Frank’s Photo Challenge – Signs

Tags

cake, Manchester, Manchester Museum, signs, Tuesday Photo Challenge

This week’s photo challenge from Frank (Dutch Goes The Photo) is SIGNS

https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/09/26/tuesday-photo-challenge-signs/

Cake or no cake – that is the question !!

What’s the answer?  ha ha !! 

Sign outside Manchester Museum

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Stones

Tags

Brougham, CCH, cemetery, Chorlton, Dorking, family history, gravestone, graveyard, Manchester, Penrith, Tuesday Photo Challenge

This week’s photo challenge from Frank (Dutch Goes The Photo) is STONES

https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/09/19/tuesday-photo-challenge-stones/

I’ve chosen some photos of gravestones for my entry.

As a Family Historian, I have a fascination for graveyards and cemeteries. A gravestone is often the clue one needs to move forwards (although actually backwards in time!!) in the quest of following a particular family line. I’ve spent many a happy hour pottering around graves, hunting for an elusive stone, and at the same time getting side tracked by unrelated memorials. The three photos are not of my family. (Most of my “hunting” was done pre-digital.) I can only wonder at the lost stories hidden within those graves!!

Brougham, Near Penrith

Chorlton Green churchyard, Manchester

Dorking Churchyard. I wonder if James lived up to his name !!!

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Dark

Tags

beech tree, Dark Hedges, Game of Thrones, GOT, Gracehill House, Northern Ireland, travel, Tuesday Photo Challenge

This week’s photo challenge from Frank (Dutch Goes The Photo) is DARK https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/09/12/tuesday-photo-challenge-dark/

Not one of my best shots, but I have limited time this week to come up with an entry. This one is of the Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland, made famous by “Game of Thrones”.  Sadly, GOT makes it popular with followers, so it is nigh on impossible to get a shot without people or cars in !!  When we were there, there was also a frustrated farmer driving a large tractor quite fast up the lane, no doubt making his point!!

Dark Hedges is an avenue of about 150 ancient Beech trees, which are now twisted and intertwined to make what seems like a mystical tunnel.  James Stuart built Gracehill House, the family home ca 1775, and the avenue would have been planted around this time by the family as an entrance to their Georgian Estate.

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Water

Tags

Albert Square, beautiful skin, bowels, circulation, DIgestion, fountain, Manchester, memory, travel, Tuesday Photo Challenge, Water

This week’s photo challenge from Frank (Dutch Goes The Photo) is WATER
https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/09/05/tuesday-photo-challenge-water/

Water is one of my favourite topics, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to remind you of some good reasons to drink it 🙂

Sadly the chaps in the photos seem to be doing quite the opposite!! Obviously too much chlorine in their water !!! 🙂

10 good reasons to drink WATER

🙂 Your cells are made up of 70 – 80% water, so it makes them happier.
🙂 Happy healthy cells = Happy healthy YOU.
🙂 Clearer thinking, 🙂 better focus, 🙂 better memory
🙂 Smoother, more comfortable digestion
🙂 More fluid movements (and no we aren’t talking digestion again) – this time it’s healthy joints!!
🙂 Clearer, healthier, more handsome / beautiful skin
🙂 Happier waterworks and kidneys
🙂 Better circulation, so that oxygen and nutrients reach those faraway bits like your fingertips and tootsies, not to mention all the cells in between, making them happy (See above!)!
🙂 Healthier lungs and breathing
🙂 A more fluid lymph system which means a stronger immune system to help avoid those pesky colds etc
🙂 More energy – YAY!!

So go on ………. You know you want to …………… have a glass or two of water

Fountain, Albert Square, Manchester

Fountain, Albert Square, Manchester

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Golden

Tags

Carmona, golden, Spain, Tuesday Photo Challenge

Back to Nature this week with some golden blossom, confettied on the ground. I spotted his in Carmona, Spain.

This is in response to Frank’s photo challenge this week = “Golden”.

See  http://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/08/08/tuesday-photo-challenge-golden

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Woods

Tags

Dorking, Leith Hill Place, Surrey Hills, The Lark Ascending, Tuesday Photo Challenge, Vaughan WIlliams

This week’s photo challenge from Frank (his fab Blog is “Dutch Goes The Photo”) is WOODS

See https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/07/25/tuesday-photo-challenge-woods/

A month or so ago, I took my music-loving, 92-year-old neighbour, Eva, to visit Leith Hill Place, childhood home of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Set in the beautiful Surrey Hills, at the foot of woodland, this house is a step back in time, full of musical history and a haven from our crazy modern world.

