Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt for week ending - 30/07/21

This week's word is Bike.  I've been searching my archives and any pictures of my youth when I did own and use a bike regularly are just full of me riding my horses. I have plenty of my brother-in-law on his bike as a child but not of B.  So my pictures go back to when Katie was little.  None of her brother unless it was in his pedal car!!

This first one was taken in our garden in Connemara, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) when she was about 3 and still had balance wheels on her little bike. 

Here she is again now 4 years old, this time on her father's motorbike in Salisbury, Rhodesia (Harare, Zimbabwe).   Like many of our old photographs the colour is terrible and as I was fiddling around, making it lighter and clearer, I noticed her very little brother on the veranda behind her, in a bouncy chair.

 

This picture too has turned a sort of purple colour and I have had to fiddle around to make it almost black and white to be seen.  This time taken in Bulawayo when Katie was about 7 years old and loved this red bike she got for her birthday.  Among this lot of pictures is one of her brother - in his pedal car, again none of him on his bike!!

Note Katie's flares - very fashionable then and again now.

 We now move on many years, to when youngest grandson was learning to ride his bike with his Dad pushing him as all fathers have to do!!

Success - I love his little happy face - he looks so pleased with himself!!

And now he can go on proper bike rides with his big brother and Cleggy their dog. A most appropriate sign behind them!! 

This picture was taken in 2010 while we were staying in Pickering and spent the day in Scarborough.  I loved the flowers in the basket.

I photographed these motor bikes parked outside Winfields Sporting and Camping shop some years ago. 

Finally one taken in 2012 done for Trawden's Yarnival that was put on by Kate and her friends encompassing the whole village.  This was outside the village Community Centre. 

Well that's it for this week.  Sorry it's rather late especially as I have had the photographs ready for a couple of weeks, found them when searching for icecream.

Off to see what other's have posted.

Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt for the week ending - 23/07/2021

 

Icecream..............I could do with one right now.  We are sweltering in the UK at the moment.  People think B and I should be used to this sort of heat and maybe for the first couple of years after coming to the UK we would have been but after 20 years we have acclimatised to the UK climate and feel it as much as others here. 

My first pictures were taken when some South African friends were staying with us and we were in the Lake District when we came across an icecream van and bought a cone each.  Lynette was proudly holding her cone aloft for this photograph when the inevitable happened.........

whoops............

 

We often stayed in a farm cottage in Lowick, near Bambergh, Northumberland and wandered around the lovely old farm and were fascinated by this old icecream van in one of their open sheds.  We found out that one of the Forte Brothers was a friend of the present owner's father and asked if he could keep this van here and he then would take parts from it to keep other vans going.  Poor van, it looks so unloved.

Then one day, whilst parked up above Scrimiston Beach near Berwick-on-Tweed an icecream van arrived and parked nearby.   I just had to have one and to take a photographs.   It wasn't till we got home that I realised that it was also a Forte Bros van. 

  This made me curious about the history of this company.  I found the details below on the internet.

I've just found a picture of our favourite icecream that is sadly no longer available.  We could not get them in Rhodesia or South Africa so it was always a treat to have them here.  We were so sad to find they had been discontinued. 

That's it for this week.  Keep cool and ping free.  Now to see what others have posted.

Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt - week ending 16/07/2021

 This week's word is PICNIC.  The trouble is when we have a picnic we have not taken any pictures of our picnic - rather of the view!! I had not realised it till I searched my archives for a suitable picture.  So I have a strange selection this week.

We were in Northumberland walking on Beadnel beach with Dunstanburg Castle in the distance when a sudden storm caught us out and we had to rush back to our car where we sat out of the rain, eating our picnic - but what a view - a building site!!  We were in a car park and this is what we could see out of the window.

Had we been facing the other way - this is what we would have seen

 

As I said above, we took pictures of the site, the view, and not of us.  Here we are parked at Bolton Abbey, by the side of the River Wharf.  You can see other picnickers and even smoke from someone's barbeque. I was more interested in trying to photograph birds.  The cars are not as close as they look thankfully, as we would normally choose to be somewhere quieter for a picnic.  We  had stopped to buy an icecream from a parked icecream van.

This picture was taken in about 1972 by a lake in the Matopos National Park near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.  It is a beautiful quiet place surrounded by granite hills.  Cecil John Rhodes is buried here, right at the top of a flat granite rock with the most beautiful view of the surrounding countryside, a place chosen by Rhodes himself.  The picture is not  very good quality as I only have a thumbnail picture and have snipped and enlarged it from there but it does show an actual picnic, food, a cool bag and a flask!

 

Kate and her young brother 

Here we had been walking on Berwick-upon-Tweed beach and had again retreated to our car for out lunch as it had begun to rain.  A police car was parked nearby and they too were having a sandwich and coffee and this seagull landed on their car bonnet and started staring at them.  He obviously fancied their lunch too. 

