TILT AND SHIFT (12/04/10)

We left Haltwhistle this morning, I wish I could say the preparations were uneventful, unfortunately this was not the case. We had a bit of a whoopsy, not of the magnitude of the earthquake in China but  non the less a catastrophe. We have converted the camera to tilt if not shift. I left it on the table with a long lens mounted. Molly jumped off the chair and caught the strap. Lucky, the whole caboodle missed her as it crashed to the floor. Not only would I have a camera body to repair or replace but a hefty vets bill as well. No it didn’t work so I decided to carry on to Kielder and investigate things at my leisure.

Kielder reservoir is the largest man made lake in Europe and, perhaps naively, I was looking forward to two hundred square miles of forest and about half that area of water. You get what it says, there is, without doubt, water and definitely trees , spruce and pine being farmed on a scale I found impressive. That’s virtually all there is apart from Chaffinch, no sign of Robins even.

The good news is that it is better than a motorway service area.

So having committed to over a week in the area, Northumberland Water aren’t daft one has to pay up front, they have obviously been caught by people with powers of discrimination stopping one night and fleeing whooping with joy for an industrial estate in Rotherham.

Crying does no good so having walked the lucky dog I settled down to investigate the damage to the camera. The obvious problem was the lens mount which had deformed. Only four screws, two of which had pulled loose so I decided to take the stainless lens mount from the camera…………..Hell fire!! There are a lot of bits in there. Straightened the mount at the local garage, plywood, glass, lens mount, glass, plywood and a small hydraulic press…………..Weee! Almost flat. Another hour of reassembly and the camera works, well almost, auto focus is hit and miss as is aperture. To celebrate off we toddled to the pub.

     The Anglers Arms…………….The pub looks as if it has been beamed in from an industrial estate, it sells good beer and the Geordies are a grand people. It just proves that looks can belie the truth.

        The road home, fine weather and a good end to a day that had an inauspicious start.

It got better. I stopped for a newspaper on the way back and read that David Cameron has, should he win the election, invited me to join him in government. Sounds wonderful, sound even better when he sends me an expenses form!!