Fire and Ice

Gosh, it seems so long since my last post here. I mentioned an arthritic knee in a recent post, I have finally had the operation. A complete knee replacement. I have not been up to using the PC recently; after coming out of hospital I was too poorly ( aaahhh!) and then whilst I couldn't bend the knee properly I was unable to sit at my computer desk for any length of time as I had to sit sideways and rotate from th waist to use the keyboard. Still, well on the road to recovery now and raring to get back to my old habits.

I have picked a couple of fairly photos to illustrate this, my first post of 2011. I called the post "Fire and Ice" and it will soon become apparent why.

The first photo is of a brazier and a roaring fire from an evening back in July. A bit of a barbecue and get together. I just snapped the fire to see how it would come out. I think I like the resulting image although I am sure that with a proper camera it could have been a much better photograph. I don't know if I have mentioned it before but the camera I use is a Samsung Digimax A503. I make no apologies as it does everything that I want it to. I usually use it on automatic even though like most digital cameras it has many user controlled modes and settings.

The second photo is of icicles which formed on our guttering during the very recent cold weather spell, in which we saw some of the worst snow in the UK since 1963. There was a thick covering of snow on the roof, and during the day as and when the temperature rose above zero, the slight thawing gave rise to some spectacular formations.

And from the front of the house

My son broke off one of these icicles from outside his bedroom window to show his gran. She could hardly believe it and at 99 years and several months she hardly had the strength to hold it upright. It was cold for her though, even though we wrapped some tissue around it, so I had to take the shot very quickly.

Well having broken the ice - so to speak - I am hoping that I will be posting regularly again from now on. More of my photographs for fun soon then.

Real statues in Ronda

As a comparison to the photos in the last post I have included here some photos of statues that we saw in Ronda, a town in the mountains above the Costa del Sol. Two of them were outside the bull ring and the third was in a nearby park, I will leave it to your imagination to decide which one was in the park. I did not make a note of the names of the people concerned but will be trying to find them via the web - I will add them here if I am successful.

matador with cape

 lady

 matador addressing bull

Are these photos art? The subject is art? I was intrigued seeing a question on the web recently aboout this very subject and am currently writing an answer to the question in a Squidoo Lens. I will give the link as soon as it is complete and published.

Living Statues in Fengirola

Just back from a holiday on the Costa Del Sol, Spain. The street entertainment over there includes people drssing up as statues and collecting small change for performing  ( or not as the case may be). these are three we saw at a market in Fengirola, not far from Malaga.

the invisble man

 space pirate

 mother Teresa (as a young nun?)

they will stand ( or sit) still to give the impression that it is a statue But will move every once in a while to delight ( frighten) the kids. Especially if someone makes a donation. For instance we dropped a couple of euros in the pirates box and he proceeded very mechanically and stiffly to produce a bent coin ( piece of eight?) from his belt in exchange.


Have seen them in the UK but they seem to be very prelavent in Europe.

More piccies of the hol to come

The summer is passing so fast...........

and the weather forecast is so dreadful here in the UK. Looks like we had our few days of sun back in June! Anyway, it has been so long since posting on here that I just gotta get something down.

I have been away for a weekend with my wife, we have been busy booking holidays ( now that I have a date for my knee replacement operation ), our 41st wedding anniversary has come and gone and of course there is so much time spent looking after MIL. It seems that since she went into a residential home, we have even less time to spare as her own home has not been sold yet and we are still looking after that as well.

But here are a couple of photos for your perusal:-

Another sunset from outside my back door

I can never remember ( must look it up) what the name of this butterfly is; is it red admiral or painted lady. (Edit: Well it looks like a painted lady then.) Seen on lavender in a garden we visited on the NGS scheme

Here's me complaining about the weather ( such a british thing!) and we had a lovely couple of days at Cleeve Hill near Winchcombe in the Cotswolds. This shows St Peter's church at Winchcombe from near Sudely Castle. Note the sky!

St Peter's is known for the gargoyles which it has on the roof, I didn't count them but took several photos, this is quite heavilly cropped in Photoplus, my software of choice ( free) for editing my images.

 Here I am failing to take a decent timed shot of the both of us in the garden referred to above. My excuse was that it was so sunny and bright that I could not see the flashing led on the front of the camera. I must have counted the seconds too fast!

OK laugh if you want but it all adds to the fun of taking photographs, and we did atake it again quite successfully but that is another story, as they say.

more garden photos

As I was saying in my last post I do tend to take a lot of photos of my garden, here are a few more. This time some of the "little areas that make my garden my own. I also include some of the flowers brightening up the place at the moment. Largely I love greenery, lots of shrubs and bushes and high hedges. I like to feel enclosed, is this a freudian thing? I don't even think of it.

A small bridge I built with timber left over from building the deck. There is a "dry river bed" under the bridge which I filled with slate chips, but the bamboo seems to have taken over one side and the lilac on the left.

There is that ramblin' rose again; it seems to have had a really good year with a number of flowering shoots. It's best year ever.

Another flower from my parents old garden. I do love these daisies ( Marguerette, I think). they are something else that just takes over if left to their own devices.

A collection of the flowers in my upper garden, wouldn't be complete without a photo of the day lilies. I only have the one colour but they have been spread around forming the better part of one whole border. Such a pity they last for such a short time.

This is the other route to the middle part of my garden, I call it the forest route, the first route being the bridge shown above. The slabbed path is lines with the trunk of a eucalyptus tree I had to cut down as it was beginning to get just a tad too high for my plot. The broken slab is the result of dropping one of the sections of the trunk whilst moving it into place. Forget the plastic sacks, I am remodelling a nearby border and they contain samll pebbles which had been laid over the earth and which need another home. No, I don't throw even stones away!

Thanks for looking, next time I will add a few shots of our culinary plants, Love that fresh picked taste.

around the garden

I love taking photos of the garden. The flowers, the sunsets, the plants and the spaces between them.

I also take photos of the constructions that I build with "scrap wood". This is a seat in a quiet corner almost walled-off by trees and shrubs

Note the flattened plants at the left-hand front corner. I had just trimmed the hedge when I took this shot and those clippings have to go somewhere.

The next is a place for sitting in the sun , quite near the house so handy for a quick bite / drink when too much housework is getting me down.

This next photo is a rose which was a christmas present. It is still waiting to be found a permanent home but seems to be OK despite still being in a pot. My garden is so full of shrubs that it is in dire need of an overall to find some space for a few flowers.

On the other hand this rambler has been growing in a sheltered spot for a long time. Originally a cutting from a plant I remember my father planting when I was a small boy, almost 55 years ago. Ithe cutting must be 25 years old but has never grown. Dying back every year to almost ground level. This year after a cold winter and a sunny spring it has given the best display ever. Dad would have liked it.

what I've been doing

My internet friends will have read that I have been installing new kitchen cupboards. It has taken me a little time ( a fw weeks) and my other half has had to put up with boxes of kitchen equipment all over the house, but I have at last finished it - well apart from a few minor touches. Here are a couple of shots to show how it has come out.

I thought it would feel good to have a little free time at last .................... but my wife's only comment was, " and the next job is ...................!" Oh to be young and single and carefree. No I don't really mean that, do I?