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Category Archives: Weekly photo challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge – Abstract

This is sunset from our bedroom window looking through the trees toward St Ives, with just a small movement to make it abstract.

Abstract sunset through branches

Abstract sunset through branches

For others  in this Challenge, click here.

This month, I am accompanying each post with a poem to acknowledge National Poetry Month. As this photo is of the sun, here I give you another favourite,  this one being by John Donne – a love song,

The Sun Rising

        Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
        Late schoolboys and sour ‘prentices,
    Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams, so reverend and strong
        Why shoulds’t thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
        If her eyes have not blinded thine,
        Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
    Whether both th’Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me?
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’

        She’s all states, and all princes, I;
        Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
        In that the world’s contracted thus;
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
    To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here, to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

My next post will be in honour of Shakespeare whose birthday it is today. It is also 400 years since his death, on the day that he became 52.

 

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Spring Growth, Dinnertime2 and Ferlinghetti

The garden is full of Spring growth and is a delight to look at closely.

Camassia flower

Camassia flower

Magnolia Stellata bud just opening

Magnolia Stellata bud just opening. I love the furriness of the buds.

Tulip

Tulip in sunset colours

Dinner tonight was from a supplement that came with the Guardian on Saturday, Easy Ottolenghi, Roast Leeks with Soy Beans and Buffalo Mozzarella. It really was easy and was absolutely delicious. There are several other recipes in the supplement that I plan on trying.  For other photos in the Dinnertime Photo Challenge this week, please click here.

Roast Leeks with Soya Beans and Mozzarella

Roast Leeks with Soya Beans and Mozzarella

Today’s poem has really been published in my previous post but now I’m in the groove for the month I just have to let you have this gem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Don’t Let That Horse.  I love it and hope you do too.

Don’t let that horse
eat that violin

cried Chagall’s mother

But he
kept right on
painting

And became famous

And kept on painting
The Horse With Violin In Mouth

And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin

And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across

And there were no strings
attached

 

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Dinnertime

Dinnertime here for a beautiful Blackbird……

Enjoying the fat cake

Enjoying the fat cake

Getting stuck in

Getting stuck in

Ready for the off

Ready for the off, dinner done for now

For others in this Challenge, please click here.

Today’s poem, one being posted every day this month of national Poetry Month, had to be something linked to my photos so here is Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘The Blackbird’. The ‘gold dagger’ of his bill is very evident in the photos.

 

O blackbird! sing me something well:
While all the neighbours shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,
Where thou may’st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine; the range of lawn and park: 
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,
All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho’ I spared thee all the spring,
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting.

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
Plenty corrupts the melody
That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares,
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse
As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing
While yon sun prospers in the blue,
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,
Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Dance 2

The dancing at our son’s wedding in Senegal was wild and wonderful!

Dancing to the drums

Dancing to the drums

For more photos in this Challenge, click here and for more photos of the wedding, click here.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Dance

Here the ripples in a puddle left behind by the retreating tide are dancing in the breeze

Ripples

Ripples

For others in this week’s challenge, click here.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – One Love

Swans mate for life. These two are on The Penryn River, Cornwall, UK.

Love for life

Love for life

For others in this Challenge, click here.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Harmony

As we were having  breakfast this morning with the low winter sun coming in at the window, a drip about to drop from the tap turned reddish orange with the sunbeam. I took a dozen photos before I was able to catch this little beauty with the windowsill chives behind. As is said on The Weekly Photo Challenge page  “Of course, harmony also has a meaning outside of the world of music: the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole.”  Here the orange against the green forms a pleasing whole for me.

tap dripping

Drip about to drop

For others in this Challenge of Harmony, please click the red link.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Seasons

Here in Cornwall, UK, we haven’t really had much of a winter – no snow at all, not even really cold but lots and lots of rain and gales galore. However, Spring is beginning to show her face. Here is a Primrose with raindrops from our garden this morning.

Primrose after rain

Primrose after rain with fly

For others in this Challenge, with photos from all over the world and as many variations of seasons as you can imagine, click here.

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Time

The beautiful Mud Maid in The Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey in Cornwall, has been there for a long time already and will be there for a very long time to come. She is the work of Cornish sculptors Sue Hill and Pete Hill and is a favourite for our Grandchildren to visit. They love the Giant too. For others in this Challenge, click this link.

Mud Maid by Sue Hill and Pete Hill

Mud Maid by Sue Hill and Pete Hill

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Vibrant

The vibrancy of these golden daffodils against the bright green grass quite took our breath away at the entrance to the nursery.

Golden Daffodils

Golden Daffodils

For other vibrant photos, click here.

For some Granddaughter-made vibrancy, here is her French knitting necklace, made last week while we were visiting the family in Granollers, Spain.

Twisted French knitting necklace.

Twisted French knitting necklace.

 

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