Apologies

Snap from a recent walk with Eve up the Bowglass path

I must take this chance to apologise the terrible state of my snaps on this and The Crofter blog of late. In the main I put it down to the decline and then demise of my developing thermometer. I have been having problems keeping the developer at the correct temp these last few weeks. Seeing we have been having less than balmy conditions here of late and, the darkroom central heating [ portable heater in the centre of the darkroom ] being about as effecient as The Muirneag ferry on a breezy night in the Minch, it couldn't surely have an issue with over-warm developer one would think. But since the negs were about as perfectly developed as David Cameron's marriage tax policies, and dense in the extreme [do I sense a theme here? ], I figured it must be too hot a developer or the wrong developer, the wrong amount of developer, too much agitation or too long developing.

Look, I may be old but I did read the times for developing correctly, my stopwatch is still working despite a trip into water from time to time. I have only 3 developers and each had been giving me issues. Similarly, the liquid measuring implement had not changed proportions since last year and I generally agitate the developing tank about the same for everything I use - except of course for when I don't. Obviously.

However, on close inspection of the thermometer I had been looking at for the last few years, I notice the alchohol in it seemed to have had argument with itself with part of it deciding to stay up in the high notes and the majority of it returning to base. Now, it didn't take me long to work out that something like this may have an effect on the correct temp to the tune of around 5C. Doh!

Later in the day while passing through the shop in town I meet Mr & Mrs Windy. Mr Windy is not only a fellow film fotographer but also a lab manager so I figured this might be the man to ask for advice. " Heat the thermometer up slowly till the two parts merge then cool it down again" came the informed reply. I tried this and at the first attempt had merged 99% of the alcohol.

Brilliant, I thought. Do it again and all will be sorted. I think I might have overdone it a tad because the whole thing exploded. ARGH!!!!!!

Mr Windy has left the island for a few days.!!!!!!!!