The Sunday Fraggle report~pussy cat edition

Back before I started this blog, I had 2 gorgeous ginger Toms, brothers, who had sadly died earlier in that year, 2012. They were great cats, full of personality and Phil and I loved them to bits.

Herky (Hercules)
Herky (Hercules)

Herky was a big scaredy cat, a bit needy and scared of everybody he didn’t know, and most people he did know too 🙂 but was loving and affectionate with us, he used to love sitting on Phils knee to have strokey rations when Phil was trying to be on the computer.

Yoyo (Iolus)
Yoyo (Iolus)

Yoyo was a feisty little character and not scared of anything or anyone and used to pop into next doors house to see if he could get extra food and tickles, and befriended people who would walk along the path in front of our garden. At night he’d squash between us on the sofa and have ‘telly tickles’.

We were bereft when they both died within 3 months of each other, and not good deaths either, we had to have both put down.  We grieved a long time, & many tears shed.  But of late, I have been checking out our local cat rescue place, and thinking it might be cool to have cats again, but blowing hot and cold on it. Eventually I took Phil along to one of their open days as I’d seen a cat called Mozart who sounded lovely, to see if we could adopt him, but someone had already spoken for him before we arrived.  However, the lady at the place told us they needed a home for 2 cats whose owner could no longer look after them and she would send pictures of them to us to see if we were interested.  Phil got the email later that night, we looked at the photo’s and knew straight away these were going to come and live with us. I picked them up on Friday and they are beginning to settle in.

I think there will be quite a few photo’s peppering my site in future as  both these ladies are so beautiful, what do you think?

Skye
Skye

Skye is a bit needy, but not scared of anything except the hoover 🙂 and is a picky eater.

Storm
Storm

Storm is  very cool and settled in more or less straight away, sleeps on the bed in the spare room and loves her food.

They are both affectionate and love their tickles, but we’re all still in the ‘getting to know you phase’.  We’re having to keep them indoors for now as they need their vaccinations and anti-flea drops, and they have been indoor cats for the last 5 yrs, but you can tell they are itching to explore the world outside, so it’s going to be fun when they go out for the first time.

And that’s been my weekend, Phil went to the Darlington model show on his own as we didn’t want to leave them alone on their first day here, and I missed going but never mind, will be back their next year.

Anyways, here are some more photo’s of Les Girls 🙂

Skye3_edited-1

Storm1_edited-1

IMG_0425

Skye5_edited-1

laters gaters

😉

The Easter Fraggle report

It has been very nice to have a long weekend, and really nice to have the last 2 days with sunshine and blue skies.  I haven’t done a lot of photography, but on Thursday I had my lunch parked up in a country lane in Hexam, and had a little company.

Easter Bunnies
Easter Bunnies (nikon S1)

We haven’t really done much this weekend, Easter weekend is bonkers with traffic on the roads, and we like being at home anyway 🙂 but we did go and visit Shelley & Cal for a cup of tea on Saturday, and managed a trip to ASDA today 🙂

My polaroid camera came back from repair and seems to be working OK, although it’s taken a few crap shots before I got the hang of it again, still a bit hit and miss but I think I’m getting there. I’ll add some to the SX70 project up in the menu there if you are interested. But I will post a couple in the main blog as I really like them,

Blossom (sx70}
Blossom (sx70}

Thats my blossom tree in the from garden, which is just coming into flower now.

tomato soup to be
tomato soup to be (SX70)

I’m into making soup at the minute, and today have made a job lot of tomato and basil soup, lush it is too.

Got another shot of our visiting Bluetit

Mr.Bluey
Mr.Bluey (nikon S1)

I took this shot of Phil back in 2014 when he was reading the menu in a chinese restaurant, and as I’m trying to be more B&W at the moment (inspiration from Reinhold and Emanscamera) had a go at this one, I like it quite well.

