Well met by Waterloo Lake

Yes, well. Leeds involved a lot of mud.
I've said before that I really like Leeds, still, I'm not accustomed to being knee deep in mud when I visit there.
But we did go to help sister in law with her allotment and we spent a happy couple of mornings lugging large bags of stones and bark around and sprinkling it very decoratively (but also, usefully) around the muddy bits.
And we met a bee lady and SiL's patch has a pond busting at the seams with frogspawn and it only rained a bit.
On Saturday afternoon, while Barney went to a stamp fair and SiL had a bath and recovered, I met a fellow photographer. One of the first to visit this blog and indeed, one of the first whose blog I visited. We met under the Oakwood clock...(one day I shall certainly take a picture of this) and we knew we'd have no trouble finding each other...cameras all over the place (he has two) and then we went for a wander round Roundhay Park.Following a conversation we had, I feel obliged to point out that the sky wasn't this colour*. However the camera seemed to think it was and I liked the result so it stays. Slightly enhanced even. Also, filtered with neat image because it was a very noisy picture :)
Roundhay Park is an excellent park and I do hope the council don't fence round all the lakes because it wouldn't enhance the view at all. I suppose it might stop a few children from drowning there but really, I feel it's up to parents to stop their children leaping into lakes and drowning, not councils. I never let any of my children leap into lakes and drown so I think other parents ought to be able to manage this feat too. See?
Anyway, me and my friend had the sort of delightful walk, which possibly only photographers enjoy, lots of sudden stops and backtracking and interrupted conversations and pauses to adjust lenses and allow each other the perfect view. Swans performed for us
and moorhens did the opposite of what we wanted. And here's a duck for Mel :)
The rain held off and filled the sky with good clouds and it was really very very nice.
We saw magpies (there were six at least...Barney says six is for gold which is a nice thought)
Then there was a splendidly healthy trek back up a mountain (no? well a steep hill then, Leeds has a few of those and Roundhay Park grows on several sides of some of them).
On the walk back through Gipton Wood (where I didn't get lost, though I must say I wasn't totally confident about finding SiL's house without at least one or two steep backtrackings) I saw a two squirrels leaping from branch to branch and out of twenty or so pictures, one came out (very pleased about that :)
And now I shall go and take my cold to bed...where on earth did I get a cold? Frangelita, I believe it's yours....would you like it back?
Nice to be back :)
Sleep well.

*The green bits weren't anyway. The blue was lurking around here and there though :)