not too cold for some

The winter sun was striking low over the lake as I raised my tiny idiot-proof camera to take a picture of a terrier plunging into the icy water. (I mean that my camera is tiny and idiot-proof, not that it’s proof against tiny idiots, though of course that would be a useful specialist feature.)

A deep voice at my side said smugly, ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to point into the sun like that with the camera you have there.’ I turned to see a man carrying a camera about the size of a microwave oven. He proceeded to show me that with his superior camera he could do this, that and the other which would enable him – unlike me – to take a photograph facing straight into the winter sun. He was wearing a big show-off hat, so I ignored his advice. Always distrust a photographer in a big hat, I say.