Looking down (nikon S1)
Looking down (nikon S1)

My big thing this weekend has been cleaning up all my cameras and lenses, as I have decided to part exchange all my Nikon equipment that I’ve amassed over the past 5 years and tread a different path.  I’ve been thinking of it for a while, as I’ve had 2 cameras and several lenses sitting on a shelf doing nothing, and my main camera the D700 along with any lenses is really heavy to carry around all day or take on holiday broad, it hurts my shoulder after a while. I mostly use the S1 when out and about in the car at work, which I will keep, but still need something better for outings etc. No doubt when the new stuff arrives there will be a post about it.

Goodbye dear friends
Goodbye dear friends (nikon S1)

I have to say I’ve had 2nd thoughts and 3rd & 4th, but I have done my research on what I want next and am quite excited about it now. I know, it’s not the camera but the photographer which makes good or bad shots, but this is a matter of weight and shelved lenses being wasted, more than anything.

So now I must get back in to a work frame of mind, and prepare for tomorrow,

laters gaters

😉

The Hartlepool Report – Part 2

Thought I’d best get on and finish this, so on board the Trincomalee, Britain’s oldest fighting warship.

Mind your head
Mind your head
A canon in a Nikon :)
A canon in a Nikon 🙂
Master chef
Master chef

I thought the waxworks/dummies were done really well, I think they must have made latex masks of reall people to put on the dummies, they were very realistic.

Roland
Roland

HQ15

Deck hands
Deck hands
Officers Mess
Officers Mess
The Captains Table
The Captains Table
Top deck
Top deck

HQ18

fixtures and fittings
fixtures and fittings

HQ21

Steering wheel
Steering wheel

HQ26

HQ27

HQ28

HQ24

HQ30

W.E.L.C.O.M.E  T.O
W.E.L.C.O.M.E T.O
long way up
long way up

HQ32

HQ33

way out
way out

HQ37

HQ38

Trincomalee
Trincomalee
As she was built in India originally it's no surprise to find elephants on board.
As she was built in India originally it’s no surprise to find elephants on board.

After we got off the ship, we had a look round the museum and that was that.

anchor
anchor

HQ44

lightbulb :)
lightbulb 🙂

HQ46

Jiggle Joggle.

All in all a great day out, lots to see and learn. Am looking forward to more decent weather, it’s turned cold and rainy again here 😦 nevermind, spring is on the way!

laters gaters

😉

Eclipse & Tree of Birds Report

Eclipse
Eclipse

This morning Europe got a (nearly) total eclipse of the sun. So at 09.30hrs I stood in the back garden with my camera, but mostly all I could see was a cloudy sky. I held on though and the clouds thinned out enough for me to get some shots. I read up on shooting an eclipse, and you’re supposed to have solar filters and low ISO small aperture etc but my little compact Nikon S1 didn’t have any of that, I suppose the clouds were enough filter. Anyway I managed a few as the moon travelled across the sun, and that was cool to see. It didn’t go dark, the birds kept flying and tweeting, so not very dramatic here.

Also my Tree of Birds has had a few visitors, this little chappy has been coming for a few days and is usually too fast to catch, but today he sat on a branch a while and I got him.

Long Tail Tit
Long Tail Tit

Cute 🙂

A pair of Great Tits ( 😀 😀 😀  sorry ) have been visiting too, here’s one of them at the trough.

Great Tit
Great Tit

and the acrobatic blue tits also making use of the fast food emporium  on my tree.

Little Bluey
Little Bluey

The senility report ~ our 5 a day.

It was Phils birthday this week on Monday and I had to work, but in the evening we went to Phil’s model club, as one of the modellers, Dave, who runs AFV magazine was doing a talk on photographing models and I wanted to go along. (By the way we are talking model tanks/planes/ships etc, not ladies or gentlemen models.) It was a good night, we went into Newcastle on the metro and I took a shot of Central Station, which is a beautiful building.

Central Station Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
Central Station Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (iPhone6)

Dave’s talk was really interesting and I loved seeing his set up, he has a Nikon D800 and some cool gear.

