Merry Christmas to you all :)

Roses blooming in the snow

Christmas is just about upon us, so I want to wish each and every one of you a special Christmas, and a very Happy New Year.

Boats on the River Stour at Sandwich

It only seems a few weeks since last Christmas, a lot has happened since this time last year. My daughter is 8,000 miles away in Bejing, we miss her dreadfully but she will be with us for next Christmas, and I will be joining her in Bejing for the holiday of a lifetime in April, which will be wonderful – imagine the hugs when I get there

The Library garden in the snow

Since my last blog I have had some sunshine, and thanks to those of you who left me such lovely comments, they mean the world to me! Much to my surprise I had two of my photos included in the calendar which came free with our local paper – my friend at work spotted them, I knew nothing about it! I will show you the photos next time as I don’t have time to trawl through all my pics just now, but if you look on the left of this page you will see a photo of some blossom, that is one of the ones included in the Calendar. Spurred on by this I submitted two snow pictures to the paper, both of which made the following weeks edition,and I was contacted by the chief reporter of the paper who asked if she could come and interview me about my photography, I was truly amazed!! The interview was last week, it was good fun, and for a change I had my photo taken…not too sure about that one, but the photographer was just great, he had a look at some of my photos and gave me some really good hints and a lot of encouragement. The piece is going to be in the paper the first week of the New Year, I am going to let my work colleagues read it first, so they can have the first laugh

Winter sunset

The photos included in this blog are just ones that I have taken over the last few weeks, I hope you enjoy looking at them, and once again I wish each and every one of you a Very Merry Christmas xxxxxx

I spent a very happy lunch hour in this garden, I was the only one there….

…..apart from the horse sculpture that is!

Beautiful berries peeping through the snow

And finally the view from the gazebo

Snow and stuff!

 

The snow title is not a surprise to anyone living in the UK today I am sure! We haven’t actually had very much of the white stuff here, but I did get to take my camera for a walk on Sunday, walking on pebbles that are covered in snow is much easier than walking on just shingle! The sun was shining whilst I was out, to be honest everywhere looked just gorgeous, but it was very cold, so I was glad to get back to the fire after my outing. I walked up to Walmer Castle, hoping that maybe the garden just might be open for mad photographers like me, sadly it wasn’t, I only managed to take a couple of photos through the gate, I bet it was lovely in the grounds.

Feeling a bit down these days, cutbacks at work, losing friends, missing  my daughter, things like that ……I will bounce back, but its certainly taking its time this time round. I can’t get any enthusiasm for anything right now, and the thought of writing Christmas cards just fills me with dread, they will get done though.

I decided last night to download my Livespace blog to my pc, but it won’t work! I have already downloaded all 70+ photo albums and deleted the photos (if they don’t want my blogs they aren’t keeping my photos!!)  but will be very sad if I lose all my blogs, they are reflections of nearly 4 years of my life and nice to look back on. Looks like I will have to copy and paste the whole lot, that’s going to be great fun…of course I could transfer the whole lot to WordPress but that doesn’t appeal to be honest!

Day off work today, I have been clearing all sorts of trash off my computer, and as its bitterly cold outside and we have a lovely coal fire burning I think an afternoon sitting in front of the fire and TV, clearing out more junk from my life might be a good thing.

Keep warm everyone, wherever you are, hopefully a more upbeat blog next time x

In the Library garden.

Snow on the beach

Looking towards Kingsdown

Walmer Castle

A signpost for walkers on the seafront.

November 11th 2010

Once again I am re-publishing this blog for anyone who has not already read it, it just says it all for me. I hope you will forgive me for repeating it, it was entitled ‘Remembrance’ :

March 1945 - stationed on an RAF base in Lincolnshire were a 22 year old man and his girlfriend who was 21. He was a Flight Engineer on Lancaster Bombers, she was a parachute packer. On the night of the 11th March, the young man flew on a mission, by coincidence wearing a parachute that had been packed by his girlfriend. The mission was over Germany and  coming home his plane was shot down. Three of the crew of 7 parachuted out of the plane, the other 4 went down with the plane.

The young man was an only son, his Mum received a telegram telling her that her son was 'MISSING, BELIEVED KILLED'

Six weeks later the young mans Mum got another telegram saying 'I AM ON MY WAY HOME, I LOVE YOU'

The young man and his girlfriend were re-united and got married later that year.

This is a true story, the young man was my Dad, he landed in Belgium, and by chance was located by the Underground. He was smuggled out of Belgium and crossed the Kattegut to Copenhagen, stowing away on a German ship. In Copenhagen he bought his Mum a fob watch, which I now have. My Dads log book and the telegrams are in my brothers safe keeping. My Mum really did pack the parachute my Dad used on that night. My Dad only spoke of this to us once, I am glad that he did.

Tomorrow at 11am I will observe the 2 minutes silence, and among the thousands and thousands of people that are being remembered I  will share a special thought for the 4 brave young men who lost their lives on that night in March 1945. We will not forget them.

Hastings Pier

On Friday we went down to Hastings to have a look at the poor old pier. We have all read about the fire in the papers, and although the pier has been run down for a number of years, surely it did not deserve this fate? It really is a very sad sight, and I do wonder if they will be able to rebuild it, I suppose time alone will tell. One of the shops along the seafront has a model of the pier in its window, as it looked in its heyday, I am sure they will treasure that model now. Luckily the weather stayed dry for us, but it was very cold! We had a good day anyway, and a lovely lunch, along with some retail therapy!

Below are some photos I took, I haven’t figured out how to get the writing under the pics so it appears in the right place, but I am sure I will figure that out one day! Keep warm all and enjoy what is left of the weekend.

       

St Thomas’ Hospital Sandwich

Hopefully this will be a near normal blog, I am still finding out things here, and I am very pleased to see Technogran is one of my followers now, as I shall be using her hints and tips a lot I am sure :)

I am using Live Writer, so I hope this all comes out as it should!

St Thomas’ Hospital in Sandwich is one of 3 hospitals set up in Medieval times to provide Alms to pilgrims and poor people, today there are two of these hospitals still fulfilling their original function. St. Thomas’ Hospital is a beautiful building providing sheltered housing for old people in Sandwich. It proudly boasts the date 1392 above the door.

  

I had to go round to the hospital for work purposes, and of course I always carry my camera. so business done I took just a few minutes to take some snaps. The entrance to the Hospital is through a wonderful gate, it must be a lovely place to live. I hope you have enjoyed the photos, there will be more very soon. I wish everyone a very happy weekend, I have to work all day tomorrow so I bet the weather will be lovely!!!

    

 

Have a lovely weekend everyone :)

New Hobby!

I have taken up making jewellery, its a long story but this evening I made my first piece. My sons friend has a birthday coming up so I thought I would try to make a bracelet for her to save a bit of money. I am quite pleased with the result, so watch this space, because I think this could be a consuming hobby (Oh no, not another one!!!)

My first blog here after Windows Live...

I have spent  the last few days sorting out my page here to see what I can and can't do especially regarding the gadgets. I haven't given Wordpress a go yet, and I am not sure if I will be giving it a go. I like to share my pictures and think Blogger may be the best place to do this, but I suppose only time will tell. I still have to figure out how to add pictures to my blog, so will keep this one short and sweet.....Oooh it worked :)