Create Tuesday

this weeks theme is trees....things are so busy here I feel like I fail at this each week!!!!

However....i have loads of photos of trees..i am surrounded by them.....i walk amongst them every day.....love their beauty....strength....branches and bark....I am amazed by the other life that grows on them ...moss...lichens...fungi...the fact that they are home to birds and insects and I love their age....centuries go by and they are still standing....magical.

This picture was taken early morning....spring....the branches still bare and the maize stubble in the foreground bleached by the winter.....i have intensified the sunrise to almost white and softened things abit....hope you all like it.

Shipping Forecast......

For as long as I can remember I have loved listening to the shipping forecast.....on the radio at 5am or some wee small hour of the night.....snuggled up in my bed warm and toasty...I follow the forecast around the British isles.....from cape wrath to Ardnamurchan Point.....light vessels to light houses.....mapping in my mind the points around the coast.....raffrey head.....dover....lyme regis....portland...lands end...whitby....irish sea..rockall....english channel...mull of galloway....I find it incredibly comforting to listen to....fair isle...dogger...lundy....fitzroy.....I feel I know my place in this world....my little corner laid out on a map in my imagination....I picture the men on the fishing boats tuning in....plotting their course to stay out of the extreme weather systems.....I feel grateful for them when the sea is calm and visibility is good and send them good fortune and hope when its storm force ten with squally snow showers......

Today has been full of squally showers here.....our walk today,the lodger and two girly friends...had us sheltering against the wind on the lea side of a ancient oak to stay sort of dry..... one mad girl threw herself into the lake for a swim.....she seemed happy.....which is all that one can ask....







Ok where are the biscuits??

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends in blogland.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kay..




( graphics from kerry at the graphic addict with thanks)

Painting envy.

I am always in awe of artists who can paint the elements......

the last week here has been blustery....gales have battered our island....the floods have come and gone.....homes and lives have been lost...the power of the elements astound us with their force....we think we can control things but we are so out of control at times.....

I saw this picture in a Christies auction catalogue..it is by Sir William Orpen, who I am ashamed to say I had not heard of before...he was an Irish artist who later moved to America...he was born in 1878 and died in 1931...this portrait is expected to be sold for 1 million dollars...wow.

i love it...the way she is leaning against the wind...her dress buffeted around...her scarf fluttering away from her...clutching her wrap...a few strands of hair escaping from under her hat....clouds scurrying by..the colours reflected in the choppy waters of Dublin Bay.

If I had a million to spare I'd go to New York and buy it....a moment in time..a chilly, windy day in Dublin Bay....to hear the gulls crying..the waves crashing...the sea spray scenting the air......bracing...free....alive....
to paint that is truly art...

A night with the girls.

I can't remember when i last went to the movies...picturs...flicks...i think it was to see the da vinci code....a while back....however when asked at the Halloween party if i wanted to see the new twilight movie ..i happily accepted the invitation....

now i don't read papers or even watch the news much but somehow i knew the cult status of this film and books....i watched the first dvd and got the picture.....i could see the attraction through my old eyes!!!!

so tickets were pre booked and last night myself and my two twenty-something friends went to the cinema.....






.....my companions with their youthful looks and hip clothes thought they were to old to be seeing this...but as we lined up with the rest of the expectant crowd i can tell you we where a mixed bunch!!!!!
there were the true fans...with their homemade headbands with 'Edward' written on them...a gaggle of about twenty....the looky likies with pale skin..ruffled hair and dark eyes (the dark circles under mine did not go amiss)and that otherworldness that showed dispise to us mere film goers 'who were not in the gang'......then there were the families....the grans taking their grandchildren...the pairs of boys joshing in the queue...as we waited for the sea of popcorn to be cleaned up from the previous showing we watched those that had already seen the film stream out...a certain smugness that they knew the ending and we didn't written on their faces......
finally we where let in....the headband girls racing for their seats with us casually walking after them...all of us hoping beyond hope that they would not be sat behind...in front..or alongside these over excited teenagers....

