Travel Theme; Sunsets

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Barbara

I love taking photos of sunsets, and have managed to enter plenty of them already in the Weekly Photo Challenge : Silhouette!  In the end I posted 4 sets of photos, and I had lots more to chose from.

My most striking sunset photo however is one that I haven’t posted yet.  I took this photograph while moored on our boat in Newtown Creek on the Isle of Wight.  We used to go there all the time on our ‘Shadow‘ which was a motor boat, which we had moored in Portsmouth Harbour.  Now we have a Colvic Countess which is a small Yacht that we moor in Chichester Harbour, and it takes her a lot longer to get to the Isle of Wight than the Shadow used to!  Also Chichester Harbour itself is a beautiful place to explore by boat, so we have rarely gone far from home recently.

The sunsets in Newtown Creek were usually beautifully tranquil, but this one really stands out as to me it looks as if the sky is on fire!

Sunset as if the sky is on fire, Newtown Creek, Isle of Wight

To find out more about this weeks Travel Theme, hop over to ‘Where’s My Backpack?‘

PS!  Silly me, I was wondering why people  were liking my post ‘Travel Theme: Bright’  that’s because I called this one Bright rather than Sunsets!  Sorry for any confusion :-s

PPS!! now I’m feeling even sillier!! This week’s Travel Theme is Soft! Sunsets is from August 17th

Posted in Blogging, Boats, Isle of Wight, Photography, Travel, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge; Renewal

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Barbara

I very rarely am up early enough to see the dawn, let alone photograph it.  A few years ago we decided to take our boat from Windsor to Rochester in the Medway at the mouth of the Thames.

The river Thames is tidal until Teddington, and at low tide there is sometimes not enough water to navigate some of the stretches between Teddington and Putney.  We needed to be at Teddington in time for the first lock in order to make it to the deeper parts of the river  before low tide, so I was up at an unfamiliar time, floating along a very tranquil Thames as the dawn was breaking, and managed to capture this lovely photograph.

Dawn on the River Thames

For other interpretations of this week’s theme have a look at:

Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

Posted in Boats, London, Photography, Travel, Water | Tagged , , , , | 40 Comments

Oh Help!

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Barbara

I’m 1 stone above my ideal weight and 2 stone off the weight I want to be!

For a former anorexic, this is not good news!!

The last time I was this heavy I was about 7 months pregnant!  No wonder I am finding my new fitness class hard work!!

A friend of mine sent me a link to a ‘Fitness Tracking Website‘ where you can enter your current height & weight, your ideal height & weight & what you eat every day to see how many calories, and how much Fat, Protein & Carbohydrate you eat.

I haven’t weighed myself in months, maybe years. I hide my weighing scales, there was a time I used to weigh myself every time I went upstairs.  I don’t want my daughters getting into that trap, and I am easily tempted.  If the scales were in the bathroom, I would weigh myself, constantly.

Anyway, the last time I weighed myself I was about 1½ stone lighter than I am now, which I was just about comfortable with.  In my teens until I was 30 I wanted to be 3 stone lighter than I am now and wasn’t far off it.  1½ stone more was a massive achievement for me.  Now i’m 3 stone heavier!!  Not funny!!

I am trying to do 45 minutes of exercise twice a week, and have joined a great club, but I wore old shoes for my first few runs & hurt my Achilles Tendon, so can’t run at all at the moment!  At least I don’t need a walking stick to get around now!! (Exercises from the NHS website for Plantar Fascia (which is related) have been absolutely brilliant).  I’m still able to do the circuit training, but I was too sore today to do the training after Monday’s session, so will have to wait till Next week unless I can make myself do a workout on my own??

Anyway, in order to lose 1lb a week, which is the recommended weight loss plan, I have to eat no more than 1290 Calories a day, 177g of Carbs, 43g of Fat & 48g of Protein a day.

Today I ate 1716 Calories, 304 Carbs, 60g of Fat & 37g of Protein

At this rate, assuming I still do 45 mins of a workout twice a week, I will lose 1lb by Christmas! 😦

I guess the 7 slices of delicious Baklava that I ate after dinner weren’t such a good idea!!

7 slices is probably more than the RDA!!

Posted in Getting old, Keeping Fit | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Travel Theme; Bright

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Barbara

The weather in the UK this summer has been a bit damp to say the least.  March was beautiful, and much warmer & dryer than normal.  Water levels in reservoirs dropped, so many water companies in and around London imposed a Hosepipe ban.

The day after the hosepipe ban was enforced, the heavens opened.  It rained for half of April, Most of May and all of June.  Everywhere was soggy.  One day in June at about 5pm I was caught in work for an hour due to a hailstone downpour that completely flooded the road and some houses and left ice drifts that we had to shovel out of the way the following morning!

Finally the water levels were deemed back to normal & the hosepipe bans began to be lifted.  Near the end of July, the skies cleared, and August was warm & sunny.

We decided to go down to visit some friends in Barbrook in Devon for the bank holiday weekend.  We arrived late on Friday night and the sky was so clear we spent half an hour star-gazing before even having a cup of tea!  Then the clouds came.

Saturday was cold but sunny, however on Sunday, the skies opened.

We decided to go to Combe Martin for  drive & a bit of an explore.  The rain got heavier and heavier!  Combe Martin is a seaside town, which is famous for having the Guinness world record for the world’s longest street party.  We donned our most waterproof wet-gear and briefly went for a walk to see how well it was working.  We soon gave up & with water running down our faces and dripping from our chins, we found the rest of the holidaymakers in Devon sheltering in café’s and joined them for a warming lunch.

