This was taken yesterday on what was officially the first day of winter. A ladybird on a surviving summer bedding plant. Very mild Christmas in the uk!

Well i wish that i could say that we are snuggled up indoors with the tree lights blinking playing Xmas tunes whilst we look out of the window watching the lovely snowflakes turn the garden white. But in fact it’s one of the mildest Christmases we have had in a long time – there were Ladybirds in the garden yesterday! – the other half is drilling and sawing creating a new bedroom and i’m working (and blogging). Oh well! have a good one.

I got this cheap iPhone macro lens off eBay and considering it was under a tenner i think the results are pretty darn good! You have to get in extremely close but whaddaya want for a few quid! It comes with a metal ring that you stick to the back of your iPhone around the camera lens and the macro lens is magnetic so when you want to use it just pop it on. I think i’d be tempted to put a protector on the back of the iPhone first before sticking rings to it in case the glue leaves a mark on the phone. Incidentally you can screw on a wide angle attachment and some lenses come with a fisheye attachment too. I’ll see how i get on with it and i might buy myself a more expensive olloclip one day.

PHILIPS DS8550/10 Fidelio Docking Speaker for iPad/iPhone/iPod

Do yourself a favour and avoid this.  It was meant to be a Christmas present to me so i’m glad i tried it out first! Before i get to the annoying habits/faults the first thing i noticed when i switched the dock on was the sound quality and i really don’t think it’s that great. I can hear a great deal of hissing and popping noises on a lot of songs (something that’s mentioned a lot on the Amazon US reviews i’ve since discovered) – i’ve tried several files from normal quality mp3 to very high quality, all of which play crystal clear on all my other devices but it’s there on most songs on this dock.

When you power on the dock it rams the volume up really loud even though your ipad/iphone was on its lowest setting so you’re left scrambling for the volume.  Also it just randomly switches itself off half way through songs for no apparent reason. I read that it also randomly switches itself on too at high volume. Not at all what you expect for a £200 dock.  So i’m sending it back and i won’t bother with a replacement – at least not a Phillips one.

Frame created with Polymagic app for iPhone