Dave showing his skills
Dave showing his skills (Iphone6)

Afterwards there was chatting and tea drinking, and a fab night for me as I’d never been to the club before, inspite of being an honorary member, (I run the Faceache page for the club and used to do model figures).

The club
The club

Did not take any photo’s on my travels this week, but did make a panorama of my shots of County Durham

County Durham pano
County Durham pano

and my blogger friend Francis post gave me the idea to do it portrait, before then I’d always tried pano’s in landscape mode duh!!

I saw one of those pithy sayings over on Faceache, “I love being over 50, I learn something new every day, and forget 5 other things.” That’s me and Phil 🙂  I forgot to post a couple of my faffing about shots in my last Faffing report so here they are:-

Original shot
Original shot
Eucalyptus 1
Eucalyptus 1
Eucalyptus 2
Eucalyptus 2

and I orbed one of my other faffs which I also forgot to post.

Fraggled Flowers Orb
Fraggled flowers Orb

Today I’ve been doing a HDR for my Sunday Challenge, of Phil’s hairdresser car 😉 and we had a traumatic journey to get it to the carwash as Phil didn’t want me to take a shot of it being mucky.  We had to go to B&Q to replace a bulb on the way, actually to return a bulb already purchased by Phil a couple of days beforehand, but he’d forgot to check the size and bought the wrong one. So we got to B&Q and did the swap, Phil nearly had a heart attack at the cost of the bulb, £15!!!  I bought a new orchid whilst I was there, its spotty, (polaroid in SX70 section) and then we went off to the carwash. Except we nearly didn’t as Phil took the wrong road on the way home.  Phil has lived in this area for 50 ++++ years, and B&Q is only 4.6 miles up the road, and we’ve been there many many times, but the way home is one of the 5 things he forgot for today I guess. Anyway we did make it to the car wash, except we went in the wrong entrance , but managed to get to it through the petrol station.

car wash
car wash

After we went through the washing machine Phil remembered (yay) he needed to put some air in the tyre, so back round we went and this time got stuck behind all the people putting petrol in their cars. Of course we were stuck behind a slow old person who was filling up a huge 4×4 and took forever to pay at the pump. Luckily one of the other lanes opened up and Phil manoeuvred round to get to the air pump just as another guy slipped in before him. I think we must have been about an hour at the car wash altogether!! Anyway we got home and the replacement bulb doesn’t work 😀 :D, Phil will have to take it back on his own next time, I may never see him again.

 

Anyway here is the cleaned car in glorious technicolour HDR’d before I forget……

HDR CAR
HDR CAR

5 bracketed shots Nikon D700 28mm lens, photomatix &Nik FXpro

Tomorrow I’m off out on a photography trip with my pal  Sophie, it’s been ages since we did one and am really looking forward to it, keeping fingers xt for good weather.

laters gaters 😉

 

 

The Sunday Fraggle Report 25/1

Another week of cold temperatures but at last I got to see some snow! Had to go to North Yorkshire to visit a client and the hills were covered, managed to get a shot with a bit of sunshine lighting the landscape, that didn’t last long.

Leyburn North Yorkshire
Leyburn North Yorkshire

But the rest of my work days didn’t have much in the way of snow or views.

On Thursday Phil & I decided to go to Piero’s for our dinner and we had tomato & basil soup and then pasta, really yummy but filled us up too much!

P soup
P soup

We stayed home mostly this weekend, it was sunny for a couple of hours but cold, so stayed in and played with my camera.  Really upset that my new SX70 has stopped working, it got jammed, and won’t eject the photo’s and so will have to send it back for repair 😦 bit fed up as I’ve not even had it 2 months yet and I really like it. My Sunday challenge group this week had us find 3 same/identical items and shoot them so only one item is in focus, so I shot 3 buddha statues, 3 poker dice and 3 of my scale models that I used to paint before I got into photography. We also had to process the shots using past challenge techniques.

3 Buddhas and texture.
3 Buddhas and texture.
3 poker dice and selective colour
3 poker dice and selective colour
scale models & collage
scale models & collage

I saw a tiny little bird hopping around on our back lawn yesterday, I didn’t get a brilliant shot of it, but enough to find out it was a wren, which is new to my garden.

wren
wren

This afternoon mad~Cal and Shelley came for a visit and that was fun he cracks us up. And that’s another week gone by, not much ado,

laters gaters 😉

 

The sunday Fraggle report 11/1/15

Christmas and New Year are well gone now, decorations are down and back to full on at work. The weather has been pretty meh so Monday- Wednesday were not inspiring for photo’s, but Thursday perked up with a clear blue sky and the sun out. It was cold though so I wrapped up warm and went for a walk on Littlehaven Beach at South Shields. This was my first chance to use the new polaroid outdoors, but like a twit I forgot to take a new film with me and only had 2 left in the camera. I did have my Iphone and the Nikon too so I got a fair few shots all in all.

So let me take you on my walk…

First through the dunes to the beach, taken with the VSCO camera app on Iphone.

pathway
pathway ~ iphone5

then looking left towards the groyne pier and lighthouse.

Littlehaven beach
Littlehaven beach ~ iphone5

walking towards the groyne, Tynemouth Priory in the distance

southshields-2
Ocean Rover~Nikon D700

and then on to see the Herd Groyne Lighthouse..

Lighthouse
Lighthouse~iphone5
Herd Groyne Lighthouse
Herd Groyne Lighthouse ~ Iphone5

The lighthouse was built in 1882, and made of iron, the history of it is quite interesting ( and short!) so if anyone is interested CLICK HERE 🙂

Then I turned back to walk up the other way on the beach and to look for sea glass, which I’m collecting each time I go there, eventually when I retire I’ll hopefully have enough to make a mosiac garden table top or similar. Of course you can’t shoot directly into full sun and get a decent picture, but I took one anyway and processed the heck out of it!

into the sun
into the sun~Nikon D700

then along the beach looking for sea glass..

wiggley sand~Nikon D700
wiggley sand~Nikon D700
Harbour Mouth
Harbour Mouth~Nikon D700
seaglass! ~Nikon D700
seaglass! ~Nikon D700

Took a shot of the view back to the lighthouse..

lighthouse & gull ~Nikon D700
lighthouse & gull ~Nikon D700

and came across too old boys with a metal detector..

metal detectives
metal detectives~Nikon D700

I had a chat and asked them if they’d found anything, and they showed me some metal things and told me they were Roman tile holders. Wow I thought, how cool to find roman relics in the sand. When I got home and googled roman tile holders, they are not ancient roman relics at all, Roman is just a style name of some tile holders and you can buy them in any hardware store. Haha numpty me. 🙂

The Weebles live near Littlehaven beach so I went forf a quick visit, can never resist a few shots of them,

Weebles
Weebles~Nikon D700
they came for the sun...Nikon D700
they came for the sun…Nikon D700

and then I found a new sculpture that has been put up nearby..

The eye
The eye~Nikon D700
the Eye
the Eye~Nikon D700

I like the view to the sea side best. The words are from an old traditional Northumbrian folk song.

As I walked back to the car the sun was sinking low enough to backlight the long grass..

Nikon D700
Nikon D700
Nikon D700
Nikon D700

and that was the end of my walk.

And the weather has been atrocious ever since. But I did some more polaroids which I’ve put in my SX70 project, and today did a collage of ‘tools of my trade’ for the Sunday Challenge theme.

Audiology! ~Nikon D700
Audiology! ~Nikon D700

Phil’s been on nights all week, so have had a quiet week, and he’s got a week off now whilst I’m battling the howling winds going to work, I used to be very jealous he gets 6 weeks holiday a year and I get 2 if I’m lucky, but now I work part time it’s not so bad. I still call him Father Christmas though. 🙂

 

laters gaters 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Christmas Fraggle Report.

Well it’s been a while but December has been busy. Work has been hectic with trying to sort everyone out so they can hear The Queens speech on the TV 🙂 We had our grandson Callum to stay a couple of weekends ago, and last weekend I travelled down south to see Ben, Charlotte & Lewis. Managed a few pictures along the way so here we go..

Firstly another trip to see my clients who live near Finchale (pronounced Finkle) Abbey, and it was a nice day with the sun out but low in the sky.

Finchale Abbey
Finchale Abbey

That’s been a rare blue sky and grey days and rain have been a constant on my travels. This week I had to park and wait for a client and saw a rooftop gathering of pie fodder..

Pie Fodder
Pie Fodder

but 10 mins later..

rainbow
rainbow

the pigeons had left and a rainbow appeared bringing a bit of blue sky with it, that didn’t last long.

It was great fun having Callum to stop over and most fun was had with the ducks in the bath.

wknd1414

wknd1414-3

Face!!
Face!!

And also lovely for me to see Ben & Lewis on my visit down south. Though not so brilliant for Ben who had a bad toothache, so painkillers and a visit to the dentist took up a fair amount of my first day,but eventually got him sorted.

on top of things
on top of things

 

Apart from a trip into town when it was dry but freezing, the weather was mostly raining so much staying indoors, keeping warm.

 

Daddy Cuddles
Daddy Cuddles

IMG_3302

 

So this week I only worked Monday & Tuesday and had Wednesday off to prepare for Christmas day lunch and do some tidying up. All accomplished quite easily 🙂

Christmas day was lovely, just me and my hubby so we opened our presents, I cooked dinner, and we played with our toys.

Analogue Christmas
Analogue Christmas

This was my present from Phil, a refurbished land camera, it’s a tricky beast to use and so far I’ve botched my 1st 3 attempts to get a photo out of it! Luckily I got a shed load of film too so hopefully I can get the hang of it soon and post some cool polaroids. In the meantime my last year present Polaroid 600 is still on the go and I took a couple with it. Not sure why they have a green cast, maybe because I didn’t store the film in the fridge.

Christmas Tree
Christmas Tree
Phil phoning.
Phil phoning.

I had Phil take a shot of me injecting the turkey with melted butter, it looks like our turkey is a junkie 😀

Turkey Addict
Turkey Addict

Got some fab new slippers from Shelley, they are SO warm and toasty, my feet are in love with them.

sparkle feet
sparkle feet

And my friend Kathy who I went to stay with in USA sent me a picture of Phil & I she had taken whilst we were there, and did her artistic stuff with it, awesome work.

xmasday-3-2
Kathy’s Picture

Phil got loads of blu-rays and whisky and I got some vodka liqueur with gold flecks in it and some champagne. Dinner was lush, Phil made the Yorkshire puddings, (we usually do ready-mades for normal Sunday lunch, but Christmas Lunch is too special for frozen stuff) and used the 3 glass measurement method!

xmasday-7

Christmas Lunch
Christmas Lunch

We were stuffed!

Always room for champers though 🙂

xmasday-champ

and I have kept the corks from every bottle of champagne I’ve ever had with all the names of who shared them and what the date was written on them, it’s been a long time since I added to the collection!

xmasday-4-2

 

Phil has had an analogue Christmas too, as his friend Mick needed to get his record deck working, so gave it to Phil to do, so we have been listening to vinyl records!

Old Skool
Old Skool

and this is Phil taking pictures of his DAC that he got himself for Christmas about 2 months ago!!

oy that's MY job :)
oy that’s MY job 🙂

So that’s Christmas done, boxing day today so now to sort out Turkey & Veg Crumble!

Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas 🙂

Laters gaters 😉

 

 

 

The Sunday Fraggle Report

Winter is Coming…as the saying goes, or rather it’s here, and my photography has dropped, grey days and wet days so last week didn’t bring much in the way of pleasant views.

working life
working life

My work mornings and evenings have mostly consisted of the above, roadworks everywhere, traffic jams and queues, it gets wearing! Never mind, on my travels I meet other miserable creatures and I stopped and had a chat with this fellow..

Horse
Horse
wet horse
wet horse

gave him a handful of fresh grass and had a pat on his nose. He seemed lonely.

My lovely hubby had a few days off and did the grocery run, bought me some chocolates too, 🙂

Ferari chocs
Ferari chocs

This week hasn’t been any better with the weather or the traffic, but I managed a sunset when I was in MacDonalds carpark having a cappucino.

Sunset at MacD''s
Sunset at MacD”s

Also we had two really cold sharp nights and the moon is on our side of the world so I’ve been practising my astro photography.

Waxing Gibbous
Waxing Gibbous
Full Moon
Full Moon

I think they came out different colours because I left the WB on ‘shadey’  for the first one, but I like it as it is.

My Christmas present from Phil arrived this week 🙂 and I’ve been SO good not to open it, only 18 days to go!

wonder what it is? :)
wonder what it is? 🙂

Phil also got our new Christmas Tree from ASDA when he went to the supermarket, and couldn’t find a plain one so had to get one with integral lights, the instructions were not too bad and we managed to get it working this weekend.

Building the new tree
Building the new tree

and so it was time to get all the decorations out..

Mum's musical advent tree
Mum’s musical advent tree
looks like Christmas
looks like Christmas

and this is what the tree looks like now!

Christmas Tree
Christmas Tree

We also have a tree outside I got lights for a couple of years ago, poor Phil, I cajoled him into getting them on this year and he did them even though it was horrid outside.

putting up the lights
Health & Safety people look away now.

and it looks fab!

all lit up
all lit up

Today has been a nice quiet day, Shelly & Cal came over for a visit, and I cooked Sunday lunch for Phil and me, chicken breasts stuffed and wrapped in garlic and herb stuffing with glazed carrots, green beans and lush roasties.

Sunday dinner
Sunday dinner

and now I”M stuffed. Time to get ready for work and start all over again.

laters gaters 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sunday Fraggle report..

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
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
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 1
Holes in the sky 2
Holes in the sky 2
Holes in the sky 3
Holes in the sky 3
Holes in the sky 4
Holes in the sky 4

and because the theme for the challenge group today was over processing…

bonkers & OTT
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)
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.
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

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
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
Paul and Phil

note the tripod music stand 🙂

and from the Hipstamatic…

Lorraine & paul
Lorraine & paul

and I got chocolates & flowers

IMG_3256

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
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.

Laters Gaters 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day after Sunday post.

Ho hum, late again, 🙂 Another week with crap weather so not many photo ops. Still a few animals found, should have posted this one last weekend but forgot, these are the famous cows of Milton Keynes ~The Concrete Cows in Milton Keynes, England are an iconic work of sculpture, created in 1978 by Canadian-born artist, Liz Leyh. There are three cows and three calves, approximately half life size.The Cows are constructed from scrap skinned with fibre glass reinforced concrete donated by a local builder.

The Cows of Milton Keynes
The Cows of Milton Keynes

This week I passed O’Briens, a shop in Boldon that sells garden sculptures, usually plaster Venus’s or Caesars and stuff like that, but also these…..

The Giraffes of East Boldon
The Giraffes of East Boldon

I mean, would you?? I also see an elephant in the background, so if anyone wants a static safari park in their back garden, you know where to come. 😀

I did manage to catch the sun going down at the beach at South Shields, it was bloody cold but I sat on the beach dunes and took some shots of the guys trying to surf. The waves are not really great for surfing as far as I can see, but a couple of the guys managed to get on their boards, but slim pickings really and they must have been freezing their particulars off!

inappropriate shoes
inappropriate shoes
getting up
getting up

blog171114-2

blog171114-5

blog171114-6

and the view over to Tynemouth Priory was nice with the sun angled low.

blog171114

Friday was the 3rd anniversary of Yoyo’s death, still miss this special little guy, full of character and made us laugh a lot.

Yoyo
Yoyo

This weeks best web..

WWW.
Webmaster
covering the angles
covering the angles

Laters Gaters 🙂