This is one of my latest photographs taken yesterday at the National Botanic Gardens of Wales. It was a lovely bright day - just right for photography and I had a wonderful time. I contacted them a few days beforehand to reserve a mobility scooter so that I would be able to get about and see the whole site. There are not many places that offer the hire or loan of a scooter especially in Wales, although I would be very interested to hear of any other photogenic places which offer this service.
I took hundreds of photographs and although I have put them on the computer I haven't had time to sort through them yet and decide which to keep. I usually choose about 300 shots from a visit to somewhere special or an accumulation of smaller local outings and have them made into a photobook. I used to print out my favourites and store all my rest on a hard drive, either way I never looked at them apart from the few that I have framed and put on the wall. So for the past year I have been having photobooks made which is much cheaper than paying for printer ink and photopaper and printing
Although I am awaiting a total knee replacement operation and can't walk very far I promised myself that I wouldn't sit at home doing nothing and would get out and about as much as possible - my goal for this year is to take at least one photograph a day as a record. In March when the weather was lovely and warm for a few days I decided to take myself off to another local garden which is open to the public. I was keen to see the daffodils and snowdrops and the vegetable garden waking up. I rang ahead and reserved a mobility scooter. It was my first real outing on my own this year and it felt like a bit of an adventure, I was very excited. I packed my cameras, lunch and a drink and drove the few miles to the gardens, when I arrived I paid my admittance fee - the loan of the scooter was free, and I set off towards the walled garden. However when I was half way there the scooter came to an abrupt halt and wouldn't start again, the battery was fully charged so it wasn't that but I was well and truly stuck! As it was so early in the season there was nobody about and I couldn't see any of the gardeners, I knew I wouldn't be able to walk back to the entrance - so mild panic set in. Then I remembered that I had my mobile phone on me and on it was the number of reception which I had called to reserve the scooter, luckily there was a full signal and I managed to get through to the same person who had issued the scooter. She said she would send one of the gardeners out to find me and see if he could get it started. He arrived shortly afterwards but was unable to do anything so he phoned back to reception and they said they would send someone out to rescue me.
A few minutes later a young lady on a quad bike roared up and screeched to a halt beside me. 'You need a lift back I believe?' I had my doubts about climbing up on the machine but beggars and choosers and all that so I accepted as gratefully as I could. The next few minutes were truly the most scary experience I have had since I had a root filling at the dentist's. The girl drove alarmingly fast and I had to hold on to a conveniently placed handle on the 'dashboard' to prevent me from falling off, especially when going round corners - well slight bends really but it didn't feel like that at the time. But she got me back safely and although I didn't see or photograph the spring bulbs I certainly had my adventure.
Another of my recent visits was to a steam railway - I love steam trains! I didn't need a scooter or wheelchair as there was very little walking involved and the staff were so helpful, explaining the layout of the station and the location of the loos etc. I remember visiting the Barry scrapyard for old steam engines in the 1980s and I took lots of photos of the rusting remains there, most of them were bought by preservation societies and restored.
My next planned outing will be to Slimbridge Wetlands Centre to photograph the wildfowl there, hopefully there will be lots of 'babies' which will make cute subjects.
No comments:
Post a Comment