This has been a great year for blossom – though sadly, it’s nearly all over now. Let’s hope though that these burgeoning blossoms become ripe fruits for us – or the birds – to enjoy as summer and autumn come our way.
For Becky’s Squares – Renew.
Today, for Becky’s Squares Challenge, I’m going to focus on moving forward. Birds show us how it’s done.
Spotted yesterday at Studley Royal: new life – burgeoning; the devoted parents moving forward – often – to protect their young by hissing threateningly at passers by who paused to admire the new babies; renewing and reconstructing the bloodline.
Yes, Becky’s Squares photo challenge has returned – hooray! The only rule is that the image chosen has to be square. This month’s theme is Renew. Or Burgeoning. Or Moving Forward. Or Reconstructing. You get the idea. So here is my first offering.
The photos is also my Last on the Card for Brian. It has of course been doctored to form a perfect square. This is against the rules. But Brian knows I invariably break the rules.
I found some delicate pretty-in-pink forced rhubarb at the market the other day. Just the thing for a rhubarb cake.
I got my ingredients together: equal quantities of flour, ground almonds, butter and golden caster sugar (I cut down on this last, obviously). Then odds and ends like baking powder, additions of my own like ginger and cinnamon, and crushed walnuts as I had no flaked almonds. And of course the chopped rhubarb to go on top.
Then I mixed my ingredients together and popped them in the baking tin. It seemed a little smaller than I’d imagined, but never mind. Into the oven it went, looking good.
Just before it was due to come out, I noticed my scale pan …
Yes. There was the flour, with baking powder, ginger and cinnamon. Clearly, these ingredients had not been included in my cake.
Hmm. Nothing for it but to bash on and hope for the best.
Reader, it was delicious. Next time I use this recipe – and it’s a keeper – it still won’t have flour or baking powder. Though I might allow the spices in.
Paula, who blogs at Lost in Translation, offers each month a different set of five words to illustrate. Look at this month’s: sabulous; brimming; guarding; berthing and bight. Interesting, aren’t they? I bet you had to haul the dictionary out for one, maybe two of them.
It was bight that caught my eye. It actually means …
But it doesn’t mean that to me. Like so many Brits, I’m a devotee of the Shipping Forecast, that four-times-daily forecast to anyone out at sea within reach of the British coast. The coastal waters are divided into zones, each evocatively named.
I’m not out at sea, dicing with the elements: I’m a rotten sailor anyway. But I can be soothed by the predictable poetic rhythms of the regular broadcast. Do watch this explanatory video. It’ll take up under two minutes of your life.
It’s so much a part of my life, I even have a cushion showing many of the much-loved names.
… and there you’ll have spotted it. German Bight. So that’s what Bight means to me. Ships at sea, their crew always ready, four times a day, to tune into that most necessary programme.
It seems only right then, that my four remaining photos should have been taken on the sea, or at any rate by the sea. Here they are …
Mine is not a blog about books: my sole regular contribution is to the monthly discussion about books : ‘Six Degrees of Separation‘. But I’m an avid follower of some book reviewers, and one of my favourites is Kim of Reading Matters. She writes ‘Book reviews of mainly modern & contemporary fiction‘, she’s one of a select band whom I rely on to direct me towards much of what is best in recent writing.
This week, she chose me – me – to feature in her Triple Choice Tuesday. You can read all about it here.
Thanks Kim. I had to think hard about my choices for this post. I’ve enjoyed reading about some of your other featured bloggers, and look forward to more in the weeks to come.
My featured photo is by Ciao, from Pexels.
Finding abstract images from among my collection of photos has been quite the challenge. And yet this is what Ritva has asked of us for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge. I’ve never been all that good at playing with all the dials of my camera. I’m no expert at ICM – Intentional Camera Movement, though rather excellent at its opposite, UCM (work it out …) – I usually delete those. Nor do I do much processing of my images. Nevertheless, I came across this little batch of abstracts in my search through my photos. Can you guess where each is from?
My feature photo was deliberately taken for its abstract qualities. As was this one …
Water’s often good at being abstract, and in different moods too. Look.
And it doesn’t have to be deep water either.
… or look at these …
Perhaps even the absence of water …
Here’s a little glossary of where each image was taken, in order:
a: An entrance to the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
b: A bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Gargrave, North Yorkshire.
c: Albert Dock, Liverpool.
d: Reservoir, Nosterfield, North Yorkshire.
e: Lake Ohrid, North Macedonia.
f: A winter puddle on a track near home.
g: The beach at Filey, North Yorkshire.
h: An aquarium at the Horniman Museum, London.
i: A display of bubbles on the South Bank London.
j: Scar House Reservoir, North Yorkshire during the drought of 2020.
This week, Donna’s Lens Artist Challenge invites us to celebrate rocks, their geology, and what they have meant to humankind. Bloggers have responded with hosts of natural wonders: extravagant, bizarre, subtly beautiful and all extraordinary. I had planned to respond in kind, by showcasing – as I have in my feature photo – our nearby geological extravaganza which is Brimham Rocks. But I already have several times – here – here and here – to name but a few.
Instead, I’ve chosen to show rocks in the service of mankind. Brimham Rocks even fit in here. These days they’re our very best local playground.
But rocks have been pressed into service since prehistoric times. Here is Cairn Holy in Dumfries and Galloway. It’s a Neolithic burial site – perhaps that of Galdus, a Scottish king. But perhaps not: he’s thought to be mythical.
Farmers have divided their land up into fields for almost as long. Drystone walls march across the rural landscape here, particularly in the north of England.
And where would our churches, our cathedrals be without a ready supply of local rock and stone?
Scuplture too. I’ve chosen a few pieces that have weathered over the centuries, to reveal the underlying rock that the original sculptor had chiselled to the form that he, not nature had decided on.
Nature too can be a sculptor. This rock, hauled from the sea on the Spanish coast, has been transformed by – what? Underwater snail trails?
Nature doesn’t need any help from man when it comes to artistic expression. I’ll conclude with an image of rock at its most painterly, in the Gorges du Tarn in France.
Monochrome Madness this week has us hunting down everyday objects. I thought it might be fun to showcase some of the teacups and coffee cups I have met round and about. I’ll start off with my feature photo. Once, in Granada, at a bar with a friend, we found our different choices meant that we were served our coffee in the manner of the Three Bears -Baby Bear, Mummy Bear, and Daddy Bear.
Poland next, and our breakfast in Gdansk. Sir William gets himself about, all over Europe. But not as far as I know, in the UK.
Granddaughter-in-Spain is too young for coffee. Hot chocolate is her tipple of choice. With predictable results.
After a busy morning of child care, let’s go for something more elegant. A good olden-days afternoon tea, courtesy of the Wensleydale Railway. Trundle in a leisurely fashion through the North Yorkshire countryside whilst enjoying tea elegantly served with dainty scones and cakes on a tiered cake stand. Earl Grey or Darjeeling, Madam?
If fine china is your thing, you should visit the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. Here you can find delicate tableware like this – extraordinarily from the 12th Century – getting on for 1000 years ago …
And if museums are your thing, you should visit the much more homely Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge. Here you’ll find tableware from local churches. Yes, almost every church used to have their very own tea and dinner services for those all-important social gatherings.
Another display, this time from the annual Marmalade Festival near Penrith.
Finally, that newly-so-British tradition of the Scarecrow Festival. This one’s from last year’s village fete at Kirkby Malzeard, our village-next-door.
So, Sarah of Travels with Me, who’s prompted this week’s challenge for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness: here’s a slice of life from those so-important moments of down-time. No high class photos here. Quite simply high-class memories.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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