Sometimes it's the simple things which work best.

I spent the weekend at the wedding for my friend Amanda, a summer wedding with humour and love and loads of people who know and care about the couple. It was the culmination of months of planning by Amanda and it showed on the day. Perfect setting, the best mix of people and a day to remember. Of course I wandered around with a camera and took more than enough pictures to cover the day.

Faced with 200 odd images, which had to be black and white (not my speciality), I was looking at the best means of processing them. I grabbed my copy of Photoshop (supplied by the local representative of Adobe in Thai night market for a bargin price), the book on Photoshop I had and started out. I was playing around with the NEF format files using Nikon's Image View software when I noticed something. It's actually better than Photoshop ! The colour correction is better and the sharpening is crisp and easy. Im astounded and now have months of images that Im less than happy with. Simple is sometimes best.

That's also the case with cooking. I had this jar of green olive tapanade sitting on the shelf for ages and decided today to use it to cover a loin of salmon. An even coating from the jar, a hot oven and 20 minutes of baking results in a nice, moist piece of salmon with a tasty topping, ideal for eating with a salad and a crisp white wine. Which is what I did with the radio and what was left of the Sunday papers. The next two days, Im told, will be wet and windy. Severe weather warnings are mentioned. Hard to imagine on a quiet, still summer evening.