Christmas Bells

Christmas Bells
Christmas Bells - Blandfordia nobilis

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Welcome to Squeaky Oscar

I have a brand new nephew, Oscar Alexander Finn. Actually I have a seemingly inexhaustable supply of nephews, but this one is precocious. He has his own blog site - at 9 days of age. Not bad going, Oscar! (tasteful photo courtesy of his blog site). Hope he does no have a team of copyright lawyers, already!



Have a look folks, at the hot-link above, and it is now linked in the side-bar as well! (the green writing on the side of the blog.) ("The Squeaky View")


Anyway, welcome to the world of blogging, Oscar, and welcome to the World, kid. You have a bright future ahead of you.

*****
Canberra continues to turn on brilliant autumn weather, and the deciduous trees are beautiful - not that I am taking any photographs of them. After all, the official raison d'etre is "The Nature of Robertson" and deciduous trees in Canberra do not qualify - on any basis.

I have been hanging out at the Australian National Botanic Gardens this week, and have enjoyed nice lunches there - today will Gillian. It was good to catch up with her. Gill was armed with photos of her new grandchildren. We appear to be in an age of grand-child breeding.

While at the Gardens, this week, I have also been tracking down several of those unusual plants which I commented about last week.

It turns out that one is Pomaderris glauca - the specific name means grey, or dusty, or something simlar. Certainly it has that grey appearance on its leaves. It was good to be able to see the plant "in the flesh" at the Gardens, and to be able to confirm the identification which was at best "probable" from the botanical descriptions and line drawings. Strangely, this species does not make it to the (otherwise wonderful) PlantNET site, but it is clearly described in Gwen Harden's Flora of NSW.

The other plant I saw last week, and photographed, is Eriostemon trachyphyllus (in the old books), now probably Philotheca trachyphyllus. The main identifying characteristic was, as I observed at the time, its size. It grows to a large shrub, almost a small tree. That alone makes it quite distinctive in that family of small to medium shrubs. This boring photo (at left) is just there to demonstrate that this plant has a definite "trunk". Technical photos are sometimes necessary, no matter how boring.

Other photos (not good ones, unfortunately) were displayed last week in the Bodalla State Forest blog.
*****
Incidentally, for those of you who understand these things, my brand new Macro Lens (actally a Nikon "Micro" lens) is back with the company for servicing, or replacement, as it would not "register" that the lens was connected, all the time. For the money I payed, that is not good enough!


It ought click into position positively, and be ready to work. I ought not have to hold the lens in a particular position, to make it work!. I do hope "Fletchers Fotographics" are reading this blog (and Maxwells, the Australian Agents for Nikon). After all, what's the point of running a blog, if you cannot give someone a hard time, occasionally?

I promise to thank them all, most humbly, in due course, when I hear that the problem has been solved! Smile for the Birdie! Click! :-))

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

QUOTE-It ought click into position positively, and be ready to work. I ought not have to hold the lens in a particular position, to make it work!. I do hope "Fletchers Fotographics" are reading this blog (and Maxwells, the Australian Agents for Nikon). After all, what's the point of running a blog, if you cannot give someone a hard time, occasionally? END QUOTE
It would be nice to include the actual Fletchers shop which you purchased this item from as It was obviously not from my store as I would have Identified the correct lens for your use and looked after our local patrons
Alan - Fletchers MITTAGONG

Denis Wilson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Denis Wilson said...

(Replacement comment - to fix a silly typographical error - DJW).

Hi Alan

Fair comment. I would point out that it is nearly exactly 2 years since I wrote that jibe in my blog posting of 19 April 2006.

For the record I bought the Nikon Micro Lens at the (then) "Fletchers Fotographics" store in Civic Centre, Canberra. They did get it repaired (but it took more than 2 months), but since then there has been another fault occur (but I can still operate it - with some difficulty). The ring controlling the M and A focus setting has snapped, and it tends to move from one to the other, or half-way in between, uncontrollably.

As the store in Canberra has since left the Fletchers franchise group, it is fair that you try to defend the reputation of your company.

For the record, for everyone else's benefit, Alan's Mittagong store is my closest Fletchers Fotographics Store. And so I suspect that he is sensitive as it might look as if I bought it from him. I did not.

Regular readers of my blog would have been aware that I spent 5 months in Canberra for extreme medical treatment, and I bought the lens while living there, (to cheer myself up). I got the Micro lens when I bought the new Digital SLR. It is a Nikon D70S, and I like it very much (nearly all the time).

I have had my camera serviced by Alan (personally) over the two years since I wrote my original comment. I have been happy with Alan's service, and have bought subsequent camera equipment form Alan, and am happy to continue to do so (if and when finances allow me to upgrade).

As I mentioned, the shop where I bought the camera has since left the Fletchers Fotographics group.

So, there you are, Alan. Not your shop (for good reasons, because of my extended absence from the Southern Highlands). And the store in question has since left the group you represent. I trust that satisfies your legitimate concern.

Denis Wilson
Robertson NSW