You need the birthday card that's sitting in my desk drawer ......
It shows a bloke (probably like you?) tipping a pint back and says, "On your birthday have a sup. In fact, have another sup"
You open it and there's a later picture of him and the comment, "Just make sure you don't end up arse up!"

I looked up the big word in brackets - whiteness caused by an overall lack of pigments. I'm guessing that its parents both had the same recessive gene for it?
Super sharp images and educational too - can't be bad

Dunno how I missed these. I like them - especially the brick kiln. I grew up amongst kilns exactly like these

Nice how you can capture them behaving quite nonchalantly with a long lens, such as #4 for example.

Not only do you get to use some amazing equipment but you have visited such a wonderful array of locations where it has been put to very good use.
Thank you for sharing it

The weather was kind (for a change) and brought out all manner of small creatures
These were all taken with a K5 and a Pentax SMC 'A' 50mm f2.8 macro lens. I don't know which is better - this one or the Takumar version?

There were Brimstones wherever you looked



And wherever you found brambles you found Gatekeepers



Since we were staying in Lulworth, at the HF walking holidays house, the appearance of Lulworth Skippers was, perhaps, to be expected
although I never noticed the little lacewing to the right of it until I processed the image



This was the first Marbled White I had ever seen



Wherever there was water there were dragonflies - mainly Common Darters like these.
This one is a male



This one is female
I can only assume that the bars on the wingtips serve as navigation markers so that others can see their wingtips when they are in the air?



Their apparently delicate wings are deceptively strong and fantastically engineered as this close-up shows


Not the most handsome of beasties though !

I don't know anything about today's fancy lenses because I can't afford them so here's a cheapo list that you can buy off Ebay for under £20 and try them out anyway.
I'll bet you end up keeping them.
you might try a Pentax A series 35 - 70mm zoom. It's a great carry round lens with good IQ albeit not that fast at f3.5 - 4.5 but ISO 400 can deal with that if need be.
Pentacon's M42 fit f3.5 30mm is another really good one - razor sharp and capable of severe crops that you'd think were taken by a dedicated close up lens (the similar 29mm is a dud by comparison so leave it alone).
Also, If you sell your 100mm macro you will struggle find another so I'd hang onto it.

They're both excellent but No.2 floats my boat (a bit more than No.1 !)
Congratulations

Sounds like the pair of you have gone totally Ying Tong while John goes round in ever decreasing circles

"'Flippin eck, 'e's photograffin me. Wot shall I do?"
The look on Having a Drag's face is priceless