Today is the national park day so I headed to the Hamra NP. I was hoping to find out more about the park but very early on in the guided walk it transpired that it was going to take a lot longer than I had patience for. I took the first opportunity to get ahead of the group and did the rest of the walk guiding myself while cursing at the light which was never quite right. Too much, too little or too diffused. Then I came across a view which certainly had potential, but just as I was setting up the tripod the sun disappeared behind clouds. So I waited. And waited. And waited. After over half an hour of waiting I decided that the view wasn’t that good anyway and left. So I do have patience after all, about half an hour’s worth to be exact.

Back at home I was wondering what to do. I was still bummed out about the morning, but then I saw that it was completely overcast again so I thought of the cowslip I tried to photograph yesterday (without much success) and I needed overcast weather for it. So I packed the gear again and hiked to the cowslip and set up my tripod just as the sun came out. I just can’t catch a break today?! Looking at the sky, I realised that the clouds had quite simply evaporated and I could forget about my overcast conditions. I decided that the pictures just weren’t happening today so I headed to Hembygdsgården for a cup of coffee instead. Feeling better just for sitting in the sun, I figured that the day wasn’t so bad after all.

The lily of the valley grows in carpet style abundance at the Hembygdsgården, so I wanted to check them out while I was there. It turned out that they hadn’t started to bloom yet, but the beautiful blue of the common dog violets was shining at its best. I don’t have any particularly good violet pictures, I don’t know why I’ve always found them so difficult to photograph… so imagine my surprise when I saw this lonely flower just begging to be photographed. And the light was right, at last!

My spirits thus uplifted, I headed home. When I was walking past a small park area, I noticed something yellow sticking out from the grass. A closer look – yes indeed it’s a cowslip. And not just any cowslip, but one with an orange tinge. I hardly ever see those! This time it didn’t matter what kind of light I was given, both sunlight and shade worked fine.

On the way home I kept thinking how the day had turned from a complete waste of time to a perfect day out. And it wasn’t over yet – I remembered the grape hyacinths on my neighbour’s lawn so I got down to get them also. Shaded works better for them but I had one sunlight idea, except by now… a bank of clouds had drifted in again. I waited for a couple of minutes and then decided that grape hyacinths are not my thing anyway. It didn’t matter – the violet and cowslip pictures had made my day already!