I Had A Message From Diana,

could I pop into town to pick up a package for her?

no sooner said than done, so out past the snail mail box into a grey overcast day, 

the flowers on the bottom half of the chestnut tree looking good, 

in the side garden of Foxgrove Lodge, 

the other rhododendron bush starting to flower,

the ones on the second bush,

really starting to open up now, 

at the rear of Waitrose there was this machine, I had never been here before, only yesterday I mentioned I had not used a code thing before, but I now remember I did this once before at a similar pick up box at Beckenham Junction, and guess what? unlike the last time, this time it worked! I was amazed,

the car park, except for disabled bays, was packed, 

looking at the plants on offer, 

I do not think Cooling's or Polhill will have anything to worry about,

as I passed Foxgrove Lodge, 

the peonies look like they will be opening soon,

the chestnut on this side packed with lower limb flowers, arriving home Diana had sent me some photographs from Kraków,

well Auschwitz actually as they had gone to visit there, 

Diana mention although it was interesting is was also a sad place to be, 

much like our visit to Choeung Genocidal Center, or the killing fields back in September 2015, Diana said the same ominous, dark atmosphere was here as well, it was now time for my evening read and sherry, 

one of the many things I like about Private Eye, is an occasional box titled 'Number Crunching',

it just publishes 2 accurate and factual figures, 

which can sometimes be a bit of a eye opener, especially if you have only read about the lowest figure,

'Cheers!', for tonight Diana had left me a plate of bangers & mash, 

and also sent me some photographs, 

of her stay in Kraków, 

I am not sure of the names of the places they visited, 

but this one looked nice, 

a local restaurant, 

and a walk around town after their meal, there is some bad news, the cold that Diana had before she left was getting worse, it is such a shame that this is happening on her days off, for myself after my meal it was feet up for a couple of films, firstly, 

 Gattaca, a film set in the future, to travel to the stars you have to be 100% fit, but a menial worker assumes the identity of a fit person to travel, a good film, well worth watching, but I could not help thinking the futuristic cars were in fact 1960's Rover 2000 models with some of the chrome and badges taken off, next one about the merry men of Sherwood forest, well how they came about, 

 Robin Hood, great fun to watch, but totally implausible, but then that is what films like this are all about, after which I was off to bed.

First Thing At 04.00AM

we were up, 

waiting for the taxi to take Diana and her friends to the airport and then to Kraków, so far they have had breakfast at the airport, 

and were soon away, to the departure gate,

all set to board, and they were away!

arriving in Kraków, they made their way to the hotel only a slight problem, before Diana left she mentioned she felt like she was going down with a cold, unfortunately it seems to have gotten worse, I just hope tomorrow she will be over it, back to the UK, I had a busy day, using the big lens and camera it was soon obvious that at some point I would need a tripod, a few weeks ago I ordered one, 

and here it is, a Sirui CT-3204 camo and a CH-20 gimbal head, so open the box,

and there is the carry bag in plastic, 

and a really neat carry bag it is too, but it takes up way too much space for flights, 

and I suspect most people will ditch the bag and just strap the tripod and head to their normal back packs, 

as it happens, 

a couple of the compartments were empty, the manufacturer had already assembled those bits in the head, but a bit disconcerting if when unpacking something there appears to be bits missing, on to the paper work,

 there was a international guarantee and a strange bit of card,

but NO instructions, the card had these weird symbols on it, but I have never used anything like this in my life, considering the price of the piece of kit, I would have thought that Sirui could have at least printed a 3 or 4 page leaflet as to what everything is, and how to assemble it,

I worked out what the feet were, but what on earth is the bracket on the left? at times like this the Internet is your friend, so a look at a YouTube video, but seriously why could they not include a small leaflet? 

one thing using the camera and big lens that I found annoying over the past few weeks of using it was the two straps, one for the camera with a normal lens, the second strap attaching to the 500mm lens as it would be too front heavy using just the strap on the camera, 

they were all over the place, and they are a right pain to take off and on every time I want to use the big lens, but I had a cunning plan, more of that later, 

I decided to take the head off of the tripod, which exposed this, good job I looked at the video!

this is how I intend to transport the tripod and head in my suitcase for international travel,

and this was my cunning plan,

I already had made a couple of purchase, some black split rings and black dog collar 'G' clips, 

I used the split rings on the body of the lens and attached the dog lead clips to the nylon strap, 

and then did the same with the camera body, 

but for that I did not need the spilt rings, so camera mounted on the tripod, with out practicing it took me just 13 seconds to undo all 4 clips on both straps, 

Ta-Da!

and again with no practice, (I fumbled it a bit) it took just 20 seconds to reattach the 4 strap clips, it would have taken an age just to undo just one of the 4 straps using the ones that come with the camera, I am almost surprised that Fujifilm has not developed a quick release system like this to keep those pesky straps out of the way,

to make things easy, I left the camera foot on the mount, so I do not have to keep moving the base plate every time I want to mount the lens, so one last thing, 

what is this bit of kit for? I have not yet tried it, but apparently with the supplied Allen keys it means you can rotate the camera and lens from landscape to portrait format, thank goodness for the Internet! if you want to look at the Internet clip I looked at, it is here, I had to feel sorry for the presenter, it seems incredible considering where he is that there are so many aircraft disrupting his presentation! all of this brought me rather nicely to my evening meal,

first my read and sherry, this week the latest Private Eye arrived, 

for tonight Diana had left me a chili con carne, 'Cheers!', I was hoping for a Midsomer Murder tonight, but alas there was not one showing, so a couple of films it was firstly, a firm favorite, 

The Grand Budapest Hotel, a brilliant story of greed, corruption and restitution, as an aside the cast includes four Oscar winners: Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Fisher Stevens and F. Murray Abraham and eleven actors that were nominated for an Oscar (not necessarily in the acting category): Bill Murray, Jude Law, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban, Tom Wilkinson, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan and Ralph Fiennes, a really enjoyable film, after which a slightly more gruesome,

Jonah Hex, who is in a 2010 American action fantasy western film loosely based on the DC Comics character who is out for vengeance in the Wild West, after which I was off to bed.