Marty

You're slowly getting to know me, clo! Quite correct! I'm not a fan of housework. Much rather be outside. Either in the garden, or out on the hills.

Ditto. Although myself and my siblings have always been close (a fact that often makes me feel somewhat blessed), we don't all live all that close to each other. I'm in the west of Ireland, and my siblings are scattered across the north of England. To a large extent, mam (as we called her) was like the glue that held the family together. When she died I genuinely worried we wouldn't contact or see each other as often as we had done when she was alive. Fortunately, that proved not to be the case.

I think we just 'cross-posted' there, young Albert.

G'day, Albert and Val (and everyone else). Showery sort of day here, and the temperature's a degree or so lower than yesterday. Might do a spot of wallpaper removal shortly, as it doesn't look like I'll get much garden work done today (but the weather could improve later).

Good to see the family back together again. Even if mum (Christine) isn't there in person, she's there in their hearts. And now they can talk about their memories of her openly.

I tend to agree with you, Tim. If I only wish to respond to a small part of someone's comment, I usually just select that part of the original comment and a 'box' will appear on my screen with "Quote selection" in it. If I click on that, it will appear in the comment box. That's what I did to get Tim's comment above to appear. I'm not sure if that's as easy to do on a smartphone or tablet, as I always use my laptop for GA. Yea, Tim. Stay safe, buddy. (See what I did there? After responding to Tim above, I went back and selected dug's comment, so I could then quote that in the same reply.) And there I was thinking I was the grumpy old guy in here. I'd never have considered you grumpy.

That's a really nice gesture.

Hi, Page!

Millions of tomatoes? If I've told you once, I must have told you a billion times...

Hey, young Albert!

Well done, you!

You're doing a lot better than I am as far as the writing is concerned. At least you do manage to finish some of them.

And a happy Saturday to you. Changeable sort of day here. Temp around 16C/61F, but it can't decide whether to be sunny or showery. I started up the lawnmower a while back and almost immediately a shower arrived. I did manage to get the lawns mowed between the showers, though. This weekend is a bank holiday weekend here in Ireland. Tomorrow's promised much the same as today, but Monday should at least be a degree or two warmer, with the promise of more sun than showers. That should hopefully please those who are now back at work after the lockdown.

Gary, my friend! Hope all's well with you.

Thanks, bro. That's actually what made me decide to take the photograph - the commonplace - and the fact that its beauty can often be overlooked, just because it's common; so common that it's often not even seen. There's an artist/photographer connected with the same camera club that runs these 52/52 challenges each year, who had a reasonably successful exhibition in Ireland a few years ago, with the title something along the lines of: Beauty in the Commonplace. It was looking at some of her work that gave me the urge to look again at commonplace objects and try to capture the intrinsic beauty in them. I also find that macro-photography can often bring out the not normally seen inner beauty of everyday objects. And a black and white conversion can also do the same, as sometimes too many colours can actually take away from the main focus of the image.

Cheers, Val and Gary! I think sometimes I may just be too self-critical.

I'll just repeat here what I said yesterday to another GA member, who is slightly worried about various test that his doctor is arranging for him to have:

I decided to focus on the vegetable plot this time for my 18th week of trying to upload one new black and white photograph every week for a full year... I have to say that I'm not totally happy with how it turned out.

G'night (again), bro! Sweet dreams.

G'day, young man!

Followed by 45678

And, even here in temperate Ireland, it's currently 15°C at 12:42pm (nearly midnight), and expected to reach 21°C tomorrow.

Exactly what I thought.

I've just signed up to a free month's trial of Audible and downloaded the audio version of the book as my One Book Free introductory offer. Read by the author. Once I've listened to it, I'll likely then cancel my subscription, then look for a copy of the book itself (hopefully the price will drop soon).