Onegav

This evening we all went out for a meal to celebrate Holly’s birthday; happy birthday Holly, love you loads!!

We had a lovely meal in a local gastro pub, it was snug and cosy and we were really well looked after. It’s the sort of pub where dogs are allowed in, and in my book that’s a great sign of a really good pub!

You know what else, it was one of the best steaks I have ever had! In fact, the only steak I’ve had that was better was a Kobe Steak I had a few years ago.

Kobe cattle are massaged and fed beer in their diets to make their meat very distinctive and extremely tender. It cost a small fortune, but I wanted to experience it, and it certainly was an experience.

I know there are moral issues, but at the time I thought it sounded like a great life, being massaged daily and drinking loads of beer. To be honest though, it’s only ever going to be a good life if it’s through choice, and being that much older now, it wouldn’t be a life I would choose.

Tonight’s steak, cost about a fifth of the Koby Steak, and it was delicious, and I do not say that lightly. I love a good rare steak, but I am always nervous of ordering it in case it comes over done.

Anyway, what’s with the snails then?

Well, when we left to head home, a lovely church was stood opposite where we parked, and the lights on inside looked amazing through the stained glass, lead lined windows.

I grabbed my camera to take a few shots, and my heart stopped. I couldn’t get it to turn on……

I changed the battery for my spare, still nothing.

So I took a few shots of the church on my phone, and as nice as they were, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore because all I could think about was what was wrong with my camera.

So we all pilled in the car and headed home.

As I opened the gate to let the girls in, I noticed a snail making its way across the path, confident and comfortable traveling on the rain soaked stone.

I ushered everyone past, pointing the tiny snail out to stop anyone quashing it accidentally.

I took one of my batteries out and put it on charge, just in case they were both flat for some reason.

After a few minutes charging I tried it in my camera………… bing, it flickered into life!

I was so relieved, and instantly headed off outside to see if the snail was still there.

It was, but it was now halfway up the fence on the other side of the path – quite the speedy snail to be fair.

Learnings – this was the first time I’ve used my camera in really low light, and it posed some new challenges to me.

I had to set the shutter way lower than I ever have before; I always try and have it as high as I can to combat camera shake and also to freeze the image.

This meant I had to hold the camera as rock solid as I could, wedged up against the fence for extra support.

I also took a few shots with the flash, which was pretty much a new experience for me, I know it sounds strange but it really throws me off when the flash fires, I always think it’s going to just blow everything out, but it doesn’t.

The snail was really nice to photograph as it happens, slowly sliding along with very gentle and deliberate movements, and I’ll definitely try photographing some more in the future.