After yesterday’s weary run, I decided that this morning would be an official rest day – no intervals, no racing, no hills, just a flat two miles. This plan also gave me the opportunity to play with my new toy… Being kept in a soggy pocket had killed my trusty camera, so Sunday and Monday were spent trying to choose a new one. I hate buying new technology, don’t get me wrong I love new technology, it’s just the process of choosing one model out of the billions out there and managing to feel as if I’ve made the right decision. It didn’t help that, although I was 90% certain after reading the 100+ positive reviews, I went on a more geeky camera website, felt confident after reading the full review, but then read the user comments at the bottom of the article -“I have read your review but have to say that the HRT capability of this camera compares unfavourably to the ZG3039 which has a 2-2.45 RAC range and still manages to focus at up to 12000 KFC resolution”. Or something like that. After some mild panic, it dawned on me that I would be using the camera mostly to take photos of ducks and should probably stick with the reviews that identified the fiddliness of fitting the wrist strap as the only negative.

Off I plodded, mainly wondering how I was going to find something interesting to photograph and then realised that that’s never stopped me before. After three-quarters of a mile I realised that I’d not bothered with my Shuffle and that didn’t really bother me. Eventually I came across some geese in a pond and decided that they were a good as subject as any for my camera. Unfortunately the geese had other ideas responding  in much the same way that I would if some clown tried to photograph me at six in the morning – loud and violent hissing. I am many things, but I’m not brave enough to take on a goose so I legged it across the road and used the fancy 15x zoom to take this, all the while feeling like some kind of ornithological paparazzo.

Landscape-wise, it was always going to be fields – this is the view towards the dawn.

I think I like my new camera – the next thing on the shopping list is going to be a waterproof case…