“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spain 2000
“Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.” ― Edward Bulwer Lytton
Edinburgh, Scotland, 2006
Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast. Down through all eternity The crying of humanity. ‘Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Comes singing songs of love… —Donovan
Hurdy Gurdy Man, Beamish Museum 2011
“Music is the strongest form of magic.” ― Marilyn Manson
Alnwick, UK 2012
“The most wretched people in the world are those who tell you they like every kind of music ‘except country.” ― Chuck Klosterman,
Nashville, Tennessee, USA, 2014
“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” ― Lao Tzu
York, UK, 2015
“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.” ― Maria von Trapp
Hurdy Gurdy Lady, Beamish Museum 2016
“… I got to try the bagpipes. It was like trying to blow an octopus” –James Galway
Simonside Country Fair, UK 2017
“Music is the beat of a drum that keeps time with our emotions.” ― Shannon L. Alder
Camel Parade, South SHields, UK 2017
“There is no sorrow in singing.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita
Had a great night out at Tynemouth Park Hotel last night, where the Annual Free convention was held. On the 40th anniversary of Paul Kossoff’s death, they had Terry Slesser from Backstreet Crawler as well as a Free & Backstreet Crawler tribute band from Japan, with Hideyuki Hide Kinoshita on guitar. They were excellent. Brill night and fun to be out with our pals Mick & Katie.
Firstly, for the second week I have a photo left behind from the previous week. I hope this is not the beginning of mental decline, but much previous similar experiences tell me it probably is. I forget loads of stuff. I console myself with the fact that my lovely hubby is as bad if not slightly worse than me :). And what is this wonderful photo you forgot to post I hear you cry…
Ducking About
well there you have it. A masterpiece no less. Taken with my Iphone 5 and the hipstamatic app. Don’t ask why.
So on to this past week. I have to say the grey and rainy days are not helping me on my travels around my patch of Engerlandland. Dull and dishwatery skies, and everything just blah. But at least on the day I had to visit a client in the windy wilds of North Yorkshire there was an interesting sky that I stopped to take pictures of. My little Nikon S1 compact is no match for my D700, but the wonders of Lightroom, NikFXpro and SmartPhotoEditor more than make up for it, and actually the S1 picks up a lot of detail when you dig for it.
original shot
This is one of my original shots, not totally inspiring but it really didn’t look like that through my eyes (or why would I have stopped to take the photo’s??).
And this is what it really looked like..
holes in the sky 1
Holes in the sky 2
Holes in the sky 3
Holes in the sky 4
and because the theme for the challenge group today was over processing…
bonkers & OTT
I don’t like it, but it was kinda fun.
Also before I came across the moody weather I drove past Bolton Castle which you can just about see in this next shot, and also you can just see the edge of the dark sky chasing me.
Bolton Castle (it is there really)
AND on my way home I turned a corner to be thwarted by sheep, dogs and a motorised shepherd.
it’s a modern old world.
Just after I took this, the dogs jumped away and started herding the sheep to go left up a path, but a few of the idiot~sheep ran through a field on the right, and it was great to watch the dogs round them up and send them back the right way. I don’t think the guy on the trike did anything much, didn’t hear any whistles going on, the dogs just knew what to do.
Mind you, I don’t suppose I would hear a proper dog whistle as I have not got dogs ears.
Not much else to shoot on my travels, but I did find some cool shoots and leaves
she shoots and leaves
On Thursday morning it was very drab, and I spotted this fellow hunkered down on my front garden fence
Mr.Sad
People don’t like pigeons overmuch but I like all birds, they have so much character, even the dim ones are funny, but he just looked so sad. Yet I loved how his feathers looked, like a soft suit of armour against the rain. As I got in the car I took a quick snap of him side on, but didn’t really see what I was looking at only to note it was in focus, but when I got it on my big screen I was quite shocked to see he has a big eye infection. I debated wether to post it or not because it did upset me, but sometimes photography isn’t nicey picey.
😦
He was still about today, and taking advantage of all the seeds that drop to the ground from my bird feeders, and I could see the other side is not affected. He’s nice and plump and is eating, so maybe he will get better, if the neighbours cat doesn’t blindside him. He looks miserable though (not surprisingly) and I had some tears over him today.
On Friday night we had Lorraine and Paul over for a musical soiree, Lorraine cooked some fine curry’s and Phil & Paul played guitars whilst Lorraine & I played percussion (I banged a tambourine more or less in time with the music and Loz had a washboard thingy). Far too much grape and hops were imbibed but hey ho it doesn’t happen THAT often. I took some cool Polaroids of the guys and gals, there’s more in the Polaroid Page, but this was the best,
Paul and Phil
note the tripod music stand 🙂
and from the Hipstamatic…
Lorraine & paul
and I got chocolates & flowers
so a good night and Saturday was a recovery day 🙂
I did manage to cook a lush dinner on Saturday, Salmon in soy,ginger & garlic sauce, with saffron rice. very yummy.
