fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe
rocking a camera across the Universe
The never ending gloom continues, so I decided a bit of bling was required, and these roses are amazing. I’ve had them just about 3 weeks now and they are still beauties. Might’ve something to do with them being in the conservatory which hasn’t got up above 4degrees since I got them!
Back to work and a bit of blue sky today though mainly fog! I am going with more simple compositions when doing morning-before-work photography. Might be hard pushed tomorrow though as I’ve got an early start before any decent light appears. May have to be a night time shot!
We are still in Modor, and although the rain keeps on coming, we have had mild temperatures, so things are going a bit wrong in nature. I looked out of my bedroom window and noticed a little pink spot on my Happy Eater Blossom tree. Couldn’t believe it at first as it doesn’t usually flower until the middle of April, but it has got itself confused and this one little blossom has popped out a bit early.
Hopefully it will sort itself out if the temperature drops to where it should be. But look at that sky! YUCK! Anyway that isn’t the daily photo of course, as I’m still in still life mode, so here is today’s offering.
One week done, only 51 to go 🙂
It comes round so quick! Another busy week, is there any other kind? As usual I didn’t get a photo on Monday, must have a mental block but on Tuesday I went to see client who lives in Finchale Abbey Village, which is like wooden lodges set in the Abbey Grounds. It was a beautiful day and I had to take a picture of the Abbey as I left.
There’s a river behind the Abbey so am going to have to do a proper shoot down there at some stage.
Wednesday was my first time (and last!) in my new clinic in Newcastle. We had a room in Barnabas Church, but unfortunately on the other side of the wall was the ladies toilet, and every time someone flushed the loo, washed their hands, or used the air hand dryer, you could hear it really well in the room. Also the kitchen was opposite, complete with whistling chef, and the metro underground trains run beneath it. All in all NOT conducive to doing hearing tests! My morning client didn’t turn up, and one of my 2 afternoon clients forgot and went on holiday!
Thursday morning, was another beautiful day & I went to the opticians in South Shields. Am FINALLY getting my eyes sorted out, my current spectaculars are scratched to the Nth and I can’t see out of them, am looking forward to picking up my new bins in a couple of weeks. Anyway I took an Iphone shot of South Shields while I was walking up to the opticians.
Thursday was exciting as I texted my Tog friend Mike to see if he fancied doing a night shoot, something we always said we’d do but never got round to. Anyway he said yep lets do it so we got together our cameras, tripods, flasks of coffee, several chocolate bars and packets of crisps, and set off for Keilder Water which is the UK official “Dark Sky” and only 1 1/2hrs up the road from us. It was a bit spur of the moment, and by the time we set off at 9.30am it was proper dark, so we couldn’t see where we were 😀 but we got there about 11pm and then spent a couple of hours or so shooting stars. The sky was amazing, you just don’t see this many stars in towns and urban areas and I got a few nice shots for a 1st attempt. We are definitely going again. We set off back at 2am, and the mist and fog had really rolled in, so we gingerly made our way back, I dropped Mike off and then got home at 4am. Here are some of the pics:-
Got well bitten by some bugs on my face so look like Spotty Dotty now 😦 but it was worth it!
Friday was a day off, actually so was Thursday but I went to work after the opticians. I didn’t take a shot on Friday as I slept in, and then spent the afternoon processing the photos of the stars.
Saturday Phil and I went out to lunch and met up with Shelley and Cal for a pub lunch at The Hastings Hill pub in Sunderland. Scampi & Chips, very nice! I took a couple of shots of Cal but he never keeps still so its a bit blurry.
As I hadn’t seen them for a couple of weeks, Shelley had bought me some flowers and chocs for my birthday which was a lovely surprise.
So now it’s sunday, and I’ve been doing photo’s for the Sunday Challenge group over on Ipernity and the challenge was selective light. I used the rose that came in Shelley’s flowers,
and also took a pic of my new watch which I bought on Wednesday morning when no-one turned up for my clinic so I went shopping instead. I lost my dear 25yr old watch when I went to Saltwell Tower last weekend, it must have fallen off somewhere in the park, and no-one handed it in.
