Thanks for your comment Alandra. I just wanted to tell you I am here to stay! I love this site but am quite busy at the moment. I'm not worried with contests. I know I like my photos and thats all that matters. It would be nice for someone to give some constructive criticism though as to how I may improve some of them. If you look at my old photos, you can certainly see that I am learning something. Thanks for being a regular visitor to my gallery and I will make for of an effort with other peoples in the future. I've realised that my photos are still getting looked at (not bad scores either if I may say so myself) just not commented on. I guess there are plenty of people in the world that are just as busy as me. At least people are still visiting our galleries, even if they may not have time to comment. So I just want to say a big THANKYOU to everyone who has looked at my gallery - I really appreciate it, especially you Alandra.

Thanks for your nice comments Alandra and Mel. We have lots of winter roses growing around here. I've given up on calling them by their proper name as I can't spell it. As far as the monthly competitions, I think that Mel knows about them but I'm not too sure what its all about and neither is Shirree I'm guessing. I think there are too many great photos from great photographers on here though for me to go into something like that. Wouldn't have much of a chance so may as well just save my time for taking more photos. Its really only a hobby that Mel got me started in on again. She wants to do it for a living, but I'm just happy with what I do and playing around on my computer. I'm going to learn some new tricks soon though as I have just ordered a nice big book on Photoshop Elements. I'm not getting much feedback on my photos anymore so might just leave it for now and play around with some editing instead. Thanks for all your nice comments though. The little "chats" have been great.

very pretty, an unusual shade of pink, aren't they. Here in Canada we call these Christmas Roses - (Hellebore) There was a small clump of them when we moved here 20 plus years ago, but they disappeared. Should try to find some more, as they are very special, blooming in wintertime for us.

look forward to seeing the cake decorations.

To all that don't know, my sister handcrafted these for on top of my wedding cake. I will post a photo for all those to see what a wonderful job she did. I just love winter roses but these ones are nearly finished.