Groovin’,(on a Sunday Afternoon)

Here we are again at the end of another week, Autumn is just about upon us, the trees are starting to turn quite quickly now, and they’re moulting.  We’ve had some nice sunny days, and  thats’s never a bad thing.

I did have my mega busy day on Wednesday, and no time to stop for photo’s, but on Thursday I managed 10 mins to take a shot of St.Mary’s lighthouse while I was in Whitley Bay.

St.Mary's
St.Mary’s

On Friday I had a day off, and as Phil was off too so we went into South Shields to check the junk market and do some banking. Also I bought a new lens & film combo for the Hipstamatic app on the Iphone and wanted to test it out.  Couldn’t believe the silly old lady person was there again, dancing to a busker, and this time I did take a shot as she was entertaining a little girl in her pram. Still wearing the green dress, but a nice blue cardigan with dogs on!

Dancing Girl
Dancing Girl

Well I guess silly or not, it’s good to be full of fun and dancing when you are old. Think I may be doing the same, but in the privacy of my own living room!!

Busker
Busker

The guy had a nice voice. For anyone who remembers, a couple of weeks ago I was remarking on the shutting down of shops and the opening of a new trainer store..

good news?

 

Well 2 weeks on and ta dah!!!

JD
JD

not exactly overrun with customers. Looks pretty though.

Also one of those human statue people was in town, I last saw him in Newcastle, got a better shot of him today.

Statue man
Statue man

Phil and I had a good rummage around the junk market,

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Antique Road show?

and had our lunch sitting in the eighteenth century Town Hall that is in the centre of the Market Square

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Old Town Hall with St.Hilda’s church in the background.
That's shallot!
That’s shallot!

Lots of ‘Produce’ which is the buzzword for fruit n veg these days 🙂 but I didn’t buy anything this week, Phil found a couple of cheapo dvd’s though and we watched Pompeii (the newish one) in the evening,which was laughably historically incorrect, had loads of cool CGI effects and starred Kit Harrington with a rather fetching 6 pack, so a good romp. I Was NOT impressed with the ending. Spoiler alert…..they died!!!

Phil worked on Saturday and I was going out with Sophie on a shoot, but the rain came in so we called it off. I took a shot out of my window so this is my front room view, gloomy skies or what?

front window and orchids
front window and orchids

So I did some housework and read my book, then blow me but the sun came out and it ended up a nice afternoon, but too late to salvage the shoot, so I took some more shots indoors and out, at home.

Junk Market bargains
Junk Market bargains

I bought these groovy candle holders on my previous trip to the junk market, they are quite heavy and cast lovely refractions of light. Got 3 for £1, was disappointed this week not to find any more.

delicate web
delicate web

I loved the sun shining on the web on the birdfeeder, this one was very fine and delicate and the spidey was very small.

on borrowed time
on borrowed time

One of the flowers on a plant still going strong 2 years after I bought it. Really it should have perished last winter, but it was so mild it just kept going.

specs
specs

My new glasses, quite classy I think. Still have to take them off to read. Am just starting No.4 of the Jack Reacher series of books by Lee Child, I’m also re- reading C.J Sansome’s Shardlake series, so plenty of good stories for me at lunchtimes and bedtimes. I do love my books. I don’t care if they’re on the Ipad or paper, so long as I have something good to read I’m happy.  Talking of lunch, I’ve recently tried and fallen for Sushi, never thought I would but I tried some on a whim and now am hooked!

Sushi
Sushi

I don’t suppose it’s much like the real thing, as it’s supermarket stuff and not restaurant, but it’ll do for me.

A quiet day today for me and Phil, as family were busy doing other things, so we got up late and did our own things. I had to do my SUnday challenge photo for Ipernity, the theme was ‘Legs”

The History of legs
The History of legs

so that’s my take on it 🙂

And this evening we cooked a magnificent dinner, I did the special roastie spuds Phil likes, and he cooked his superb Lamb in red wine sauce. It was bloody lush man!

Preparations
Preparations
Home grown Herbs
Home grown Herbs
Phil Master Chef!
Phil Master Chef!
Lamb in Red Wine..YUM
Lamb in Red Wine..YUM

and that is the end of this week.

Laters Gaters 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday again

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.

Finchale Abbey
Finchale Abbey

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!

Quiet room. NOT
Quiet room.
NOT

 

 

 

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.

South Shields.
South Shields.

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:-

Ursa Major (The Plough/Big Dipper/Great Bear) over Keilder Water
Ursa Major (The Plough/Big Dipper/Great Bear) over Keilder Water

K2

K3

pleiades
pleiades

K8

Milky Way
Milky Way
Milky Way B&w
Milky Way B&w

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.

CAL
CAL

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.

flowers from Shelley
flowers from Shelley

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,

Rose
Rose

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.

new watch
new watch

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!

Before & after
Before & after

 

 

 

 

The Sunday Sermon

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.

Peace & Tranquility
Peace & Tranquility
view from the car
view from the car
serenity
serenity

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.

Grey's Monument
Grey’s Monument

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!

Eldon Square Shopping centre
Eldon Square Shopping centre

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.

text break
text break

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 Golden Lady Clock
The Golden Lady Clock

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. 😀

back alley
back alley

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.

strange guy
strange guy

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.

paint pot drummer
paint pot drummer

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!

Phones 4u
Phones 4u

I like the incongruous juxtaposition of old and new that happens in citys like this.

heads up
heads up

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.

guitar man
guitar man

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.

Potential 1
Potential 1
potential 2
potential 2

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!

