The rain that we've had for the last couple of days seemed to have dried out by last night. However the forecast was for showers in the morning. "Take the umbrella", I muttered to myself as I tried to make my way past 8kg of plaintive, tabby coloured meowing and leg rubbing when I got up at 04:15 and shuffled toward the shower.

By the time I wended my way back from the shower to the study (again through said plaintive meowing and leg rubbing), packed the notebook, got to the kitchen pantry and delivered a scoop of breakfast into the bowl to avert the impending pre-cockcrow starvation, and got out the door, I had completely forgotten about the forecast and left the umbrella behind. No matter, there was little cloud in the sky. But as I walked to the station the cloud built back up. As I was just about to reach the shopping centre there was a sound rather like hoofbeats coming my way rapidly. "WOOOOMPF", said the clouds, as they proceeded to dump "showers" which were equivalent to a whole bunch of very large fire hoses linked together onto the heads of all of us heading to the station. (Which, admittedly, wasn't many at that time of the morning.) Thankfully I was close enough to an awning to seek shelter and wait for it to pass, which it did within a few minutes.

Upon arrival at the city it was clear that there had been showers there too. A bunch of planter boxes in Harris Street contained red and violet plants which were dotted with the drops of earlier precipitation. Strictly speaking this shot should have been a job for the 60mm macro, but the best lens is the one you have at the time especially when you see a chance for an unplanned shot like this. And it's not like the 12-40 is any slouch at close in work, or indeed any work within its range of view.

In other unrelated news, this afternoon the back neighbours reported that a large snake had crawled over the fence into our yard. I saw it heading back for their yard just before I started typing this but didn't have the camera with me at the time. Not that it would have mattered as this one was beyond even the sterling 12-40's width capabilities, and probably would have been pushing the theoretical 7-14's (slated for release later this year) boundaries. It just kept going... and going... and going as it headed back for the gap in the fence. I'd estimate 2 metres end to end. It was a diamond python, so not one of our venomous species... but one that size could easily take out a Malchi and indeed a (closely related) carpet python in Newcastle did exactly that to a Malchi which was left outside in a dog kennel last March. Lilly is therefore being carefully watched when she's let out into the back yard until the Wildlife Rescue guys can encourage Mr. Python to relocate.

Also 17:00 saw the close of entries for the Royal Easter Show Arts And Crafts competition. Curiously I was thinking of entering my shot from this day last year into the Urban group, but decided that my heart wasn't really in it so for the first time in 3 years I've let it slide.

Last Year