home decor and garden are very famous in the world

Driving home this week, I pulled off the road as we reached the valley and got out my camera.  I sensed a little bristling of impatience in the car  "Mummy, why do you need another picture of that view, you've got loads already?!"     He was right of course ... my son, cutting down to the essential in life.  Shame that my essential and his essential don't always coincide ....

So -  angel that he is -   he bore with me for a whole 45 seconds while I clicked away, happy and then we were back en route, relieved, content and in the throws of a discussion about when is a picture not just a picture, and what is a good picture anyway!!

I'm sure he got out the car thinking, "that's it, she's  lost it!" ...  but that doesn't matter.


So what was the view that couldn't wait?  This little road that winds its way down to our village, my eye is always drawn to the solitary tree and the soft colours that change so beautifully through the season.

No matter what my children say,  I'll still take the pictures and I still enjoy those short moments in the day when I stop dead in my tracks and say Yes!

Just one of the wonderful things about the blogging world is that you can get instant and honest opinions from a huge number of people on just about any subject.  In the past I have asked your opinion on paint colour for shutters, and window treatment in our guest cottage but today, dear friends, I am asking you to apply your technical mind !!  OK,  not too technical, because I wouldn't understand a word of it, but I'd like to know what solutions you use for storing all your photos.

At present I am using Picasa, but I have a couple of issues with them, including the unreasonable amount of space they require on my computer and rumours of google accessing my database via my photos.  Urban legends maybe, but whatever, I think I am ready for a change.

I want a system that allows me to download my photos from my camera, or possibly from the internet;  I want to be able to crop, enhance etc, make a few buttons, play around with fonts.  I like to store an original of each shot, and to file the reworked version by theme.

I'm looking at Adobe Elements, but I'm not sure if the basic version is interesting enough, and of course I don't want to spend megabucks on the professional one.

So what would you advise me to use?  What do you use? Are you happy with your system.  Thank you so much for taking a moment to help me on this one. 

Gibson asked me to tell you that he'll give his favourite sock to whoever leaves  the best suggestion - and I bet you don't get an offer like that everyday!!