Those who have been following my PAD for a while may recollect that there were a couple of frangipani trees at my place in Sydney; one pink, one white. The flowers of these periodically featured in my 2010 to 2012 PADs.

I didn't go out for a PAD yesterday morning; instead I went for a walk down to a nearby shopping village as part of my exercise regime to deal with issues related to my little eye adventure earlier in the month. In truth that didn't work out all that well as it started raining heavily around the time that I reached the village so I went to a coffee shop and read The Economist over a skim cappuccino for a while, but I digress. It does mean that I was late home, though, meaning less time for a PAD.

In the evening I had to go out to grab a couple of things from the chemist and supermarket. "Oh crud!", thinks I, "I haven't done a PAD yet!" It's February. No way am I missing a day in February.

So on the way back I see a frangipani tree, with pink flowers similar to the ones from my former home. I stop the car and rush over and pluck one of the flowers, then race home. Unfortunately it becomes a bit of a race against time for although it has been wet today (indeed there are some raindrops still on the petals in this shot) it has been very, very warm. In other words, steamy. Not the best weather for a freshly plucked flower. (You can already see the petals curling here, less than an hour after the event.) And dinner was ready. So I wolf down dinner and then get out a new toy; a Black Fire Clamplight halogen torch which you can stand up on its own legs. I had bought it at the local hardware warehouse a few weeks back with a view to getting back to some indoor macro work. I had bought only one just to confirm that I could use it for its intended purpose, and it worked exactly as I wanted it; the sucker acts like a miniature spotlight. Now I need another one to be able to take the sharpness out of the shadows. And possibly a small light tent.

And so, at 20:30, I manage to pull a PAD out of the fire.

And the flower? It's too fragrant to just throw away so it still sits on the desk beside my keyboard but alas, is rather wilted now.

Last Year