And that’s been my week! Phil’s finished his night shift on Thursday night so we’ve had a lovely weekend, and I just made a very yummy dinner for us, stuffed chicken breasts -cheese,mushrooms, garlic all mushed up in tomato puree, with roasty potatoes in cheese & tomato sauce, all my own recipe and work 😀 Need a nap now!
Here is the round up of some pictures I took this week, and what they’re all about. Because I was late last week and posted on the Bank Holiday, this week started properly on Tuesday. As usual, a work day didn’t bring about many photo ops, but I got to sit in my fave place and take a couple of quickies whilst I had a coffee break.
all taken with my samsung phone with the VSCO app and different filters applied. I could sit here all day really! Wednesday I forgot to take one, but was a pretty meh kind of day anyhow. Thursday was a better day as I did a couple of sales, but I still didn’t take a shot, must try harder. 😀
So Friday came, and my hub says do you fancy a trip into Newcastle ( our nearest town) as he had to take his car in for brake fixing and stuff and had a couple of hours to kill. So off we went, and I took my iphone to show the blog all around Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I don’t go th ere often enough and it’s my main town. It has some beautiful architecture and statues, and is about the coolest city I’ve ever been to. So here we go, welcome to The Toon!
Firstly the very tall statue of Charles Grey, Earl Grey 2nd, who was a big deal up here.
the inscription reads as follows-
“THIS COLUMN WAS ERECTED IN 1838
TO COMMEMORATE
THE SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS COUNTRY BY
CHARLES EARL GREY K.G.
WHO, DURING AN ACTIVE POLITICAL CAREER OF
NEARLY HALF A CENTURY
WAS THE CONSTANT ADVOCATE OF PEACE
AND THE FEARLESS AND CONSISTENT CHAMPION OF
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
HE FIRST DIRECTED HIS EFFORTS TO THE AMENDMENT
OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE IN 1792,
AND WAS THE MINISTER
BY WHOSE ADVICE, AND UNDER WHOSE GUIDANCE,
THE GREAT MEASURE OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
WAS AFTER AN ARDUOUS AND PROTRACTED STRUGGLE
SAFELY AND TRIUMPHANTLY ACHIEVED
IN THE YEAR 1832.”
which just about tells you what a great guy he was, and wish they still made them like that!
nothing much to say about this except this is where you can shop indoors, like a USA mall I guess. But that geometric rooftop bit in the distance is St James Park, the home of Newcastle United Football team, which is a very big deal up here.
This is where people sit to text, call, have a cuppa, reorganise their shopping bags etc, at the foot of the Greys Monument. In term time lunchtimes it’s heaving with students from the Uni.
The Gold Lady Clock is on the corner of Pilgrim Street and Blackett Street, and is the symbol of the Northern Goldsmiths. Naked Lady statues are quite often found in Tyne & Wear, I’ll have to make a collection of them and do a post about them. Needless to say Northern chaps are a lusty lot. 😀
this is where my new clinic next week resides, it’s off to the right here, and I’ll no doubt take a pic of it on Tuesday when I go, but I like this little alley leading up to it, Newcastle has a lot of back alleys to explore.
not sure what his game was! In Nirthumberland Street now which is a big shopping are up from the Monument, and where you also find people busking and doing weird stuff.
this guy was doing a great job of drumming on upside down paint pots, presumably empty. There’s been a youtube video of someone doing the same thing I think in America, so he’s obviously ‘borrowed’ the idea. He was really good though!
I like the incongruous juxtaposition of old and new that happens in citys like this.
These heads and carvings were salvaged when the old library was demolished to make way for a new street. These are 7 gods and goddesses with Neptune in the centre (the chap gods look more like clergymen to me but hey ho, art is in the eye of the believer and all that) but I think it’s cool they kept the carvings and added them to the new retaining wall.
