Carry on

We live a 10 minute drive from Parliament House - the site of great upheaval, media frenzy and high emotion over the past 24 hours. I didn't like what happened to our first female PM last night but realise it was probably inevitable given the diabolical polls. However I am sure that just like the formidable Julia G, our country's sturdy and stable democracy will carry on with little disruption despite these histrionics.

We're political tragics so we had a late night following all the coverage and had endless debates about all the pros and cons and ins and outs. I hope Julia G and all the others off the front bench after last night's events had as much fun as we did today in the wash up of all this drama (hopefully the ex PM has more time to complete her knitting for Will and Kate's bub now).

Abi enjoyed a walk in the neighbourhood. She loves the birds (and the birdbath), the leaves, the rocks, the dogs and being able to climb over anything remotely climbable.

I have missed my Canon 30D so much....but had great news yesterday that my new Fujifilm X20 F2.0-2.8 lens compact camera was in store and ready to be picked up.

After Abi had gone I was able to unpack it and give some serious attention to working out how to use it. These are some of the first shots I took around the garden in the late afternoon winter light - a huge improvement over what I was able to do with Rob's Canon compact - these exposures are very true to life - even with the settings on Auto.

And by playing with the shutter speed with the aperture wide open I got some lovely contrast in this close up of the Sasanqua - as well as a bit of bokeh (thank you Mal).

There is a macro and super macro setting which gives pretty impressive results without a tripod, under artificial light.

 And a panorama setting!!! Joel are you watching?

I'm shooting everything tonight - even dinner (prawn, salmon & coconut curry - thank you July 2013 Delicious).

I have heard my Canon 30D is on the mend too - just needs some "adjustments" to the exposure metering (due to impact) - not even too expensive given the years of good service it has given me and the bad treatment I dished out to it when I dropped it.