View from the balcony of the Sundial.
View from the balcony of the Sundial.
Paul & Phil
Paul & Phil
Shelly & Karly
Shelly & Karly

Phil’s daughter & daughter-in-law

Jan & Barry
Jan & Barry

Phils nephew and Mrs.

Carl,Karly,Steve,Shelley
Carl,Karly,Steve,Shelley

Da Kidz.

Other Paul,Neil & Carl
Other Paul,Neil & Carl

Cousins and son-in-law

Carl,Neil & Karly
Carl,Neil & Karly

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.

autumn to be
autumn to be

 

 

Salty Towers
Salty Towers

Yes it’s called Saltwell Towers really.

Salty Towers side on.
Salty Towers side on.

The guy who had this built was a stained glass maker, not a single one in the building though.

on the lake

I love these bonkers peddle boats, must have a go on one next time.

duckletts
duckletts
bottoms up
bottoms up

nothing more funny than a supposedly graceful swan upending to look for food.

Mr.Bolshy
Mr.Bolshy

This guy was in a really bad mood, chasing geese and generally swanning around being bolshy.

Mr.Bolshy, Tony's edit
Mr.Bolshy, Tony’s edition

I remember Tony Single saying he didn’t have swans where he lives, and I was thinking he might like this dark contrast version.

ship ahoy cap'n
ship ahoy cap’n

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.

Sophie shooting boats
Sophie shooting boats
Sophie shooting more boats
Sophie shooting more boats
birdy
birdy

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 😀

fluffy bum
fluffy bum
simbiosis
simbiosis

still some flowers left but not many left in the rose garden, which is quite stunning in bloom time.

saltwell-43

saltwell-45

saltwell-46

Sophie Bomb
Sophie Bomb

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. 😀

Saltwell Dene
Saltwell Dene

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.

chocks away
chocks away

So off to the cemetary over the road, and I managed to catch the magpie just as he took off.

baby graves
baby graves

Saltwell Cemetary is HUGE! And quite modern, one of the most poignant sights was this section dedicated to little ones.

DIY or Robbing Graves??
DIY or Robbing Graves??

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.

Overseers
Overseers

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 😀

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter to America

hello piggy
hello piggy

I took this shot back in April 2012. I had decided to visit America, and I got the piggy from Amazon to save up my coins for spending money. The USA had never really been on my ‘go to’ destinations, I’d seen enough of it on TV and it didn’t float my boat at all. Egypt, Japan, Thailand, Cook Islands, Raratonga, these were the exotic destinations I’d travel to in my head.  Not America where everyone shoots and asks questions later. 🙂 But back in ’07 I joined Flickr, and found many contacts from various parts of USA, and saw their wonderful photo’s of an amazingly visual treat of a place. And I got to know them over a period of time, as much as anyone can know anyone on a virtual platform. And then bit by bit I found myself connecting more and more with a contact, FRPTlady, who drove a school bus in Rochester NY. The bus was yellow and immediately I thought of Otto from the Simpsons (my definitive imagination of America). FRPTlady is actually Kathy Salvatore, but she is Mrs.O for Otto to me. We’ve been chatting on Flickr, Facebook, Ipernity, for a long while now, and back in 2012 I decided I was going to go and visit Mrs.O and have a holiday in the US of A.

IMG_2649

2 years on now, and I had to invest in a second piggy to hoard my coins. Today I counted up, £265, $445.266 and went shopping for holiday clothes 🙂

IMG_2651

I am so excited to be visiting the USA. I’m old enough now to appreciate our national connections. My chap Phil is a history buff, and I now understand WW1 & WW2 gave our nations a bond that I don’t think should ever be broken. I can’t wait to experience the landscapes, the people, the food and the history. I am beside myself that I’ll be visiting Niagara Falls, Columbia and Nashville. I am so looking forward to seeing Kathy & her Hubby Dave.

IMG_2652

I got some spends 🙂

IMG_2653

 

Go as you please

Go as you please
Go as you please

What a dreary, rainy, cold day today. This funeral parlour made me laugh though, saw it as I was walking through Wallsend to go to the bank and had to have a shot of it. Think if I was going as I pleased I would love the Egyptian Sarcophagus!

Returned

Arrived home late last night, and had a fab time ‘doon sooth’ visiting my best pal Helen and then on to my son for a lush christmas dinner cooked by his girl Charlotte. Amazingly great food cooked to perfection. On Boxing day Ben and I went and picked up his son Lewis and spent the day playing Thomas the Tank, Micro cars, and a remote control skateboard. Had a fab day!

Christmas coffee
Christmas coffee
Helen's cat in a bag
Helen’s cat in a bag
Charlottes wondrous dinner
Charlottes wondrous dinner
Thomas the Tank
Thomas the Tank
Ben & Lewis
Ben & Lewis
My gorgeous boys
My gorgeous boys
Skaterboys
Skaterboys
A boy and his toys
A boy and his toys

Work journey

20130731-003118.jpg

20130731-003245.jpg

A long drive for work today, and some lush scenery along the way. And yay that’s my last day of work for a week! Tomorrow I’m going down south to pick up Ben and Lewis and have a few days holiday with my little family, can’t wait! 🙂

The colour green

20130716-204417.jpg

A 200 mile round trip today from the east coast to the west, across the top of the Lake District to Whitehaven. Would love to get a client in the middle of the Lakes and mountains, but only ever skirt past them, here they are in the distance, on my way home.

Image

The colour purple.

20130715-220042.jpg

have been noticing a couple of purple fields on my travels through County Durham, and got chance to stop and find a place to take a photo, not sure what the plants are but they sure are pretty in the sunshine.