I was listlessly mooching around looking for a shot for today and had decided that it had to be a ‘fall-back’ shot – you know the kind of thing you have up your sleeve for a dull day, when this opportunity presented itself.

Never known to be the best prepared person in the universe, I actually had my camera kitted up with Macro lens already after yesterday’s bottle shot and the card was right by my side. Had the wasp not been fascinated by the anglepoise lamp in our den, I’d never have had enough light to hand-hold a shot of it and get it sharp. This is cropped, by using the ‘short dimension’ as the long one – in other words, taking it from landscape to portrait.

I reckon it’s a bit sci-fi and DM says he thinks it looks like a moon behind it so the thing is huge. I have done bees twice before - this one is one of my fave pbase shots, but never a wasp.

I do have fall back shots that are in the back of my mind sometimes – shame not all of the time when it’s a dull day – I’m often to be seen charging around with a hunted look on my face late in the evening when I’ve got nothing to look at and nothing much to say either. In fact, one of my best fall backs shots was a shot of the contents of my handbag, which spurred on dozens of pbasers (and a few non-pbasers too) to send me shots of theirs…in fact, that gallery is one of my highest hitting ones ever – just goes to show that there is a lot of voyeurism going on pbase I suppose.

So, you nearly got a fall back shot and now you know I have them, you’ll have to see if you can spot when the one that was about to emerge today finally finds its way onto these pages.

BTW – it’s very weird how when I’m getting a whole load of shit on pbase from one quarter (which I have been of late – long story, can’t be bothered to tell and to be honest, can’t face any more shit because of it), I always seem to have a ‘balancing moment’. One of these came yesterday from Mindy (Hi Mindy) who confessed to lurking on these pages and sent me some help for a little problem I’ve had. Thanks for that! I’m not sure why that happens but it always happens for me – maybe I notice the nice guests more when I’m under fire from others – I don’t know but it certainly brightened my day.

Reasons to be cheerful was my subject matter last year.