February 2020 Photo Treasure Hunt

What an odd February it has been.  Terrible floods in parts of the country again, even our little neighbouring village had some panicky moments when the beck was inches from topping the edge.  Then last week we did not use our heating once,  now we have had snow and heavy mist - lost our view completely.   

This month Kate has given us an interesting selection of words.  Trying to think outside of the box is not always easy, but I have tried.

Hearts

We have two very special ladies in our family - our daughter and daughter-in-law and a few years ago I bought them each  a wooden heart each just to show them  how special they are.

Repair

No trouble finding a topic for this heading.   I have a lovely elephant that was originally my mothers' and it always stands on the bookcase next to an elephant picture I took when I was absolutely terrified and thought I'd better take a picture so anyone finding us would know what happened!!  (You can check that hairy story by clicking on 'elephant picture'. )

I was moving a book on the bookcase and another, heavy book slid down to fill the empty space and knocked into  my poor elephant breaking his ear. (Thanks Bill Bryson and your hard cover edition of 'A Short History of Everything'.)  I was so upset but thought I'd speak to our own 'Repair Shop' expert - Kate.  She said no problem and returned my elephant a few days later, as good as new!  

Repaired and as beautiful as before.  Thanks Katie.

Tail(s) 

Once upon a time there was a family of  Nyala who went for a drink at Tembe water hole in South Africa;  father, three wives and two children.  Someone sitting at her computer miles away saw them and could not resist taking a photograph of six tails, all in a line!!. 

Just thought I'd check how far away I actually was...... 8,696.9 miles via Trans-Sahara and it would take me 186 hours, non stop driving.  I've done it once as a child, don't think I'll do it again.  Think I'll stick to watching them from my computer!! 

You can check out that story here.  It is the 4th Prompt.  I'm not smart enough to just include the one story, sorry.  

Key

Sadly I don't have any lovely old keys to photograph, just the keys to our new (to us) Citroen C3 Picasso.  Keys don't look like keys any more.

Knot

I just had to use this giant knot in a macrame wall hanging I made nearly 40 years ago. (I had no idea it was that long ago till I just worked it out now).  B had been transferred and we moved into an enormous house that went with the position, with views that stretched for miles across the African hills and bush.  But we did not have enough pictures to hang on the vast walls.  As we never can agree what we like I decided to make huge macrame wall hangings using broom handles as the supporting pole.  They are long gone but I do have this one left.  

So here is my knot or knots as there are 84 strings knotted onto the centre ring alone, as well as the knots top and bottom.   This is one panel - there are four more! 

My Own Choice

We were shopping at a well known supermarket the other day and this caught my eye, looking most out of place.  It was in with the reduced price goods.  I was amused at the label on the back of the brush and pointed it out to B.  Mischievous as ever he finds an assistant and asks where they keep their coffins.  Poor chap looked most confused till B pointed this brush and dust pan out to  him .  He quickly removed it and when asked what 'coffins' were in shop speak he told us they were the baskets the bread was displayed in.  Mmmmm.  Not saying anything!!!

That's it for this month.  Now to go and check what everyone else has done with the prompts.

January 2020 Photo Treasure Hunt

Greetings and best wishes for 2020.  It may be a bit late when you read this but as we are expecting our nephew and his wife from Australia for a couple of days at the end of the month I thought I'd better be organised early.  We have not seen them since 1981 and even though I do follow her fb page  we will  have a lot of catching up to do.

I  have a file labelled 'poss.pix for t.hunt' and whenever I see something odd or different amongst my photographs I store it in there.  I have been looking for a particular photograph for ages and thought it was LOST  but while sorting through some old PRINTS  there it was. I had FOUND it.   I think you can see a pattern here - I've already used 3 of the prompts.  This made me decide to see if I could do them all legitimately using only one photograph.

MY OWN CHOICE  is this photograph of our daughter-in-law,  a geologist.  It was taken in 2001 at the Saxondrift mine near Kimberly in South Africa where they were prospecting for diamonds.

