A new camera!

'Boys and their toys...' I know what my girl Pam is thinking! It's not a toy, it is a sensible purchase.

The planning for our USA trip is slowly gathering steam. We have booked flights, made just a few reservations at hotels here and there, and we're changing our mind all the time about where we might go, what we might do. Good. But no matter where we go, no matter what we do, we'll be tourists taking photos. And my heavy big lump of an SLR camera would be a pain to carry around for eight weeks. So the sensible purchase was a much smaller, lighter camera that could still take nice garden photos, but also fit into a jacket pocket.

Anyway, on with this afternoon's first test run of the new pocket digital camera, done of course without bothering to read the instructions, in the time-honoured tradition of boys with new toys.

Alyssum close-up for starters. Not bad.

Faucaria in bloom.

Sempervivum. Yep, looks just like one.

Curry tree berries.

Tibouchina 'Groovy Baby' showing signs of returning to health (once I pulled off all the flower buds and let it put all of its energy into growing leaves and roots – I might not let it flower until it's an established healthy 'teenager' of a plant. It's been a sick baby so far.)

Nasturtium foliage. I'd like a car in that colour and pattern.

Grevillea 'Peaches and Cream.

And second-last, Pam's indoor plant, her Peperomia.

Last of all the girl who I think of as 'bossy boots, the class prefect'. She's a cute little plastic person we bought when we visited the White Rabbit Gallery, a truly captivating contemporary Chinese art gallery at Chippendale here in Sydney. She always looks so pleased with herself, and with the quite good first-up outing with my new pocket camera I feel something like she does at the moment. Pleased, but I hope not quite as bossy.

Oh, what camera is it, you ask? The nice salesman in the shop was adamant that the Ricoh CX2 has the best macro of the cameras on offer in my middling but not too cheap price range, and so the deal was done. Free carry bag, half price discount on the 16Gig chip and spare lithium battery, and a bit over $500 later, it was mine. It's just 10cm wide, 6cm high and 3cm deep. Perfect pocket size for the plant-loving tourist I plan to be.