Phil always likes to check out the guitar shop when he’s in town, and he needed a set of strings, so we got them and had a look around. While we were in the shop the call came through from the garage that the car was ready and we hotfooted it to the metro station, where we found 2 of the 3 potential men statues.
didn’t have time to find the 3rd potential man but apparently it’s 3 views of the same man, I haven’t a bliddy clue what it’s all about but they were sculptured by Sean Henry who is (apparently) UK No.1 sculptor, so they must mean something. Hmmmm. 😀
So that’s Friday day, and at night my lovely hubby made a party for my birthday last weekend, as he’d missed it, and we had a lovely time,lots of wine & whisky and music and just the 2 of us.
Saturday we were ill.
Saturday night we had to go to a family bash as Phil’s neice’s daughter was 21 and had a party by the sea front, so we pulled ourselves together and made a good effort at being at the party. I took my polaroid so took some family pics to put on the wall when I finally get my photo board up!
Phil’s daughter & daughter-in-law
Phils nephew and Mrs.
Da Kidz.
Cousins and son-in-law
Neils face makes me laugh!
Today I went out taking pictures with my friend Sophie. We meet up a fair few times in the year and go off exploring somewhere, and I catalogue our adventures in my smugmug galleries so here is a selection from today. We went to Saltwell Park and Cemetery today ( we do like graves!) Saltwell park is a beautiful oasis in the middle of urban Gateshead, and has won many awards for it’s loveliness. It has a long & interesting history, which can be found on wiki .
As we left the car park, we got the first hint that summer is just about over and autumn is nearly upon us.
Yes it’s called Saltwell Towers really.
The guy who had this built was a stained glass maker, not a single one in the building though.
I love these bonkers peddle boats, must have a go on one next time.
nothing more funny than a supposedly graceful swan upending to look for food.
This guy was in a really bad mood, chasing geese and generally swanning around being bolshy.
I remember Tony Single saying he didn’t have swans where he lives, and I was thinking he might like this dark contrast version.
Love that this guy wears a Captains hat when playing with his model boat. 🙂 We soon found out he was in a model boat club competition just past the lake, so we went in and took pictures of course. We also had to vote on which ship we liked best.
Saltwell also has a small wildlife section, with a few budgies and peacocks, but they are in cages, which saddens me always. Birds should be in the sky.
However hens can’t fly, and this one was ginormous!!This is his rear end 😀
still some flowers left but not many left in the rose garden, which is quite stunning in bloom time.
these are the flowers in the Tyne Bridge sculpture, and I took the shot just as Sophie walked past. We have a rule that we don’t take each other’s photo, but now and again we sneak one, and sometimes it’s accidental, but we also have a rule not to publish them. I don’t think we’re too good at sticking to the rules. Well I’m not anyway. 😀
The Dene is a walk next to a rivulette with lush foliage and little waterfalls,and there’s a lovely twinkling silvery water sound while you walk around.
So off to the cemetary over the road, and I managed to catch the magpie just as he took off.
Saltwell Cemetary is HUGE! And quite modern, one of the most poignant sights was this section dedicated to little ones.
This is such a crap shot but I only got the one chance before the lady saw me, and we could NOT work out what the heck they were doing. Speculation on burying their dog or digging for treasure.
So thats it for this week, another long one, and now to get ready for work tomorrow. Phil’s on night shift boo hoo. Never mind, soon be the weekend 😀
Am a day late for the weekly, blog, no doubt I saw sorely missed :). A lot to get through this week as it’s been particularly full. Am going to blast through Monday,Tuesday & Wednesday as they were just work days and therefore no fun. But I kept to my daily photo regimen so they must appear.
Monday I worked north of the River and had to come home in the crappy traffic in rush hour, so took a shot of the Tyne Bridge while I was stationary. Well almost stationary :).
Tuesday was a day mostly working in Sunderland, and this is my fave road to visit.
I love how the sunlight plays through the trees in this road.
Hmm where did I go Wednesday. Can’t remember but it’s of little consequence, I took this shot of my visiting blue tit with my little compact S1 when I got home from work, sneakily taken through the car window.