Eva loved it. She recalled seeing RVW around Dorking (our home town) when she was younger; he sported a too long jumper and dishevelled hair!! Nonetheless, an amazing man who produced some breath-taking music, including the beautifully evocative “The Lark Ascending”.

My photos show a stunning tree with the most photogenic roots, beautifully set off by some recent rain ……… and a glimpse of Leith Hill Place, itself.

 

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Street

Tags

Manchester, Mateus Ballon, Northern Quarter, street art, Tuesday Photo Challenge, West Didsbury

Frank, whose fab blog “Dutch Goes the Photo”, has set “Street” as the topic for this week’s Photo Challenge. 

See  https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/05/23/tuesday-photo-challenge-street/

Dare I say – this challenge is right up my street (Ha ha!!)

Even though I now live in a small town in Surrey (UK), surrounded by countryside, I’m still a city girl at heart, having been brought up in Manchester. I LOVE buildings and architecture and can walk my little socks off quite happily just treading pavements for hours!!  Street art is another fascination of mine so features a fair bit in this post.

Photos included: old fish market building in the Northern Quarter of Central Manchester plus some street art there. The last three photos are of birds painted recently in West Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester, by Brazilian artist Mateus Ballon.  

With the recent shocking and tragic news which has shaken Manchester, this post feels particularly poignant. Manchester is a great city, with fabulous people, but sadly others with their own agenda have done the unspeakable and sent shock waves round the world as a result. My heart goes out to all those affected.   

 

Frank’s Photo Challenge – Travel

Tags

Chiang Mai, Kamphaeng Phet, Thailand, travel, Tuesday Photo Challenge

Frank, whose fab blog “Dutch Goes the Photo”, has set “Travel” as the topic for this week’s Photo Challenge. 

See  https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/05/16/tuesday-photo-challenge-travel/

Travel to me means  …………….

Just being in the moment, a sense of freedom, a source of inspiration, a childlike excitement of new places, people and stories, a delight to all my senses, a gentle recharge.  

And let’s not forget the all important opportunity to take far too many photographs. Ha ha !!

Some of our happiest travels have been in Thailand, so I have included a collage of our trip back in 2012. Most of the images were taken in Chiang Mai,  but both the branch with the pretty flowers and the separate photo of me on the old bike were taken at the ancient site at  at Kamphaeng Phet.

 

Frank’s Photo Challenge – RGB

Tags

blue, bluebells, green, Polesden Lacey, red, Tuesday Photo Challenge

Frank, whose fab blog “Dutch Goes the Photo”, has set “RGB” as the topic for this week’s Photo Challenge.  What does this mean? Simply, he has set the challenge to post a photograph featuring red, green and blue.

See  https://dutchgoesthephoto.net/2017/04/25/tuesday-photo-challenge-rgb/

Yesterday found me at the wonderful National Trust property “Polesden Lacey” in Surrey. The garden is quite a picture at the moment and I hoped to capture some red-green-blue shots. Wandering around it seemed increasingly unlikely and at one point I even considered stalking a robin to see if he would oblige in posing next to the forget-me-nots, but sadly it wasn’t to be. I came home thinking that I had failed.

Then I started reviewing my photos and was amazed to find two shots with the right colours showing. I just hadn’t realised at the time!!!

One is a shot of the cottage garden.

The other is of some old seed packets showing vibrant pictures of the flowers – and voila – red, green and blue are there. I’ve included a few more shots of these, as I was rather taken with them.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Finally , I’ve included a photo which I took last week in the late afternoon sun, featuring some BLUEbells, dandelion and the red brick of our house.

And there was me thinking when I first saw the challenge that I didn’t stand a chance!!  Nature has come up trumps. 😊

Bach Flower Essence – Gorse for HOPE

Tags

Antrim, Bach, Bach Flower Essences, flower essences, Giant's Causeway, Gorse, Hope, hopelessness, optimism

Yellow is such an optimistic and hopeful colour. It’s therefore no coincidence that after the grey miserable days of late winter, Nature blesses us in early spring with plenty of yellows on her landscapes. Golden crocuses, fluttering daffodils, tufted dandelions, cheeky kerria japonica, delicate forsythia, and striking gorse.

I took the above photograph of gorse recently at the Giant’s Causeway, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland.  

Dr Edward Bach chose Gorse as his flower of hope.

When all hope seems lost, when we choose to give up rather than fight, when life has lost its vitality, Gorse essence can inject some optimism and hope back into life. It’s like a ray of sunshine in an otherwise grey day.   

Our emotional and mental makeup plays such a big part in our healing, and hope is one of those bright beacons in life that makes all the difference between giving up and having a reason to get up in the morning.

Hope and optimism raise our vibration, thus helping to improve our overall wellbeing at all levels.