email from Waterstones to confirm that they are finally increasing the card retail price that I have been trying to get them to do for a couple of years - that was the good news - the bad news is that I had asked for some notice of when it might happen as I have to both design and then stick on new bar-codes on well over 600 cards… apparently it will come into effect tomorrow morning 0 they can nerve get it right!
The evening was my last photo club before the summer social next week and then the summer break. I rashly volunteered some time ago to help run the print competition by labelling prints with my friend Amanda and then I was at the front, marking the prints with the scores, putting them on the rack for the judge and calling out titles and names. I was a bit nervous but I managed fairly well. Sadly at the end of the evening the total number of people coming to this years social next week is only 28. Back in 2018 it was 55… may have to have a rethink for next year.
