Robin in a bird bath
London,  The Changing Seasons,  Themed galleries

Gallery: a June selection

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June

L. M. Montgomery

Although I can’t be sure, I suspect the above quote comes from Anne of Green Gables, or one of the other ‘Anne’ novels. It sounds like the sort of thing one of my favourite childhood heroines would have said!

mm

June certainly is often a lovely month in England. This year it has brought us a short heatwave (temperatures topping 30 degrees, very unusual so early in the year), and plenty of pleasanter sunny days. But typically for Britain, we started the month with a cool, sometimes wet weekend that coincided with a public holiday for the Platinum Jubilee. Queen Elizabeth II was marking seventy years on the throne and even if you’re not an especial admirer of the monarchy, that has to be seen as a remarkable achievement. The country was rewarded with a double Bank Holiday and lots of events both national and local. We didn’t get very involved but did go along to our local Prom in the Park. It proved to be a bit of a damp squib in several ways, with drizzly rain and some disappointingly un-Prom-like music!

The middle of the month should have been more exciting for us, with a city break in Sofia. I’d loved the city when I was there in 2019 and was keen to return and to introduce it to my husband. We also had plans to meet up with a Virtual Tourist friend who lives there. But two days before we were due to leave, Covid finally caught me! Fortunately a) I had a very mild case (mainly just a cough); b) my husband didn’t get it; and c) we were able to reschedule Sofia for later in the year without losing a penny, thanks to our very accommodating apartment host there. And the bonus is, we have it still to look forward to!

I didn’t totally isolate but I did restrict myself to outdoor activities so most of my photos this month are of local scenes. As always I am linking my photography highlights to Ju-Lyn and Brian’s Changing Seasons challenge.

Technical notes

As I was staying local many of my shots were taken with my phone. But I did take my compact Panasonic Lumix out with me on some days. Again as usual, I’ve enjoyed playing around with others. Those ones were edited with Nik Color Efex, or in a couple of cases Nik Silver Efex. As I always say, it’s pretty obvious which ones have been ‘fiddled with’, but I probably did less in the way of elaborate editing this month.

  • Red, white and blue triangular flags against a wall
  • Man in a Union Jack hat in a crowd
  • Small drawn figures on a wall
  • Monochrome photo of a seated Buddha statue
  • Soft focus shot of a yellow rose
  • Ladybird on a leaf
  • Soft focus macro of the centre of a hollyhock flower
  • Two blue damselflies on reeds
  • Brown duck and six ducklings
  • Robin on a fence
  • Red flowers and a white shuttered window
  • Looking up at a blue sky between tall buildings
  • Bright purple flower
  • Poppy among cornflowers and daisies
  • Windows reflecting blue sky and a tall building
  • Steel sculptural balustrades and blue sky

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