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 Outside the office the sky clears, and it is early afternoon, so everything is in order to take the pictures of a beer mug, a bottle with beer in it and a heartshaped pastry decorated with icing. This was a present which the reactor had given to all of it's guests at the opening of a large new building last year. The beer bottle and the beer mug are both decorated with the new logo of the institute. This depicts the new building and the iconic dome of the old reactor. A picture of the buildings with the presents in the foreground is needed to illustrate the cover of the annual report of the reactor users.

The weather is cold, it has just been snowing heavily. The snow does not rest on the ground, it melts away. Take the equipment and two sets of presents out of the office and over to the reactor turnstile, take all the stuff into the compound and go over to the place selected for the picture. Set up the small tripod with the plate on top, and the tripod for the camera. Then realise that the ID card is missing. Rush back to the turnstile, the ID card is there on the ground where it had fallen.

Carefully cover the metal surface on the tripod table with a paper table cloth. Fix it to the vertical pillar of the tripod with a cable binder. Put the beer bottle and the glass beer jug on the surface. A single careless motion, knock the bottle over and it drops onto the pavement and shatters. The smell of German stout is just like Guiness, it reminds me of an Irish public house. Take the second bottle and place it on the ground next to the camera bag. There are only two bottles, if this happens again the picture will have to be taken next week. Next, try to remove the transparent plastic foil wrap around the heart shaped pastry. The icing of this pastry has become so brittle that it comes off with the wrapper.

Take the second heart shaped pastry, and decide to leave the wrapper on this one. Take a bite out of the other pastry, the one with the broken icing. The pastry is so hard that it would break your teeth. And it tastes old and horrible. It should have been left in it's wrapping. Arange everything on the little platform and take the shot. Start to move the things about, for a different view. Then, the light goes, and it starts to snow again. Put the lid on the camera, cover the presents, and wait. A security person comes over and wants to know what this is for and demands an ID. Then he walks off again.

Wait untill the snow is gone, and the clouds have moved aside to show a blue sky. The picture will look like summer. Even though it is so cold and windy.