Solitary, a Wordpress weekly photo challenge
So fitting for the “solitary” theme. The summer weather has broken and the forecasted morning fog has turned into a gray, cloud cover sort of day here on the West Coast.
I thought about draining all the colour out of these photos but there didn’t seem much of a point.
Seems to me that today’s atmosphere did a fine enough job.
Thought about and composed for the Wordpress weekly photo challenge, solitary.
Sunlight joy
I bought this house in late summer and I think that I mostly fell in love with the light. If you've been following my blog for any amount of time you've probably noticed that my photos usually feature sharp sun/shadow contrasts.I love that.This house was well thought out. Bedrooms on the east side get the morning sun, the kitchen and dining room on the west get the evening shadow play.Yesterday afternoon, the sun was filtering into the kitchen thru the shade garden maples.
Just too lovely not to photograph.
And too tempting to resist making shadow crocodiles!
And this video is so lovely it's making me cry these days. Chloe just saw Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and now it's our favorite song.
A new Sunday Whirl...I know, I know, it's Tuesday
Well, I may be the last person to submit a Sunday Whirl this week.:)Walt wrote the words this week with the directions to pick one word and make it the title and theme and use the other twelve words in the poem.That's weird for me, I suck at titles and rarely title anything, but here goes:
sensuous tresses silent colour lilting saunter rich artist lyric exterior silhouette alliteration peeringArtist...find your museInto the trees outside my window is woven a sensuous, black lyric of silenceIt’s no use squinting and peering into the blackIt snakes and saunters thru the trees and reflects all colour back into the exterior creating a mute space inside my headThis poem is a bait dangling in the void between me and the treesTo lure an alliteration, or a clever phrase to the pencil in my handSo I can begin to construct a silhouette thru the mist of my thoughtsAnd now, in the rich black tresses of the silence, birds begin to twitter faintly,A kind of music echoing in the void, a low wail of almost silent flutesOr the sighing of a wind that is lost and weary of passing thru the dead treesLeaving a lilting tune in my foggy brain
round here
If I could live in perpetual autumn I would. Round here doors are open wide to the warmth, sheets are dried in the afternoon sun and suppers are served late. Right now I’m sitting at my outdoor table and Morgan has come to see what I’m up to.I hope this lovely late summer weather is here to stay.I love it. I love it.
There are tons of cherry tomatoes in the garden, sun-warmed, bursting; we can’t keep up with the harvest. I bought a nice fresh celeriac and I’m going to make some lovely celery root salad to stuff those cherry tomatoes with.I remember having that salad in France, in Annecy, sitting at the shore of Lake Geneva, watching the swans float by. Warm tomatoes and this yummy salad always bring me back there.
The maples in the shade garden are slowly dropping leaves. Crisp and dry under foot, soon they will blanket the garden and put the ferns to bed and help feed the rhodos and next spring’s snowdrops and bluebells.
There are loads of asters in the garden. The dry Vancouver summer has really helped them thrive. My brilliant plan worked. This spring I planted fifteen stargazer lilies in the east garden under my bedroom and at night the fragrance seeps in thru the open window. Their sweet perfume is so lovely and, inside, one stargazer lily in the middle of a vase of garden flowers perfumes the whole house.
Did I say I love it?I do.
Everyday life...What? Fit into a form? Me? Tough, tough Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge
I’ve fought and fought with this challenge. What I wanted to do is express my everyday life with images and then I realised that, being a true Bohemian, well everyday life just has to fall into place as it can.So here is a small idea of my everyday:My everyday is exotic. Yes...terrifically exotic. Unusual, extraordinary, one of a kind exotic.
It’s beautiful and fragile. Very fragile. Cut down with the tiniest cold draft fragile. Handle with extreme care, be careful what you say fragile.(Just ask R, he’ll tell you)
It’s strong and resilient. Weather any storm, stay in the flow, circulatory system, Dunkirk spirit strong.
There’s art. There’s always art. There’s a sliding scale of traditional to way out there art. It’s ever changing, ever evolving, ever opportunistic will-make-art-of-anything art.
And there’s magic and whimsy...there’s always and most importantly magic and whimsy.There.That’s everyday life round me.
Not easy being around me...or being me for that matter. Just hang on for the ride. :)
Photo Friday: Interiors in my kitchen
I was wondering what to photograph for this challenge. I've got pics of interiors of everything from catherdrals to closets but nothing seems satisfying.
Then I reached for something in my kitchen and I thought, you know, the interiors of the cabinets look good!...as you do.
I know, I know, it looks like a bric-a-brac shop. I've heard it all before.
And so what about that New Year's resolution I made several years ago to take one thing out of the house each time one new thing comes in?HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....
...HAHAHAHA.....ehm
So...to market with jet-lag is such NOT a good idea
You know, I really can eat lovely, fresh potatoes with butter every day, but it's probably not a good idea waist and hips wise.So, running some errands with C and getting back into city life meant a trip to the market.
I have this really bad habit of not writing lists.Every time I need to remember something I move my "always" ring from my left hand to my right where it bugs me and I remember. That doesn't work so well for groceries though, and especially when you have a butterfly brain like mine.What did we need again?Oooo, look at that beautiful pumpkin...we need some for the autumn...don't we?
Wait...look at the rich colour of those aubergines against the whiteness of that cauliflower! Wouldn't they be a pleasure to look at in a basket in the kitchen?Wait...we don't need aubergines...what is it we needed again?
Oooo, we really do need that perfect cabbage!
No...I'm pretty sure we didn't come down for hand-knitted sweaters.
But what a stellar day in Vancouver!
Lunch...that's what we need...
...and a little quiet time eavesdropping on the "boy's club" below.
Bread! We need bread...and eggs...maybe some nice cheese, some ham...and that perfect little gem of a pumpkin.
One potato, two potato, three potato, butter, parsley and salt
Over two months away from my Vancouver garden and it shows!Happily the potaoes seem to have done very well.I dug up just three plants and look:
There is a yellow fleshed variety, a pink blush type and a lovely jem ruby one.Boiled the smallest ones and served them with butter, salt and some fresh parsley. Yum.
That's all you need. :)
Today I had to say goodbye to England for a few months
But before I had to leave there was still time for one more photo.
Time for a walk to gather some treasures,
time to say goodbye to my friends,
time to bake one more crumble from the garden blackberries, apples and plums,
time for an open fire in the living room,
and time for one more Oxfordshire sunset.