IT STARTS WITH AN 'M'......It is a Massive, Magnificient piece of Mining equipment.

IT ENDS WITH A 'T'.   It really is a gianT piece of equipmenT. The scoop  of the excavator takes about 10 tonnes at a time.

My son was only able to take this picture of his wife as it was the driver's LUNCH break. 

Now  you see I have used all the prompts on one picture and this is it.  I have also used this picture with a Lovely Lady in mind who has Threads through her Life.  She could do with a little digger like this to dig drains in her soggy field.

PS.  I may  have used that bit about LUNCH break just to fit the prompt.  It's not cheating if you own up to it.......is it?

Now off to check what lovely photographs others have used.

November 2019 Photo Treasure Hunt

It will teach me not to leave finding photographs to fit the titles till the last minute - my computer wont let me access my stored photographs.  No idea why.  So what you are seeing are odd pictures I put on my blog page earlier in the month.  I normally do this then delete the ones I don't want and put in the description.

So please forgive my limited entries this month.

Seasonal  View

Autumn colours in the grounds of Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire.

Oops

A few years ago we awoke one morning to loud knocking on our  front door  after a very windy night. It was our son.  He had taken his dogs out early and seen  glass on the ground glinting in the sunshine. Not only were many panes of glass shattered but all the bubble wrap I always line the greenhouse with to help keep it warm was all ripped and everything blown over.  We do live in a very windy area so we replaced the glass with PVC panels which still blow out, but don't break.

Sea Shore

A view across the deserted beach on the far side of Lindisfarne or Holy Island in Northumberland.

Striped

What has more stripes than a couple of zebras?  I love the way the little foal is almost camouflaged
standing beside her mother.

My own choice

Our grand dog Roxy doing what she loves - lying in the snow.  This was taken some years ago, now she is a rather rheumatic old lady who survived a major illness,

Well that's all I can manage this month.  I will have to sort out my computer problem - well at least try.  Now to see what everyone else has done. 

As this is our last photo hunt for the year I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and the best for the New Year.

October 2019 Photo Treasure Hunt

October: 'Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness.'  

My mother always quoted this line from 'To Autumn' by John Keats and for the first time today I looked up the poem to see if I had the quotation correct.  I am not a poetry lover but this one is too beautiful and describes this time of the year perfectly.  Now to find pictures to fit the words chosen by Kate and possibly of autumn too.

Umbrella

This picture was taken in our garden when Kate was about three years old. I have not looked at it close up for years and when I looked closely I saw it was one of my mothers, had red stripes and flowers on it.  Not thought of it for years.  This is what is special about using pictures from ones archives. Memories. 

This is my own much larger umbrella, one of those with hidden vents to prevent it turning inside out in the wind.  I used it one windy day this year and what did it do.....turned inside out!! Though to give it its due, it was exceptionally windy.

Wet

When we lived in South Africa we had a lovely ginger cat we called Thomas.  Like most cats in Southern Africa he wore a tick/flea collar under his regular one.  The trouble was he would not wash himself and as we had only one cat he did not have a companion to wash his ears and back of his neck. His hair under his collar was always full of red earth and the only way to get it out was to bath him; something he hated.  You can see from the photograph he is very wet and unhappy. Poor Thomas.

He was very tall, long legs and even his back seemed longer than usual. Impossible I know as he must have had the same number of vertebra as normal.  He could stretch up and try to steal food from your plate on the dining room table. 

Overflowing

I know that this should be a very autumnal/wet set of pictures but when I walked into the kitchen of a friend's house and saw her daughter trying to put glace icing on a still warm cake, the word that jumped out at me was 'overflowing'.  Now I think about it, it was a wet and windy day so maybe that could be the link with my watery pictures.

Splash

Here are two of my favourite pictures. the first is of 'Eldest Grandchild'  having fun on a very hot African day splashing in the birdbath.  The look on his face is priceless. 

              The second picture is another of my favourites.  It is of our son and son-in-law having fun in the swimming pool.  

