The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 is a bit of a jack of all trades - you can get crisp close ups with the minimum of fuss whether shooting from safe distance away, and also get cracking macro shots with the camera’s lens practically resting on your subject matter. Plus, that 28mm wide angle lets you capture the whole scene before you without having to step back too far.
The only things putting me off an unequivocal recommendation is that the zoom functionality is disabled when shooting video clips, the joystick that affords quick access to the most important settings in one go is too short, too small and thus tricky to operate, plus - that old argument again - you can now pick up a starter DSLR for round about the same price. That said, you won’t have the same focal range, and will need a large and expensive optic to achieve anything near it.