 He eventually got fed up with being ignored so flew across to our car bonnet and just stood there, staring at us too.  They are huge close up with a ferocious looking beak and staring eyes.  I was glad we had a window between us. 

At last, a real picnic photograph.  We were out walking in 2006 with Kate and her family and had stopped for lunch under this tree.  It's easy to forget  how little our grandsons were till you look back a photographs.  Here we are with Cleggy, their Border Terrier. 

So, rather a sorry lot of picnic photographs.  Now off to see proper picnic pictures done by others.   Hope to do better next week. 

 

Astrid's Photo Treasure Hunt - week ending 09/07/2021

This week's word is 'Grill'.  There are many uses for this word - a grill over a window in an old castle - or an old style railway ticket office - a grill over a fire to cook food.  I had many choices but not many pictures to fit the word.  So it has been quite a hunt for suitable ones to use.

A few miles away is the Helmshore Mills Textile Museum.  We have been twice, once to take a young grandson and the other some South African friends as Tom is fascinated by machinery, and this place is full of that. It was once a very profitable woollen and cotton mill.  We were the only ones on both occasions so got a personalised tour.   What was horrific to  hear was that very small children used to work in the mills.  I have actually copied the next paragraph as I could not have written it better. 

Scavengers were the lowliest of the apprentices at the cotton mills and had to endure the worst conditions. They were employed to work under the machinery to clean up the dust and oil and to gather the cotton that had been thrown off the mule by its intent vibrations.  The tenters would not stop to allow the scavengers to work because they were paid by how much they could produce.  As the mule moved forwards the children were sent under the machine, sweeping and gathering the cotton. They had to then time their retreat so as to not become entangled within the many working parts.  Many lost limbs and even their lives by being entangled in the machinery.  These children had started in the mills at around the age of four, working as scavengers until they were eight before progressing to the role of piecers.  They worked 14 - 16 hours a day, beaten if they fell asleep, until they were 15.  

Below is a 'mule' that moved back and forwards on the rails you can see on the floor.  There are no grills to protect the children, only the ones over the machinery to protect it. 

But in the second picture you can see grills have been put up but that was not to keep the women's clothing out of the machinery but to keep visitors to the museum away from the more dangerous machinery. 

This next picture was taken of a portcullis ** at the the main entrance to Etal Castle, a ruined medieval fortification in the village of Etal, Northumberland.  It was built around 1341 by Robert Manners, with a residential tower, gatehouse and curtain wall. It was built on the banks of the River Till as a defence against those pesky marauding Scots!!   My mother's maiden name was Manners so I like to think we have a connection to it.  In the car park I picked up a small piece of broken wall as my inheritance! 

** I'm sure that can count as a grill. 

My final 'grill' picture is really a grill.  It was taken by a friend of my daughter-in-law in South Africa of their 'braai' (Barbecue) to make her jealous! Made my mouth water too when she sent it on to me. T bone steaks sizzling on the braai...I can almost smell them.  

 

                         Now off to see how others have interpreted the word 'grill' this week.  xx 

Astrid's Photo Scavenger Hunt - week ending 01/07/2021

This week's word chosen by Astrid is Sparkle.  Simple I would have thought till I started searching my very disorganised archived photographs.  I eventually found it, quite by chance as I was actually looking for another in this set of pictures, quite forgetting about the one I have chosen.

Taken on a day when my son and his wife, Kate and her family and their respective dogs went on a walk together in 2008.  This picture is of Kate's family and Cleggy, Moss's predecessor, crossing some rather dangerous looking stepping stones with some very young grandsons.  They are both strapping young men these days, towering over their parents.   I love the way the water glistens and sparkles in the sunshine. 

 

My next pictures is of my own 'sparkles'!! I was given this broach and earing set as well as a few others for my 21st birthday.  It must have been fashionable then.  I have hardly ever worn them as they are a bit to flashy for me, though I did wear it on a 'little black dress' years ago.

These are a few more 'sparkles' from my jewellery box.  Most belonged to my mother.  The two of  broach clips that split apart were my mothers' as was the one with 3 'pearls' that I do wear on a black coat.  

The crystal necklace is made up of two.  The larger crystals at the bottom and the smaller ones belonged to my grandmother and made a very short necklace so my mother combined that with the larger round, slightly coloured crystals from a necklace of hers to make this longer one.  It is too old fashioned for me but I treasure it all the same. 

The last I want to mention is a marquisate and silver broach of a lion with a ruby eye given to me by B when he was in the BSAP (British South Africa Police).  It is of their regimental badge - a  lion, shield and assegai.  I think nowadays they are called 'sweetheart broaches'. 

 Well that's it for this week.  Now off to see what others have done.  Take care everyone.