Happy St. Valentines Day

Followers of my Live Space blog will recognize the photo, taken a couple of years ago. Its a genuine photo, totally unintended by the guy in the coffee shop, I have been in that coffee shop and had the same coffee many times, but have never got another heart!! I wish everyone a very Happy St. Valentines Day whatever you are doing  

I have included a couple of beach photos for you, taken on a grey Saturday morning, the two boats used to sit side by side, I see they have been moved now, probably got fed up with me taking photos of them!!

Lobster Pots, they just looked good!!

Take care all xx

The full moon and Cross Stitch

Talk about differing subjects….the full moon photo is one I took back in January, I think its pretty good as I don’t have special lens or filters for my camera, it is just a straight forward photo of the moon taken from my garden, although I have altered the brightness and contrast a bit. It was also taken without a tripod, guess I have a steady hand!!

The cross stitch are two pieces I have finished this year, the banner I finally completed after working on it for two years…it should have been finished for my daughters 18th birthday, she is now nearly 20 – ooops! The banner will be going out to China with me in April when I go out to see my daughter and hopefully have the holiday of a lifetime

The second piece is also one that has been promised for some time, as you can see the baby is nearly a year old now, I hope his mum and dad like it! Tigger especially turned out so lovely!

Sandwich in the late winter sunshine.

 

And some primroses to brighten your day

Fowlmead Country Park

 

One Sunday a few weeks back the sun was shining, time for a walk and give my camera some excercise..

The  view looking towards Thanet

Fowlmead Country Park was created on the site of the old slag heap that was left after Betteshanger Colliery was closed. It is situated between Deal and Sandwich (Kent) and, although it has been open for about 2 years I had never been for a look round.

It is a large park of about 200 acres, in places very pretty, although I think that it will improve over the next few years, when more trees and plants naturalize there. The views over to Thanet are wonderful, the walks are very easy going although it was a bit muddy in places when I went. Mostly the tarmac paths make the going very easy. There is also a visitor centre, a children’s play area, which was very popular, and a 2 mile tarmac cycle track. Its a great place to take children who want to ride their bikes in safety, I wish it had been open when our children were smaller!

Not the lake just proving how much rain we had earlier in the week!

I made my way down to the lakes, which were very pretty, and took a slow circular walk before heading back to the car. I will definitely go back there again in the summer, to explore fully. I thoroughly enjoyed the walk and getting some photos!

Looking towards the sea, the white blocks are caravans near the Chequers pub!

Look out for the gargoyles in the next blog….enjoy the photos

HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

Yes I know I am late with my New Year Greetings, I hope you all had a really good Christmas and New Year, and here we are into 2011. We are all hoping for a good year, I am hoping for many more photos amongst other things. Over on Windows Live I used to publish a few photos at the end of the old year, not always the best photos I have taken, but ones that have meant something to me in the previous year. I have decided to carry on the ‘tradition’ here on blogger, so below are a selection of photos, which I hope you will enjoy, and again Happy New Year to you all

The first of the two photos that were published in the calendar, as mentioned in my last blog.

Walmer Castle gardens, this photo is the other one that appeared in the calendar.

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.