New camera joy, Rotten Wood and appalling stink

My old faithful Kodak camera finally conked out for good last year.  It was only a 4.2 megapixel camera but always took lovely, lovely shots.  So we decided we needed a new camera, set a budget and got a little fujifilm finepix compact camera.  Full of anticipation we have tried all the different modes.  It's pants.  Really, really, really, REALLY pants. The pictures are too overexposed, you can't focus properly with it, there's no view finder ( thought I could get used to not having one but I can't) and we hate it. We realised that it isn't about the megapixels - it's all about the lens. The Kodak had a really great lens hence the good pics.

So I started looking on ebay to see if there were any of the kodak camera that we had for sale. There were, all bids unsuccessful so in the end we have got a second hand Nikon D40 digital SLR. And it is justawesome!  Just getting to grips with it but it's looking pretty fab so far.

We trundled up the road to Rotten Wood so that the girls could let off some steam and to play with the camera a bit.

There aren't many signs of spring there just yet but the amazing brilliance of all the green moss is spectacular. I particularly like the almost furry look it gives to some of the branches.  There are lots of interesting fungi about too.  We all love the fallen trees as they are so much fun to clamber about on.

And of course, we had to visit the elephant tree.

The only downside of our little trip was an appalling stench near the entrance. Like something dead. Honestly, I was retching at one point and I really thought I was going to be sick  - it was so bad. Fortunately, it did disappear after a while but it was quite possibly the nastiest smell I've ever smelt. Not the usual manure/muckspreading kind of thing... definitely a rotting flesh kind of thing.... ughhh... And even now a few hours later I keep catching a faint whiff of it. Yuk!