Moonlight walk

I walked to St John's this morning to celebrate their midweek Eucharist. After the service I bought two jars of chutney from the home preserves table to take home. We have dozens of jars of new marmalade, a couple of jars of last year's Clare found hidden among the remaining jars of last year's batch of jam, but none of last year's chutney, as the little that was made was eaten long ago. 

After lunch, I drove over to Llanrumney to visit a bereaved family. Next Thursday, I have two funerals following each other at Thornhill in the afternoon, the first a burial, following a service at St John's Canton, and the second one a service in the Briwnant chapel before cremation.

During the day, a chilling wind arrived and by early evening under a clear sky lit by the full moon, there was frost then a sprinkling of snow, but the wind then abated, no more snow fell, and the temperature hovered around two degrees. Quite late in the evening, Clare fancied a walk, so we went out for a brisk moonlight stroll in Llandaff Fields. I couldn't resist taking a camera with me for a few hand-held night shots. It's ages since I last used a camera at night, and had to rely on auto settings, although I found that my custom program settings were still in place on the Sony Alpha 55 I took with me.

When we returned, I took the camera out into the moonlit back yard for a couple of moon shots and to try and capture reflections of the moon on a frozen puddle on the cover over the garden table and chairs. After a few unsuccessful efforts, I mounted the camera on my tripod, setting it up in the dark with some difficulty to get the right angle, took shots using the timer to avoid trigger vibration, and long exposures. The moon shots, using my previous exposure settings were as good as they could be, and the photos of the frosted surface reflecting moonlight were interesting. Although well dressed against the cold, I was  thoroughly cold by the time I finished, but it was worth it.