During our walk we passed lots of very damp looking seaside shops selling buckets & spades, crab nets, inflatable beach toys & beach mats.  One particular shop had a colourful display of sunflowers and windmills that were being battered by the rain.

Despite being completely drowned, the display still managed to retain some of it’s vivid colour, and so I award it the coveted title of my entry in the Travel Theme; Bright

Sunflowers and Windmills remaining cheery in the rain, Combe Martin, Devon, August Bank Holiday Weekend 2012

To find out more about this weeks Travel Theme, hop over to ‘Where’s My Backpack?‘

Posted in Blogging, Devon, Photography, Travel, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Barbara

I have never seen such beautiful use of toilet rolls! Stunning 🙂
I just had to reblog (or do I mean re-bog?)

flungroses's avatarstreams of perpendicular thought.





Toilet roll installations!

(Sakir-Gökcebag)

via [iGNANT]

View original post

Posted in Photography | 4 Comments

I’m Dyslexic…. so i’m allowed post this!

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Barbara

I love ‘Amateur Transplants‘ although some of their material is seriously inappropriate, especially for doctors! The video above is only a few seconds long.

This one below is also is brilliant (about 3 minutes long), and reminds me of the kind of song that my friends & I would have tried to write in school, but we weren’t that good!

One of my favourites is ‘Nothing at all’ but I’m not posting that here! I think their humour might appeal to Le Clown or Madame Weebles

Everyone else… enter at your own risk!!

Posted in Dyslexia, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

And now for some poetry….

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Barbara

No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon
No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day
No warmth – no cheerfulness, no healthful ease
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds –

November

Thomas Hood (1789 – 1845)

Photo of Tower Bridge in fog by Simon Goldenberg

Posted in Life, London, Photography, Poetry, spoken word | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge; Geometry (2)

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Barbara

I was about to crop these photos, and then I found my kaleidoscope camera on my iPad 🙂  Now to pick my favourites…

Below is a slideshow of the rest… hover your mouse over the photo to find the navigation arrows

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here’s the Weekly Photo Challenge details;

This week’s photo challenge is guest hosted by Quintin Lake of Quintin Lake Architectural Photography. Read on for more about this week’s theme and his photography tips!

Geometry. This challenge is about the shapes and rhythms that make up the geometry of our world. Many photographs of any genre have an underlying sense of geometry, but I often like to make this the main subject of my work. I think it’s the most important aspect of a photograph’s success. This could be the patterns of the natural world up close and personal, or the rhythm of your local buildings. The above photograph, “Positive Negative,” depicts the Paula Rego Museum in Lisbon where the sky created an equally strong element of the composition as the building. The image has a totemic quality, softened by the passing cloud. I had waited for this cloud to move into the perfect position within the frame. The colour, light, and form of the image emphasize this geometry.

Share a photo that means GEOMETRY to you!

Tip: Once you have found a good subject that contains an interesting geometry, try to crop tightly into the subject to make an unexpected composition. Your goal should be to create an abstract composition so the image is more about underlying shapes than a literal representation of the subject matter itself — by doing this you create art rather than a snapshot. (I did it Grannymar!) By Quintin Lake

Posted in Animals, Art, Photography, Symmetry | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge; Geometry

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Barbara

My husband took these stunning photo of a Swallowtail Butterfly quite a while ago. I was tempted to crop the photos to create a cryptic photo, but I like the photos too much as they are!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here’s the Weekly Photo Challenge details;

This week’s photo challenge is guest hosted by Quintin Lake of Quintin Lake Architectural Photography. Read on for more about this week’s theme and his photography tips!

Geometry. This challenge is about the shapes and rhythms that make up the geometry of our world. Many photographs of any genre have an underlying sense of geometry, but I often like to make this the main subject of my work. I think it’s the most important aspect of a photograph’s success. This could be the patterns of the natural world up close and personal, or the rhythm of your local buildings. The above photograph, “Positive Negative,” depicts the Paula Rego Museum in Lisbon where the sky created an equally strong element of the composition as the building. The image has a totemic quality, softened by the passing cloud. I had waited for this cloud to move into the perfect position within the frame. The colour, light, and form of the image emphasize this geometry.

Share a photo that means GEOMETRY to you!

Tip: Once you have found a good subject that contains an interesting geometry, try to crop tightly into the subject to make an unexpected composition. Your goal should be to create an abstract composition so the image is more about underlying shapes than a literal representation of the subject matter itself — by doing this you create art rather than a snapshot.

I’m Quintin Lake, an award-winning architectural and fine art photographer based in Cheltenham, UK. I’m a former architect and author of Drawing Parallels: Architecture Observed. Visit my blog to share my enthusiasm for architectural photography.

Posted in Animals, Art, Photography, Symmetry | Tagged , , , , , | 23 Comments

My baby is all grown up!!

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Barbara

18 years ago today at ten minutes past midday, my first baby, a girl, arrived, took a breath and looked at me and her dad with an expression that said “oh… were you waiting for me?

10 days late, but worth waiting for, my beautiful baby girl

Maybe because she was late, she didn’t look like a newborn baby. Her eyes were wide open, and she wasn’t pink and wrinkly like most newborn babies are.

Today she becomes a grown up! I cannot believe how the time has flown. Why does my own childhood feel like it was so much longer than hers, and that I caused my parents so much more stress?

There should be cards for parents on their children’s 18th birthdays!! Congratulations! Your offspring survived to adulthood!! 🙂

Posted in Birthdays, Getting old, Life, Photography, Teenagers | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments