For this Flower of the Day Challenge, self decided to go back through her archives.
She took these pictures when she visited the Oxford Botanic Garden, late May.
Tag: spring
-
“I like the muted sounds, the shroud of grey, and the silence that comes with fog! ~ Om Malik.
For this challenge, self decided to focus on GRAYISH skies. These are from her most recent trip to the UK, in the spring:
One Oxford sky, and two rainy Trafalgar Squares (Self was exiting the National Gallery, after seeing a knock-your-socks-off exhibit of Raphael.
Luckily, she left England well before the first of the punishing heat waves that hit over the summer.
-
Thank you to Cee Neuner and Marsha Ingrao, co-hosts of the PPAC Challenge!
I had a little free time today, so I went browsing through her archives for more public squares.
Here’s Arthur Square in Belfast, which I visited for the first time in April. Thank you to Marsha Ingrao, whose comment led me to do some googling. I found the name of the artist: Dan George. The piece is called “Spirit of Belfast” and was installed in 2009.
I went exploring down a side street (look at those curving, banner-like things, so futuristic) and found myself in the most fabulous indoor shopping center I had ever seen: very modern, gleaming with high-end shops, and not at all crowded! The curving structures are actually an art installation called “The Masts.” They are on Donegall Place. There is a better picture of them here. They were installed in 2011.
From the Wikipedia page List of Public Art in Belfast:
- The eight copper-clad lighting masts reflect Belfast’s maritime heritage and are named after White Star Line ships built in Harland and Wolff. They are: Titanic, Oceanic, Olympic, Brittanic, Laurentic, Celtic, Nomadic, and Traffic.
-
This week’s CMMC is: Pick a topic from Cee’s photo.
Possible topics frame within a photo, window, square, silhouette, restaurant, bushes, trees, table chair, green, red, brown, parked, vehicles, looking through, etc. What else can you come up with?
Have fun this week.
Topics self picked up on: trees, green, red
She took this picture at the end of May. She was on a walk with Old Map Man. We met at Trafalgar Square and walked to the foot of the Jubilee Bridge on the Victoria Embankment.
Self loves these embankments. Her love of London grew with her awareness of them: Southbank because of the Millenium Bridge, anchored at one end by the Tate Modern and at the other by a narrow funnel to St. Paul’s.
Recently, she’s become more aware of the Victoria Embankment: more staid than Southbank, but so historic! Samuel Pepys’s house is on the Victoria Embankment.
Self wondered aloud how old these embankments were. Old Map Man said, mid-19th century. Wow! All this time, she thought they were constructions of modern London.
Later, it began to POUR, so the walk had to end rather abruptly.
-
This post is about exhibit banners (at the British Museum) and store window mannequins.
In her explorations of East London, self discovered Wall and Jones. It’s a clothing and jewelry shop on Hackney Road, across from Hackney City Farm, that sells the most lovely, unique items. Beautiful jewelry by Eve, clothes by Ali Wall.
Posting for Mama Cormier’s Thursday Trios.
-
Took this picture yesterday evening, on the Great Western 18:28 from Paddington Station. It had been a long, full day in London. It started with lining up at 10 a.m. to enter the National Gallery, being thrilled by the greatness of Raphael, meeting Old Map Man for a walk along Craven Street to the Victoria Embankment, getting sloshed by a terrific thunderstorm, taking refuge in Waterstones on Trafalgar Square, arriving in London Review Bookshop dripping wet, heading straight to the lower floor, finding a book to buy (three inches thick, oh no!), then training back to Oxford.
Thanks to Bushboy’s Last Photo on the Card Challenge, self can pay proper tribute to an extraordinary day.
-
The RDP Prompt for today is PILLOW.
Self thinks these clouds look pretty pillow-y, don’t you?
Evening sky over Oxford, UK:
-
Yes, self has finished K: A Novel. She blazed through to the end last night. And a good thing she got it over with; the end was sad.
Now reading Book 4 of the Ruth Galloway mystery series by Elly Griffiths. There is such incomparable angst!
In the scene below, DCI Nelson must have tea with a Lord Smith:
“My son. Would you like biscuits? I’m diabetic so I’ve got some ghastly sugar-free rusks. But there are some Hobnobs somewhere.”
Nelson thinks he would like a Hobnob very much indeed. He is just wondering about the mysterious son (maybe he’s locked in a turret room somewhere) when the door opens and a handsome, dark-haired man bursts into the room.
“Morning all.”
Smith does not turn around but plunges the cafetiére with unnecessary violence.
“What time do you call this?” he says.
“I don’t know,” says the man pleasantly. “What time do you call it?”
“You’ve been out all night. Your mother was worried sick.”
“I doubt that,” says the man who must, surely, be the errant Randolph. Ma never worries about anything. Ah, coffee. Superb. I could murder a cup.”
— A Room Full of Bones, p. 57 -
I took this picture yesterday evening. Poet Jenny Lewis is an old friend; we met in Hawthornden Writers Retreat back in 2012. Last night, Jenny and I had dinner in Chiang Mai on High Street, then walked around a very quiet section of Oxford, around old courtyards bursting with spring flowers. It was 8 p.m., the light was otherworldly. Jenny knew her way; we walked down one twisted lane after another, me following. I hung back to take a quick picture.
Posting for Journeys with Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday.
-
Posting for Brashley Photography’s Mid-Week Monochrome Challenge # 88 : WALKWAYS.
Kanlaon 
.JPG){kind=link}