Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 11 September 2026

Cats, babies and roses never perform on demand. To me that is a most accurate statement.

Luckily I was never in the business of taking portraits of families and dealing with crying babies. Just taking portraits of my own was enough. My daughters, and especially my granddaughters, knew I would never ask them to smile.

My female cat Niña imposes on me her daily routine. I have to perform to her demands.

For most situations when I use my Fuji X-E3 it will do what It is supposed to do. But there are times when it will not. This is called resistentialism. That is an inanimate object declaring to me that it has free will and will do as it pleases.

This scan of my best late season rose, surprised me with a large beautiful bloom. But the other little one kind of tells me, “So there Alex, I am small today so take it.”

Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ does perform without any of my requests and have unusually  bright red new growth that I marvel when I see it.

I know that if I showed the scan to Rosemary she would smile without me doing anything.

Rosemary always performed. But sometimes when I looked at her I could not tell what she was thinking.  My Rosemary, we were married for 52 years, was an enigma who would surprise me on every turn every day.

My baby, my Rosemary perhaps was also a cat.