And then it was Thursday and 5 days off time 😀 happy days. It was my birthday on the Friday but was going away for the weekend to visit family and friends down South. Phil was working some of the weekend so couldn’t come along 😦 but took me out for a birthday dinner at a Chinese restaurant in South Shields that had good reviews, but we hadn’t been before.
Very nice decor and good service, the food was OK but I wouldn’t say outstanding in it’s field , however the Birthday Cake they gave me was worth going for, it was delicious!
I set off Friday morning for a 5 hour drive to visit my boy Ben and his girlfriend Charlotte. When I got there I had a lovely bunch of roses waiting for me and a cool birthday card. Ben and his pal spent the afternoon waterproofing the shed roof, and I sat with the dog and had a giggle at the lads. In the evening yet another Birthday dinner out, this time with Charlotte & Ben, and we went to Milton Keynes to a World food Buffet restaurant called Red Hot (I think). This place serves food from all over the place, there’s Chinese,Indian, a Sushi Bar, Italian etc etc, and I was very adventurous, haha not! Had Chinese again 🙂
After yummy dinner we went back to Bens and watched a movie, HAnsel & Gretal for grown ups, it wasn’t much cop but the hero was rather handsome. 🙂
Saturday Ben and I went to pick up my gandson Lewis and we took him out to Milton Keynes Burger King for lunch, then to Willen Lake play centre and Lewis had a grand time. Poor little sod has just had chicken pox so he was a bit blotchy.
We went back to Ben’s for a couple of hours and they played racing games on the Playstation. I am no good at them and was quickly put in the spectators gallery.
that’s my favourite shot of them, and it’s a phone camera!
After we took Lewis back to his Mum’s I set off to go and visit with my good friend Helen who lives in Biggleswade. She is the one who inspired me to take up photography and after a cup of tea we got in her car and went chasing the sunset, which was pretty lush.
Helen keeps chickens, this one ate all her runner beans.
and it’s really funny that in the mornings they come and shout at the window to be fed.
Saturday night we went to see a band, BuBounce who are a ska and skiffle band, they were really good, but the pub was heaving with people who quite frankly had no manners and kept pushing me out of the way (I’m so not good in crowds!) and also very jumpy-up and-down-and-sideways-dancers, so we went outside round the back to the smoking area where there were seats and you could see the band through the window. Helen knows the saxophone player of the band, Johnny and his girlfriend Jess (who gave us a lift to the pub), so we sat with Jess. It was a good night out, and after Helen, Stu (her hubby) and I walked home and stayed up chatting til 2.30am. Can’t remember what we chatted about as I had some wine. 😀
On Sunday morning we had intended to go to a boot sale, but we stayed up far too late for that so Helen & I went out to shoot some sunflowers in a field we’d spotted the previous evening. A bit of trespassing involved, but only a little bit. 🙂
they are quite glorious really.
After, we went for a walk by the River Ouze which was pretty.
Bit of a boring blown out sky there, never mind.
In the afternoon we went to one of the roads near Little Gransden Airfield, as they were having an airshow and the Canadian Lancaster Bomber is touring Britain this summer with the British Lancaster and we knew we’d get to see them. It was grand viewing, we got there early to make sure we didn’t miss them, parked up on the verge next to the little road, along with a lot of other people who had the same idea, and were treated to some stunning aerial displays whilst we waited for the Lancasters.
and then they came 🙂
So that was a lot to get through, and after the airshow I drove home and had a reunion with my hubby. Today I’ve been sorting out the photo’s, there are quite a few more than I’ve posted here (yes really!) and I’ve put them all in my smugmug galleries, facebooked some for the family, and now finished up on the blog. And my photo for today….
finally got my roses unwrapped and put in water.
since I attended to the blog, been a busy girl, lots of work, but still taking the odd photograph now and then.
a bit of potatoshoppery for the Ipernity Sunday challenge group, went down well, thanks to Hubby for his brilliant modelling skills.
It was our 2nd wedding anniversary yesterday and I got beautiful red roses from my lovely man.
and another for the challenge group.
fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe 
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