My Own Choice

On a recent trip to Scotland to stay with our family there we went on our wedding anniversary  to see the Coffee Bothy just outside Stirling.  The car park was full of beautiful sculptures in wood and metal but what caught my eye was the cow on the roof.   What an advertisement for a coffee shop.  It was actually more than that, had beautiful homemade jams and a large selection of other gifts as well as beautiful wooden furniture and art.  We had a delicious lunch in one of the two restaurants.  It was so nice we went back again on the last day of our stay there.

Now to go and look at how everyone else has interpreted the selection of words this month.

September 2019 Photo Hunt

End of September already.  I can't believe how quickly the year is flying by.   Kate has given us a
really  autumnal selection of words this month.  Here are my selection.

 

Cosy.

My first thought for cosy was warm, glowing fires and as we don't have an open fire I remembered how our son and his wife's dogs, Jess and Roxy, took the warmest spot in front of the fire when we all went on holiday to Northumberland.

......................but then as I was searching for the photographs I came across this picture.  I had not even thought of this but when I saw it I thought.....yes...a cosy....a tea cosy.

Changing Foliage

We went for a lovely walk along the River Wharf  where it flows through the grounds of Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire.  The colours were amazing.  I had so many pictures to choose from but this one with the stark whiteness of the tree trunks against the autumnal colours caught my eye.

   

We were lucky there was a sculpture exhibition all along the walk and I just adored these birds on the rock.

Scarf

Oh which one to choose.  I have many.  My favourite light weight ones hang on shower curtain hooks on a coat hanger and I have a drawer full of warm ones.  When the weather turns cold I have two favourite ones, both warm and cuddly, one from each of our families for Christmas over the last two years.

Cobweb

Frost on a cobweb on a leylandii hedge.

My Own Choice

There is something special about receiving a unexpected present, especially when it is so beautifully hand made.  This one was gifted to me by Susan Smith another blogger and faithful follower of Kate's blog.  It is  beautiful.  Thank you Susan.

Now to go and see who else has posted this month.

August 2019 photo treasure hunt

Another month, another list of words.  This month we have been to Alloa in Scotland to stay with our family  there.  I thought I would try and get most of my pictures from our Scottish break. So here goes.

Mark - down

Our son and his wife have been 'adopted' by a neighbour who loves to go to the  local supermarket  just down the road and get the end of day bargains. He does not like the fruit and vegetables on offer so always takes them for our family.  You cannot believe the mark downs.  Things we regard as treats like mangoes and avocados are just a few pence each.  That pile of vegetables below (organic potatoes - 10p; Mango - 5p;  2 packs of avocados - 9p each and a pawpaw (papaya) - 5p) that we were given to bring home cost just 38p.  That would not buy one item!!

Straw

One evening, on our way to give the dogs a swim in the nearby Black Devon River we parked by this field of straw coloured wheat just waiting to be harvested.  We did see a lot of straw bales waiting to be collected in fields as we drove along but never in places where we could stop for me to take a photograph.

Arm

One of the highlights of our visit was going to see the Falkirk Wheel.  For those who do not know about this amazing structure this boat lift was built to link two canals to save the barges using 11 locks as they had done previously and connect the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal and  was part of the Millennium Link project.  Today it is a tourist attraction. People sit in the red gondolas and then the large arms slowly rotate till the gondola is up at the top and then the gondola is able to move along the upper canal.  Amazing.  The whole operation takes 4 minutes.  

The Falkirk Wheel is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world . (Details thanks to Google).

An excellent YouTube video explaining the whole fascinating operation can been seen HERE.

 

Ducks

While in the Visitors Centre at the Wheel I was busy taking photographs such as this beautifully made wolf out of wire.  I completely forgot about needing a picture of ducks.  It was only when I got home I remembered and kicking myself I realised I had seen some in a yellow bath.  Then when looking at my photographs, there in the corner of the 'wolf picture' was the bath full of ducks.  The bath represents  the moment when Archimedes is supposed to have realised his body displaced water in the bath and leapt out shouting 'Eureka'.  (Not sure why the ducks are silver).