..the film was as expected...the hype and trailers better than the full quota....the make-up was slightly bad..the dialogue faintly disappointing...and the special effects..in parts...somewhat laughable.....everytime the brooding Edward appeared the headband girls swooned and unfortunately the rest of the cinema laughed.....the ending also got a giggle..but also applause......
However it made me think....once I was a headband girl....caught up in a story that you wished was real....I can relate to those girls and their dreams and fantasies...oh to be Bella and fall in love with an impossible dream....the longing and wishing for something other that the mundane to transport them to a more exciting world....better than school and the restrictions of parents....
We all need a fantasy in our lives...

Go headband girls go!!!

Reflections in nature

The world is reflected in watery puddles at the moment....the lake..so still this evening.....the light going fast....owls...ducks...rooks and pheasants all singing goodnight......











I found this stick on the ground....amazing that it looks like the mallards on the lake......
There is beauty in everything around us....just look.

Bare Branches

After two days of high winds and heavy rain lashing the countryside it seems our winter landscape has arrived.....
the branches are bare and leaves lie in drifts about us....the oak and beech the only ones to hang onto their autumn coloured finery.....
The mist lies low in the valley these mornings...a cloak of hidden beauty....
lakes have appeared with mercury surfaces where none were before and changes the landscape...i am reminded of the book 'the children of green knowle' the floods, the magic and the sleeping land waiting for springs return...

Beauty in the Atmosphere

Early morning on my trek along the seafront at Brighton....well Hove actually....the sun is trying to burn through the clouds making a bright fire on the horizon....set against the rusting remains of the old Brighton pier...it looks stunning......






.....later in the day i visited an old haunt....Ditchling Beacon....a landmark high point on the Sussex Downs.....the atmosphere was really eerie.....a mist was laying in patches over the distant view......like someone had pushed cotton wool into the hollows.....it was truly beautiful.....

Many years ago I used to live at the bottom of the Beacon....during the summer months we used to regularly walk up the hill to the national trust car park where the 'ice cream man' was...usually a dog or two in tow....and my girls of course...Mr.Whippy never tasted so good after that climb......
My occasional visits are now always tinged with many memories....this was such a wonderfully happy place....





...this path leads to the famous Jack and Jill windmills......

create tuesday

At last i managed to put something together for this....

The photograph is of a bunch of dried out samphire on shell beach, studland....i loved the bleached out colour against the sand but liked it even more in black and white.....i enhanced it a bit and added the words....i love putting words into pictures..sort of gives it another dimension.....

Remembrance

For The Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon


For all our soldiers...yesterday and today.....

anthropologie has arrived

I read lots of american blogs and lots of bloggers mention 'anthropologie'....well it has now arrived in england......

note to self....try to get to regent street to investigate!!!!

Gloaming....

As the nights are drawing in it is a bit of a battle to get cleared up at work and out for walkies with The Lodger......
the thought of walking in the woods in the dark...well.... maybe not to be recommended......
however for the moment we are managing it....



The lodger is all ears and sniffs as the evening approaches and the pheasants start to roost for the night...the owls in the distance are waking up.....


He follows trails of scent like Sherlock Bones....nose to the ground and tail aloft..racing this way and that....the forest floor is ankle deep in fallen leaves..a golden path in the gloaming....hiding decaying branches and stones for me to stumble over.....
an arrow of ducks fly over us and the swans on the lake shine through the dusk in reflection.....

as we near home the first bats are flitting around the tree tops....
and behind the bank of tall trees the full moon is rising....
winter is coming.....I can't wait.

how many puds?

Shooting Lunch last Saturday......a sea of pannacottas with spiced plums and crushed amaretto biscuits.....
Photo taken by my lovely assistant who for some reason (...looks 'mazing!!)photographs all my food on her mobile phone....but had forgotten it, so used mine!!!!