Owls and Orchids

“From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night
Good Lord, deliver us!”    recorded in The Cornish and West Country Litany, 1926.

I’m still in recovery mode from my little medical procedure. As promised it’s not ‘quite’ as painful as before but I wouldn’t like to put a wager on it.  Aside from the fact that the entire neck is bruised from it’s assault by sharp objects and I’m sure you can feel it too.

Last night we decided to have a somewhat early night.  It is a misnomer of the grandest proportions since by the time we’ve checked emails, turned off computer, locked up, turned off lights and finally hit the bathroom for showers it’s not that early any longer. The problems begin with the emails, there is always one, if not more, to discuss or reply to and things snowball from there. The solution, of course, is to turn off the computer before we leave it and not go back to it. Easy!  It is also the penalty of working from home.  There is always the thought that something ‘vitally’ important may arrive late that we ‘must’ be prepared for the next day. I’m working on it!

courtesy of  neesay.wordpress.com

After wobbling my way through the last minute computer turn off and shower (not together thankfully), I was thinking longingly of laying my aching head on my pillow when my husband laughingly reported we had a couple of possums in the nearby tree.  It actually sounded like a meeting place of mating possums. The noise, whilst not overly loud, was constant, and seemed to come from every branch of the tree.  A torchlit search finally found several culprits, doing what possums do, and we left them to their – own devices.

However, there was a small interlude before that happened. I recently received a beautiful burgundy Nikon P150 camera and I was hopeful of getting one of the possums (at rest)  on film so to speak.  Check lighting, check, check exposure, check, check shutter speed, check, you get the idea, it was almost a game of the blind leading the blind.  So, before they could move and I lost any chance of getting their presence immortalized I made a dash for the balcony door.

courtesy of annacbowling.blogspot.com

That’s right, I walked right into and through the closed screen door, the one my dear husband had so carefully closed behind me after I ran inside to grab that beautiful camera! Being one of the “you beaut” Crimsafe doors I bounced back into the room whilst the door flew outwards at a great rate. OUCH!  Dignity and pride bruised and battered, not to say anything about my aching neck.  I guess that’s what happens when you interrupt nature at work.

Image of brush tail possum courtesy of whyology.blogspot.com

Fortunately we were able to see the funny side to this.  With a backdrop of ‘hissing’ from the amorous possums Ray managed to get the door back on track, I massaged my bruised nose and toes, and contemplated the advisability of trying to take a photo.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” Alexander Pope; an essay on criticism in 1709.

Dignity dented but intact, door replaced fully intact, possums still occupied, definitely intact, time to try for a photo.  I remembered to open the offending door this time and we took up position on the balcony.  Here we are twelve feet off the ground, Ray leaning way out over the railing to get some light on ‘the subjects’ whilst I, of much shorter stature than Ray, try to lean precariously over the rail to get the camera somewhere in the vicinity of the possums.

I can report, quite  definitely, that I need more lessons on how to operate my camera. It may not be my deficiencies at all but an impossible ask under the circumstances. Several blank shots plus several orange blurs were all I got for twisting myself, pretzel like over the railing, this after trying to rearrange myself as I torpedoed through a screen door.  It has not been my finest hour!

I am consoling myself with the knowledge that I caught  a beautiful shot of a spoonbill feeding in our pond the other day.  Sometimes you simply have to take your awards where you find them.