I don't have a very good feeling about this trip - got a feeling that it's not going to happen, even though my tooth does seem to be improving, so while I hope I'll be leaving the country on 7 Feb, I'm not counting on it. The fallback plan is for a week in Tasmania, where at least they have a decent climate - unlike here in sweltering Sydney!

But I figure that potential disappointment on the Euro-front shouldn't mean I neglect learning how to use my new digital camera, so I went for a roam around the neighbourhood this evening, playing round with exposure bracketing and closeup flash on poor defenceless flowers which just happened to be on bushes at the side of the road (when I get a bit better at this, perhaps I'll start cultivating the art of harrassing complete strangers to take their photos rather than just sticking to landscapes and vegetation). Fun - although the results aren't going to win any awards, I know - adding them in here in the hopes that in future I'll be able to improve and then I can look back and be really really really embarrassed.

Inner West twilight. 29-Jan-2005.

Flash flower. 29-Jan-2005.

I've been reading round the internet a bit about blogging recently and reading through some blogs to get a bit of a feel for what's out there - amazing the variety. Found a great food blog tonight - Chocolate and Zucchini - which looks like one to watch for the cooking-obsessed. This week's chocolate-dipped apricots are really making me regret that my source of fabulous dried apricots here has dried (hah!) up - I used to be able to get fantastic ones (Australian, of course) - now I only seem to be able to find the Turkish variety which are far too sugary and not nearly apricotty enough.

The other site relates to my new-found interest in digital photography. It's classed as a meme apparently. It's basically a weekly photo competition - every week PhotoFriday posts a theme and anyone can enter the competition for free simply by sending in the permanent URL of their photographic entry - a good lead-up to competing in competitions run by sites like Worth1000.