Splash of colour on a rainy day

Flickr views stats are still all messed up, like yesterday. As I type this, it shows 33 views just below the photo, but about 130 on the "Show more stats' graph. A petty thing when compared to the "big picture" of the world situation, but most annoying all the same.

All three photos posted this morning were taken two days ago, on 6 August 2016. Unlike the other two, this image was taken in the small garden at Rod Handfield's acreage - the other two were growing wild in the forest. As you can see from the tiny raindrops, it had been raining and the forecast was for more rain in the morning and thunderstorms in the afternoon.

I found the whole day physically and mentally exhausting, and I'm still feeling the effects two days later. It was a great day, too, thanks to friend, Sandy! She very kindly picked me up around 8:15 am and we drove SW of the city and SW of Millarville to Rod Handfield's acreage. For a number of years, this has been one of my favourite places to explore, as Rod's forest tends to be full of all sorts of beautiful finds. It is one of the two best places that I know for mushrooms, the other being Brown-Lowery Provincial Park. This year has turned out to be great for fungi, thanks to all the endless, torrential rain we have been getting the last few weeks, apart from the scattering of sunny days. This year has so far had such weird weather - a very mild, dry winter, a spring that was as dry and hot as a summer, and now a wet, thundery summer. We were expecting this year to not be good for mushrooms.

We met a group of other interested people, most of whom we didn't know, and we searched the land for fungi. Right at the start, I was telling Sandy that on the last visit there, maybe four years ago, we had seen a beautiful Amanita muscaria mushroom growing just a few feet from the start of the walk. Sure enough, there were several growing in exactly the same spot, which was so exciting. Later in the walk, we saw two other patches of absolute beauties of this poisonous species. The rain was spitting during our walk, and the forest was so dark, but amazingly, some of my photos came out well enough. Thanks so much, Karel, for organizing and leading this trip and for sharing your knowledge with us!

Sandy and I left the group around lunchtime, to go looking at vehicles at one of the dealerships. In the last year and a half, I have had to put far too much money into repairs for my poor old 17+ year old car and finally, I knew that I had no choice but to replace it. The muffler and a few other things died several days ago and instead of spending a fortune on repair, I decided I would rather put that money towards a new vehicle. I had been thinking about replacing it the last few years, but now, enough is enough! Just hoping that my car lasts long enough for the drive to the dealership. The noise it makes is just awful, from the faulty muffler and from a dreadful rattling noise, so it will be a most embarrassing ride, lol. I'm down to deciding between two models and it is not an easy choice. However, after doing hours of research again yesterday, into the early hours of this morning, I'm not so sure I am going to be able to get the car that I think would suit me better. It has proven to be such a popular car and very few are available. The only ones that the dealership has are not safe colours to drive and also don't have the particular features that I want. So, now, I am more confused than ever and have no idea what I am going to do. I might even have to get my old car repaired (almost $5,000) after all and then waiting months to get hold of the car I want/need.