Window 

Below is a rather faded picture of Town House in the main street of  Hailsham, an East Sussex town where my mother lived for many years.  It was a lovely old house with a Granary, large garden with an orchard and a lawn tennis court.   Sadly it now has  been converted to offices, and the tennis court has been replaced by a modern dental surgery. 

What fascinated me when I first visited my mother's friends there were the bricked up windows.  I was told it was to do with the Window Tax, something I remembered from history lessons many years ago.  On looking it up I see it was done during the 18th and 19th centuries. To avoid the tax some houses from that period can been seen to have bricked up window spaces. 

I have just looked on Google Maps and see the windows have  been replaced and the whole house has been very sympathetically done up.  Looking at it again brought back memories of coffee and cake round the huge kitchen table and lovely meals in the dining room. 

My Own Choice

During am earlier visit to Scotland we went to see The Helix, a large water park honouring the horses as the power houses of the early industrial revolution, pulling the barges along the Forth and Clyde canal.

The Kelpies were modelled on two one and a half tonne Clydesdale horses that Andy Scott, the artist, chose as his models. Their names were Duke and Baron.  I mentioned them in my photo hunt post at the end of August 2018.

While at the  Visitor's Centre at the Wheel we discovered that no animals  had been hurt in the making of the Kelpies!! I was so relieved to find that out.  

This picture was on tea towels and coasters for sale in the shop!!! 

Now off to see what everyone else has done with the list of words. 

July Photo Scavenger Hunt.

Panic.........I've just realised it is the last Friday in the month.....there are none next week.  I have done no more than think about the words when they were first published by Kate.   So here is a most hurried selection of photographs and words.

Paddle

I have a few pictures of a certain daughter paddling in sea at Capetown but not sure if they would be met with approval so I have resorted to using a picture of our 'grand dogs' Roxy and Jess paddling in the sea at Northumberland.  Roxy, the chocolate lab only ever paddles, won't get wet beyond her elbows where as Jess so loves swimming she will swim out and then surf in on a wave.

Pink

I could have gone down the pretty pink flower route ...............

...........but decided to use rather a picture of a hippo sleeping in the sun, slowly going pink.  Tourists who see often this think they are turning pink because of the heat of the sun burning them but actually it is a natural sun screen. They secrete a reddish oily fluid from special glands in their skin which is very sensitive to sunburn.  I remember the first time we saw it we were most confused to see a pod of hippos lying on the river bank, all pink not dark grey.

E   is for

Elephant - what else.  Those who have followed my posts will remember that I watch the Africam.com site for hours.  Have it on all day when home and even at night casting an eye on it while watching television.  Last night we were lucky enough to see a pride of lions sleeping then gradually all waking up and going to the water's edge for a drink.  I take photographs of the computer screen with my smart phone which is why the colour is not quite right.

How to keep cool on a hot day - a mud bath!  

Roof 

Last year our landlord decided to cut down all the leylandii trees growing down one side of our garden.  They were getting too high and did make our garden very shady on that side but oh dear, what a big job it turned out to be especially as he decided to do it  himself with the help of a friend.    

As the trees were right next to B's shed and my greenhouse we watched anxiously as the trees alongside were chopped down.  Of course the inevitable happened and one branch of a large tree crashed down on the shed roof.  Fortunately very little damage was done.....a small tear in the roofing felt but the force of the falling branch hitting the roof made the contents on the shelves all bounce off onto the floor and  on another occasion  lost one pane of glass in the greenhouse!!! 

My Own Choice 

This is a picture I took of a zebra drinking late in the evening at Nkorho pan.  I just love the reflection in the water.  It is mid winter in South Africa now and you can see all the grass has either been grazed or died back till the rains start in October/November.  

Unfortunately Kate is having internet problems as she changes provider so I may have to wait a while to read others interpretation of the list of words but they will be worth waiting for, I am quite sure.