Category: Blogging Challenge

A Number of Images

This week, for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, our host Sarah (of Travel With Me fame) would like us to find a number of numbers. Well, here goes. The featured photo comes from Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Can I remember who the sculptor is? Not a chance. But this piece is big and bright and gloriously technicolored. I wonder if it’s still there?

Altogether more godly, righteous and sober is the hymn board in Masham Church announcing the choices of hymn for – presumably – the previous Sunday’s service.

Equally useful is this board spotted at Beamish Museum. As far as I remember, they’re the tokens used by employees to check in and out of work as they came and went.

Not quite so useful, but a lot more fun is this book, bought to delight my granddaughter and her parents, and anyone else lucky enough to have the chance to read this highly entertaining story.

And spotted once in France, a house number designed to include a small arithmetic lesson as you wait for the door to be opened for you.

Oh look! It’s past my bed time. I’m off …

The Rule of Three

Today, I offer a miscellany of shots setting out to explore the Rule of Three: that images with three subjects (or more, but always an odd number) are more appealing and therefore more memorable. It’s Tina who invites us to look at this idea for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge.

Country Mouse is inevitably book-ending this post with sheep. Part of the daily round here.

But she gets herself out and about sometimes. Here she is in London, near the Thames. Overlooking the river near Greenwich; looking at Peter Burke’s Assembly in Woolwich in the company of a pigeon; and over at Granary Square, part of the Gasholder development.

She’s even ventured further afield. To be intrigued by a window sill in Alsace, at Soulzbach-les-Bains; and by a decorated pillar in the Castell de Santa Florentina, Canet de Mar, Catalonia.

But those sheep are calling, back home.

Don’t those lambs grow up quickly? They were adorable little bundles of wool a month ago, playing races, and I’m-the-king-of-the-castle. Now they’re stolid little mini-mums.

Country Mouse must have known inside herself something about this Rule of Three, as she took these shots unaware that she was Sticking to the Rules.

Signing off now for a bit, apart from tomorrow’s scheduled post. I may not see your posts, though I might send the odd Virtual Postcard.

This Un-Sporting Life

I was that girl at school who cheerfully accepted yet another detention for ‘forgetting’ her sports kit rather than endure yet another hockey lesson on a freezing pitch. I was that woman who married the man she was certain would never switch over to catch some sporting fixture on TV. So sporting pictures for Monochrome Madness , hosted this week by Elke of Pictures Imperfect fame, are very thin on the ground for me.

My only chance is to catch sight of a knock-about in the park …

… or to notice a roller-blader honing his skills in the skateboard park.

Other than that, Big Cycle Races are our only concession to sports-viewing. When we lived in France, the Tour de France passed before our house there twice, and when it began here in Yorkshire in 2014, it yet again chose to pass our house. These photos show a glimpse of the Caravane Publicitaire in France, and of – not the Tour de France – but the Tour de Yorkshire, passing near where we live, and cycling through nearby Kirkby Malzeard.

Me? I prefer a long walk out in the Dales with a friend or two.

Does that count?

I’ve included a little bit of street art spotted in Angers as my header photo. It seems to be a rock climber picking her way carefully upwards in … Rue Montault.

Walls in Many Guises

It’s my turn this week to host Leanne’s Monochrome Madness challenge. And I’ve chosen Walls. We’re all surrounded by them: at home, at work, in town, in the garden … even in the countryside. What can we find?

Let’s start off in town. Here’s a wall that’s lived a bit, in Alella, Catalunya.

And another, in Premià de Dalt, where a town wall becomes a place to celebrate the work of a poet who came from there, Marià Manent.

A smarter wall this time, from the Unterdenlinden Museum in Colmar, Alsace.

Here’s a wall in Lewisham, London, with a message that needs shouting loud and clear. Why is palm oil so hard to avoid in the average weekly shop?

Walls can support plants as well as paintings and messages. Here’s a walled garden in the grounds of Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire.

But walls can be all-encompassing too. Here are tunnel walls on a motorway in France.

But this Yorkshire lass can’t forget the emblematic drystone walls of her home county. I’ll leave you with these picture postcards from home.

And the header photo? That’s me on the Thames Path in London, my shadow against a wall in Woolwich.

- If you would like to participate in this challenge ...
- Please post photos on your blog and use the tag Monochrome-Madness.
- Include a link to the host’s post for the theme, and link back to Leanne’s post. 
- The next theme is announced the week before the theme.
- The themes are every second week, and on the alternating week, you can post what you like.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

I think most English speaking people have come across the Christmas song in which the singer is offered by the beloved a whole series of different gifts over the twelve days of the festival, beginning with a single partridge in a pear tree. Here’s a list of those gifts:

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me .... (and so on, through to the last day of all)

A partridge in a pear tree
Two turtle doves
Three French hens
Four calling birds
Five gold rings
Six geese a-laying
Seven swans a-swimming
Eight maids a-milking
Nine ladies dancing
Ten lords a-leaping
Eleven pipers piping
Twelve drummers drumming

My Monochrome Madness Challenge to you is to illustrate this song, just choosing three or four of those gifts. I’m not going to be harsh. For instance. If you choose swans a-swimming , you really don’t have to have seven. One will do. If you’ve got ten or more French hens, who cares? Because I set the challenge, and in case I hear any more un-Christmas-y mutterings from those to whom I’ve already disclosed my theme, I’m going to illustrate all twelve to prove it can be done. And taking liberties is entirely acceptable. In fact, it’s to be encouraged. Here goes.

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me – a partridge in a pear tree. ‘Ooops. The partridge seems to have flown off. He’ll be back in a minute. Bound to be.’
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me – two turtle doves.’We’re not turtle doves, just common-or- garden pigeons. But we’re related. We’re fine. Choose me! Choose me!.’
On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me – three French hens. ‘I don’t know whether we have French blood. Probably not. Does it matter?’
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – four calling birds. ‘Just me at the moment. The others’ll be along soon.’
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – five gold rings. ‘There’s just that one on top, mate. But there’s bound to be a few more if you take your time and look.’
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – six geese a-laying. ‘They’re on their way to do just that, sir.’
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me – seven swans a-swimming. The others are over there – on the other side of the pond.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – eight maids a-milking. ‘Yep, that little maid was only born the other day. She’s milking her mum alright! Seven more calves due in the next few days. Just gotta be patient.’
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – nine ladies dancing. ‘Just nine you want? Yes, we can do that for you, sir.’
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – ten lords a-leaping. ‘We might find it difficult to supply the full set of ten sir. Most lords aren’t as young as they once were. But look at these two. Can’t fault their leaping.’
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me – eleven pipers piping. ‘If you think your young lady can take the noise, we can certainly do you the full eleven pipers.’
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me – twelve drummers drumming. ‘Easy. We’ve got at least eleven more on call just like this fellah. Would that suit you?’

There! Now just pick three or four of those days and show us what you can do.

Leanne and Elke have already beaten me to it ….

The Space Between….

That’s the title of Stupidity Hole‘s intriguing challenge as guest presenter of Monochrome Madness.

I started off with the obvious. The restricted spaces in narrow lanes, alleyways and thoroughfares.

Then I remembered the time when my grandson leapt into the space between the strokes of the letter O in a street installation.

Or there’s the curious tree near us where the space between the two parts of its malformed trunk form an ad hoc picture frame.

And lastly, a negative image. The tree occupies the space between an apparently endless expanse of – well- fresh air.

Thanks, Stupidity Hole for providing a provocative challenge to engage the mind on an excessively windy winter morning.