Crisp

Have you noticed how cold it is? Good isn't it? I've been making sure to get up nice and early in order to get out and enjoy it. There are pretexts obviously. The first is that the only way I can get my 10,000 steps under my belt on a weekday is by taking a very long and extended commute to work. The second is creativity, so I have been poncing around with my camera in the crisp conditions. The last few days I have been taking a macro lens with me, in the hope of capturing some amazing closeups of frost-covered branches. On the whole this has been a dismal failure, which I would like to blame mostly on it being basically dark when I'm out and about. Luckily the lens can also focus on things far away which is much more my comfort zone. For instance the horizon. So whilst the last post was dominated by the setting sun, this is the other end of the day. 

I have to say that Wanstead Flats is very beautiful on mornings like this. Yes it's overrun with dogs and joggers and, lately for some reason, cyclists, but none of that can really detract from what is a magnificent area of open space right on my front doorstep. I am very lucky to have it. Spending an hour or so outdoors is also helpful for the soul. Silly though it sounds I find I am more relaxed in the office if I have had a bit of a wander. You would think that it might have the opposite effect, resentment that I wasn't still there, but the warm glow remains. I know that very few people I see will have done something similar, and I feel good about that. I am winning, so to speak.

So, once again apologies for the photo-heavy nature of this post, and of course all the commas, I just cannot help it. 

deliberately unwound the focus for this shot