Bradgate Park tomorrow

28 August

Oh dear; I’ve just caught a small part of a report on Farter Trump speaking on telly about the wall he’s going to build along then US-Mexican border. Unless America wakes up soon the world is going to wake one day in November and find itself, along with the rest of the world to be a different place entirely. It’s claimed that here in the UK that intolerance shot up after BREXIT, that will be chicken feed if that man become US president. What on earth is happening over there? The land of openness being closed down, the land that spawned political correctness will be gone without a murmur from the PC brigade. Surely they not afraid of him yet? If not, why are they so quiet? And so democracy dies quietly in the US.

On a brighter note, it’s Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow; I wonder what your plans are? We have decided to go to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire. Bradgate is a pleasant park that has one paved road through it that follows a small river to a large lake. There are small water falls, a nice Elizabethan ruin, scrub-covered hills and lots of deer roaming free. It is a popular place on weekends, and with fine weather forecast for tomorrow, there’s likely to be a good number of people there.

However, the park is so large, it seems to swallow them up without problems. For me the place is prime photo-land but even with the visitors they won’t really get in the way at all. Even if they do, it will show the park at its best and well used. That is why it’s there after all. So my Nikon and lenses will go too, along with my tripod and remote release. All my lenses will go, mainly because of the promise of some nice landscapes, and for that I really do need my tripod and remote release. I also have a Samyang 500mm mirror lens which I bought for my Sony 350, but I’ve bought a T-mount for it to fit my Nikon. It needs a tripod to work well and it will be used for the first time tomorrow.

A couple of months ago I managed to get myself bogged down with the number of photo-mags I had waiting to be read. So I got Jan to cancel all the subscription I had on; but she missed one. Yesterday N-photo dropped through the door. That one is Nikon based, as the title suggests (there’s one for Canon users too somewhere). That copy has been almost all read now, I did that instead of the normal novel reading (currently a Mark Gimenez at the moment) I do in bed at night. It really was a nice change to read that mag, and tomorrow I will get the chance to put some of it into practice.

I wonder how far in advance does Rowling plan her books. It seems that they sit within a set plan and of course, the movies do too. If she does plan them out fully before she begins writing, does she allow herself any freedom within that plan? Or does she actually stick to it rigidly? When I write I allow my characters to do pretty much what they want. That sounds daft, I know, but what I mean is, I don’t plan my stories. The story develops and plays out as I got on. I do of course have an ultimate end in mind, but by letting the story flow that way, I do get a surprise every so often, and if get a surprise, hopefully my readers will too.

The further hope then is the readers will come back for more in other books of mine. Rowling is a big name writer now, I am not. So pretty much everything she puts her name to sells well. The Robert Galbriath books didn’t until it become known who the real writer is, now they are best sellers too. Having a best seller is the dream of all writers and if any writer says differently, they’re telling porkies. In general, the reality for all pro-writers is that they earn around £30,000 pa, if they are lucky. My books don’t sell at all right now, simply because they are not available for sale. Even so I still dream of that big title best seller. One day they will become available again.

Today’s photo …

A family at the zoo.

Today’s funny …

 What do you get if you cross an artist with a policeman?
A brush with the law.