Category: Blogging Challenge

Tick-Tock

This week, it’s my turn to host Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. I decided on Clocks and Timepieces. Easy, I thought. Well, up to a point. There are plenty of clocks in towns, in stations, on churches and on public buildings. But too often they’re bit samey-samey. So I’m starting with one that we came upon by chance on our last day in Alsace, in Munster’s Catholic Church. It’s a modern Horloge de la Création, installed at the behest of André Voegele from Strasbourg, who has made it his ambition to install unusual timepieces. This one is interesting alright. It tells the time: hour by hour, minute by minute. But it also counts the years down, month by month; the days of the week; and the phases of the moon. It’s topped by a splendid cockerel, whom I chopped off a bit in my header photo. So here he is. I’m sure he’s a reliable alarm clock. Cocks usually are.

As to the rest. I have an indifferent photo of a clock that hasn’t functioned since 2007 – the Swiss Glockenspiel Clock in London; a clock outside St. Pancras Station; one from a station waiting room in Keighley; an intriguing one spotted outside an apartment block in Barcelona; the centrepiece of Thirsk’s Market Square; and a clock which is not a clock, but helps to govern the workings of the one high up outside Masham’s Parish Church. Now. Can you tell which is which?

And finally. A clock which is a shadow of its former self. This alarm clock sat in a hedge on a country road which I often passed during Daily Exercise in Lockdown. It stayed there for months after Normal Sevice had been resumed. It was always 8 o’clock. Then one day it disappeared. Life has not been the same since. I offer it to Becky for NovemberShadows.

The lonely alarm clock of Musterfield. Tells the correct time twice daily, but the alarm never rings.

Rummaging Through My Archives

This week, for the Lens-Artists Challenge, Anne has proposed a Scavenger hunt. What fun! Here’s what I’ve come up with, starting with my featured photo exhibiting the soft coats of of those baby ducklings.

Onwards.

Circular. A window at the end of an exhibition space in  Lluís Domènech i Montaner House-Museum, Canet de Mar.

Glass. All kinds of glass here. The plate glass of the shop window itself, and the glass and the bottle within. Each of them reflecting the Barcelona street where the shop is situated.

Shoelaces – usefully stringing up some discarded trainers in a residential district near Park Güell in Barcelona.

Waves. We’ll leave Spain for England, but just fish out our cameras as the ferry leaves Rotterdam, causing a variety of waves as it glides throuh the water.

Shadow. Some discovered in the Valley Gardens in Harrogate.

Wheels. Some old charmers noticed this year at Masham Steam Rally.

Rectangular: lots of rectangles here, from bricks to planks to the battered doors themselves – afarm door near Staveley, North Yorkshire.

Jewellery: my British readers will understand that I entirely approve of the sentiments displayed in this pair of earrings.

And that’s me done for today. An extra post for the week – just for fun.

Found at the Fair!

Now I’ve always hated funfairs, even as a child. Too noisy! Too crowded! Too scary! But I’ve always loved markets – local markets I mean, full (ideally)of stalls selling freshly picked lettuce and spinach, earth-covered newly-pulled potatoes or carrots. Local cheeses. Local fish. Local anything really.

But … I haven’t got time this week to curate photos from dozens of irresistible markets in France, in Spain, in Germany for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Found at the Fair or Market, hosted by Anne-Christine. Most of my Spanish family is coming over for a fortnight. Hooray! So I’ll use this opportunity to present just one photo, taken when they were with us last year, and we visited Beamish and its properly old fashioned fairground. It can serve for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness too.

I’m off duty now. No posts (apart from Indian Friday, which I’ve scheduled). No comments. No visits to all the blogs I enjoy reading. My daughter will usually be working remotely: so we’ll be i/c the children, now 4 years old and 20 months. So … a different kind of duty, even more pleasurable than the world of blogging.

Backlighting for the Bold

Oooh. For Monochrome Madness this week, Brian Bushboy has set a challenge and a half. Backlighting. What? I hear non-photographers ask. Here’s what Brian says: ‘Backlighting in photography is a way for photographers to create dramatic lighting. This involves positioning the main light source for a photograph behind the primary subject’. In other words, do what you spend your photographic life trying NOT to do. Take shots direct into the sun, or the light source, anyway. It’s easier in a sunny country, so let’s take the ferry to Spain.

I have no idea who this couple are. But they were enjoying a meal, a glass of wine, with the sun shining over the coast we were heading for.

And here we are in Premià, staying with daughter and family.

We won’t outstay our welcome, but nip down to Valencia. To l’Albufera.

After, we’ll come back to the UK. To Pembrokeshire:

The featured photo is from the UK too. No idea where.

And that is all I have to say on the subject.

Community Reds

I had various Red Images jostling for position on this last day of #SimplyRed. But yesterday, enjoying a cup of coffee with friends in our village’s Community Garden, I realised that what I want to celebrate today is … Community. Specifically the one that Becky has built up, in which the Squarers in particular have the chance to visit old friends and make new ones, and just generally enjoy the world-wide connections that blogging brings to our lives. Thank you Becky. Here are some flowers from our Community Garden. Very few, unfortunately, are red. So I’ve squeezed a clump of pink ones in as well.

Also, probably the first entry of the end of the month for Brian’s Last on the Card.

Bougainvillea Bonanza

In my opinion, you can never have too much bougainvillea. It cheers up any town or village walk in Spain or southern France … or anywhere hot I guess.

My header shot was taken in Málaga, and the others too showcase bougainvillea in Spain.

And as there is, after today, only one more day of Becky’s #SimplyRed squares, we might all need a spot of cheering up.

PS. These flowers are redder than they seem in a couple of these shots!

PPS. There’s a late addition to the clutch of stories addressing the issue of What if She says Yes? You can now read it at the end of Sunday’s post. And I recommend that you do!