Salmon in soy ginger garlic sauce
Today we have had Shelley and Callum, Carl with Matthew and Livvy for a visit this afternoon, wow our grandkids are noisy. You kind of forget in between visits 😀 It was good to see them all charging about playing and hollering and laughing. I would have taken photo’s but they move too fast 🙂
Phil’s on nights this week, so a quiet time for me anyway 🙂 Keep your fingers crossed for dry weather for me this week as I’m off to some more far flung gorgeous places.
Which it is here at the moment, and quite sunny, but cold now autumn is passing and winter is looming. I’ve had a week off work which is great, but also not so great as it’s the last day and am back to work tomorrow. 😦 I do like not being at work, a lot. The weather has not been so kind though and I have not got out much which is a shame as I’d fancied a few walks with my camera, but I did read a lot, I finished the series of Jack Reacher novels, and am into book 4 of C.J.Sansome’s Shardlake series, set in Henry the 8th days and as we are currently watching the HBO series The Tudors ties in nicely with that.
My visit with Helen last week inspired a trip to ASDA where I purchased a slow cooker, and last Monday cooked pulled chicken which was lush, forgot to take pics of the end result but here it is in action!
Slow cooking
Helen also gave me a cutting from her bamboo plant, and I spent yesterday potting it and also moved all my herb pots indoors to protect them from frost.
Bamboo
Have also been doing stuff around the house, sorted out my spice shelf which was in a bit of disarray!
spicey
Phil is quite shocked at my domestication! Not sure how long it will last.:D
On Wednesday night we had a spectacular sunset over Wardley, so I hung out of bedroom windows to get some photos of it, it was glorious.
Front window view 1
Front window view 2
Back window view 1
Back window view 2
Friday I had a meeting with Rory from our head office to get some new equipment for work, and to learn some new test procedures, it was a long day and my head was at exploding point by the end of it, but worth giving my day up to get the training.
On Friday night Phil and I always have ‘music night’ where we play loads of discs, get quite merry, and sometimes I get a live performance!
Phil playing the Thunderbird
Thunderbirds are GO!
So today it’s sunny as I said, and I would love to go out with the Nikon, but I have to learn all the stuff I did on Friday, ready for tomorrow. Practice makes perfect and all that. But I took a couple of pics in the garden for my fix.
As always work was busy, lots of problem solving and gnashing of teeth. Didn’t get chance to take any photo’s on Monday or Tuesday, but Wednesday I was able to have a quick lunch break at Woodhorn, and got to see the swans
swans at Woodhorn
I was going to get out and take some shots, but this one decided to have a lie down by my car door, and I didn’t want to upset him!
Guard Swan
Thursday was one of those days off I have that I end up working, but when I got home Phil and I went to our fave restaurant in South Shields, Pierro’s and had potato skins and Pizza for dinner, not the healthy option really but it was yummy!
Pierro’s
and on the way home stopped by the sea. This is my favourite place to be for peace and tranquility, but it was a bit chilly and Phil didn’t have a coat so we didn’t stay long.
Peace & Tranquility
Friday was a good day off as I didn’t have to see any clients, so I cleaned out my worky office, took ages and engendered a lot of recycling of old paperwork.
really that IS loads tidier!! 🙂
On Saturday my lovely hubby cooked us breakfast
lovely hubby cooking
and after more sorting out of recycling, we got our glad rags on and went to see a band called Blue Diamond at a pub in Sunderland called The Saltgrass. No ordinary band though as 2 of the chaps in the band are also from Phil’s past life as a rock god. Before he became an Op.theatre technician back in the 70’s he was in a local band called The Showbiz Kids, and they were destined for great things, they even cut a record and were on the TV! But it didn’t work out, and after a few years it all fell apart. Still he had a blast and still plays bass guitar in our living room. He hadn’t seen Bob or Pat (the 2 guys I’m on about) in over 20 years, so a reunion was had and they were really happy to see him and reminisced about the olden days. We enjoyed listening to them mainly doing covers of harmonic bands like The Eagles, Steely Dan & Fleetwood Mac etc, with a strange Jethro Tull moment as well. They’re pretty good musicians, though some of the vocals were a bit dodgy now and then, and also a feedback issue was really annoying. The Saltgrass is not a great venue for live music, it’s very small, low ceiling and I couldn’t see a thing of the band. But a good night out nevertheless.
The Saltgrass
gee they got a band
That’s Pat setting up before they started, after that loads of tall people stood in front of me.
There was some great graffiti on the wall next to the pub.
Graffiti Elephants
Today Phil has been working 8am-9pm so I’ve been doing washing, getting ready for work tomorrow 😦 and of course doing a photo for the Sunday Challenge, which this week was ‘1,3 or 5’. I went with 5, and had a steep learning curve in photoshop to make the image below. The rest of my shots were done with VSCO cam on the Iphone and I do like how the sea shot came out. Now for some dinner and then… ta dah, the ironing!!
fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe 
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