Adventures of an Idiot - occasional ramblings of a photography freak

Tuesday past was a rainy day. Quite heavily at times in fact.

“Great” thinks I. “I’ll have a wander into town and get some super shots of rain p***ing down. Deserted town centre. Shop lights reflecting off the pavements. Bedraggled shoppers with umbrellas bowed against the weather. Ooh, wonderful!”

Huh. Fat chance. Get into town and not a sign of a raindrop! Bit overcast maybe, but that’s about it.
So wander disconsolately along by the river a stretch and grab a handful of pics, but nothing truly inspiring. Been there, done it, got the tee-shirt sorta thing.

Aha… a car park by the river. Now there’s somewhere I haven’t explored. But even here options were limited, dictated by my instinctive aversion to having car number plates visible in my pics (that’s another long story!). And of course, whaddya find in car parks? Yep. Cars. What a surprise! I did however manage to get a couple of shots of the approach to the car park. Wow!

Ever onwards though, so stroll despondently into the town centre, mood lightened slightly by some ok shots of what’s said to be the tallest building in the town.

And inevitably end up at The Bear of course (or “Stalag Bear” as I now think of it, courtesy of a mate dubbing it such).

But photo-wise? Well, short of new developments at that worthy (?) establishment I’ve just about exhausted all the standard possibilities thereat.
“Just about” isn’t the same as “definitely” though… cos I discovered some rather fascinating brickwork to shoot.
(Hmm. I really oughta get a life methinks.)

In fact, so despondent had I become that I didn’t even feel inclined to hang around there until my mate (a different one, that is… yep, I’ve got more than one!) had finished his shift… plus I didn’t want to be stuck on the bus home with a load of noisy schoolkids. And it was fast approaching the time for kids to leave school for the day.

So jump on a homeward-bound bus. And sit there mulling. And mulling. And reflecting. And thinking. And ever so slowly (a bit like paint drying in fact) a rather disturbing thought occurs to me.
I’d set out this morning with the intention of collecting some “rain shots”. And I’d dressed accordingly. Part of which routine was to don a pair of “wet weather trousers”. And I distinctly remember reminding myself to transfer everything from my normal ones to the “wet weather” ones.

Yep. I definitely remember reminding myself to do that. No doubt about it.

And I did. Everything. Everything, that is, apart from my keyring! Which, as I now recollect sat on the bus homeward, is still affixed to my “normal” trousers courtesy of the key chain attached to the belt thereon.

And my door key happens to be on that keyring!

Umm… with a nasty sinking feeling I realise that means I won’t actually be able to get inside once I do get home.

Oh bugger!

But all is not totally lost. For, with remarkable prescience, I’d entrusted a duplicate key to my next-door neighbour. Clearly in anticipation of just such an occurrence. (Actually that’s a load of old cobblers. In reality she’s got a key for a different reason entirely… but we don’t need to go into that here!)
So all I had to do was wait for her to return from work and bingo! I’m laughing!
Snag is, I wasn’t too sure what time she was due to return on that particular day… or even in fact if she’d made other arrangements for the evening and wouldn’t return until late.

Dammit!

Quick revision of all my plans then and decide that it might be a good idea (opportunist… that’s me!) to have a little walkabout southward of the village and see if there’s anything worth snapping… for a couple of hours at least.

Now there used to be a saying that “every cloud has a silver lining”. And it was during this compulsory walkabout (hell, what other choice did I have?) that I discovered the silver lining to this particular cloud. In a very literal sense.
For I managed to grab what I think are some really nice “cloud shots”. In fact, in my opinion, they’re probably the best shots of the day.

But with light failing fast and neighbour still not home I was in a bit of a quandary. Then a cunning plan gradually coalesced in my excuse for a mind…
Repair to the local hostelry (a place I practically never frequent… in fact, I’ve only been in there once before during all the time I’ve lived in the village) and console myself with a pint or three of the best whilst awaiting her return.
The consequence of which, of course, was that when she eventually did arrive back I was almost not in a respectable state to go knocking on her door!

One day perhaps I’ll stop being an idiot and actually get my act together.