Small kindnesses

Today the rather lovely Writing Our Way Home would like us to write about a small kindness we have received. Mine is in the distant past, probably about 35 years ago.

I ran a small estate agents' sub-office, in Ditchling. It was the middle, red brick and timber house in this picture and a lovely place to work. However, I was going through nightmare domestic issues. There is no need to go into details, but one problem was dire finances.

One Friday, the door opened and in came a friend who shall be nameless, but was a barrister colleague of my then husband and is now a judge. He was wearing his court suit and over it a baggy Barbour jacket. Out of one of the inner 'poacher' pockets he produced a large leg of lamb for us the weekend. He was worried we might be going hungry; which wasn't really the case as I was resourceful. Nonetheless I was grateful not just for the food but also particularly for their love and support.

Follow this link to get Fiona Roby's book 'Small Kindnesses' which is free today.

Toys for ... girls

Having dropped my elderly compact camera on a cobbled street in Lagrasse in France, resorting to using an iPad as camera which was brilliant but awkward, today my new camera arrived. I'm told it is a bridge camera which means it is more complicated and does more than the compact but is not quite as hard to learn as a DSLR. Eeeew, I hear you say, this girl's a geek. I'm not, but I do love photography ever since I had an OM1 thrust in my mitts, loaded with black and white film and was told to go out and use all of the film around Brighton. (I was a mature, 34 yr old, art student doing the Foundation Course at what was then the redoubtable Brighton Poly Art College.)

The zoom is 42x which is superb considering you don't have to change the lens. Here are a few trials. I didn't know the snail was in the second one, until I looked on my laptop screen. Tomorrow I hope to try some atmospheric landscapes while we have these amazing autumn colours, and also black and white for my trees project. Oh bliss...