This morning I received a photographic challenge from Kanan Buta. This requires the posting on Facebook of a black and white floral picture each day for five days, on each of which a challenge is to be issued to another friend. I have plenty of pictures of summer flowers that could easily be converted to monochrome, but it seemed to me that a challenge accepted in November should be photographed currently and that these colourful subjects should be chosen for their form. In discussing this with Jackie, she came up with the perfect suggestion for this, the anniversary year of the commencement of The Great War. This was a skeletal poppy head, stripped of all flesh yet still standing in the garden. Here is my first day’s entry:
On this the first bright, finger-tingling day, taking my Hordle Cliff top walk, I happily obtained a more than ample haul for my five days. I will include one in each of my subsequent WordPress posts.
As I walked down Downton Lane, a cloud of dust billowing from Shorefield Road alerted me to road repairs that were being undertaken. A cutting blade was being applied to the edge of the tarmac. 
The rooks are nesting again and soon Shorefield Road will be reverberating with their cries.
Frost was coating the fields and hedgerows, and condensation, reminiscent of that described in my ‘Armistice Day’ post, lined the bus shelter in the corner of which a daddy longlegs had met its end.
The sea was calm; The Needles, sharp and clear, pierced the pastel skyline; and a woman with a pair of dogs crunched along the shingle.
We had a little less disruption in our internet access today, which is why I had the confidence to wait until tonight to post my offering. Given that the fourth engineer is booked in tomorrow, I do hope there will be difficulties in the morning, otherwise it will be like a visit to a doctor, when you suddenly feel better whilst sitting in the GP’s patient chair.
This evening Jackie produced a splendid pork casserole for our dinner. This was accompanied by crisp carrots, brussels sprouts, and broccoli; roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Dessert was steamed syrup sponge and custard. Jackie drank Peroni and I drank Via di Cavallo chianti 2012.