It started to drizzle now as I got back from my run and we got another spectacular rainbow. Auto white balance let me down here in the camera and my phone’s warmth control couldn’t get it all back. This is also where I realised that the default Apple photo editor has no perspective controls - at least none that I can find. Edit: doh! @ezlemoen pointed me to the perspective controls and I realised I’d seen them before.

Milestones: I managed to catch some of the cultists in this first pic (for those unfamiliar with my discussion of Rhodes Memorial cultists, I use the term in the anthropological sense of a niche religious society - not to refer to toxic cults). This one distinguished itself by blowing on huge corkscrew horns of the kudu antelope like a Southern African shofar. I decided to take a pic at each kilometre of my walk. Of course Sod’s law meant there was an interesting picture just ten meters before or after I hit the mark. Still. Interesting to note where each of these markers is on my walk. The straight up climb between km 1 (at the memorial after walking up from the windmill) to 2 (just below the contour path) is where all the sweat and wheezing happens. ...

@joydemillar has organised another cracking #subwaysessions at our undisclosed location. Here’s Ilse holding everyone spellbound or in stitches between songs that you instantly feel like you’ve known for years.

Last one for a bit, I promise.

Another from the rainy day in Newlands Forest. The D600 is just young enough to have live view for composing but old enough that it’s awful at it.

More ferns. But this time from a walk in Newlands Forest a few weeks ago during the rains. I was having a great time out there until the eyepiece of the camera dislodged my hard contact lens - sending it tumbling to the endless complexity of the forest floor. It might as well have fallen through a wormhole into another dimension. An expensive mistake.

@kanesnaps and I trying to get back into regular mountain walks. We started small with the popular Constantia Neck walk to this ferny cliff with its ever trickling water. I felt these steps coming down here had a Lord of the Rings feel. I walked up to here in my new hiking boots - a completely traditional all-leather, stitched sole type to replace my high technology Zamberlans that have finally worn out after a literal quarter century. Thing about traditional leather boots though: wearing them in is a painful trial. But experience says that once that’s done they’ll be more comfortable than any off-the-shelf synthetic footwear. I swapped to my ancient trail running shoes - a hand-me-down from @jason66c - for the second half.

We got more secure AirTag holders for the cats and changed the batteries because it’s been a year. Naturally Bun here thought she’d been subjected to war crimes. We chose AirTags because they only require this annual battery change. The range is limited (about 10m) but they will ping off any Apple devices with the “find my” app enabled - which in practice gives them endless range at least insofar as getting close enough for fine tracking. ...

@withoutaleaf heading off to work the whole night through. Night shoots are pretty brutal. We’re finally getting some rain and cold weather after our Indian summer. It was beautiful yesterday when I went to vote 30 years after my and South Africa’s first time voting in a democratic election. While we have many political problems, our electoral system isn’t one of them - it’s far more robust than those in many lauded democracies. Hopefully its strengths will eventually lead to better governance. ...

Another one. Can’t get over how sharp this Nikon 1.4x teleconverter is on the 200-500mm. This is a heavy crop (I didn’t get any stunners today) and I could have gone further because all the detail is there.