Life in Colour

Golden moments at break of day … and sunset

Blogging challenges, Spain, Yorkshire

My last couple of posts have not been light-hearted. I took you for a walk across a stark and austere landscape. I invited you to read a number of stark and austere books. Since Jude’s Life in Colour is all about gold this month, I thought I’d hunt out – not very original of me, I know – a few sunrises and sunsets. These can get their golden vibe by being yellowish rather than reddish, but they’re gleaming, resplendent, hopeful, bright.

My featured photo, and the one below come from  L’Albufera de València, a natural freshwater lagoon that is home to thousands of birds – and fish too of course. Its sunsets are a wonder on any day of the year. But I particularly like the understated dirty-golden glow in these two shots.

 L’Albufera de València

Travelling’s tough these days. Better to stay local and get up early, and enjoy the sunrise just near the house. These two shots show our river, the Ure, at daybreak in spring.

Sunrise over the River Ure, Sleningford

Or just a little later, in the parkland of Sleningford Hall …

Sleningford Hall

You’d still sooner be abroad? Best take a ferry then …

Rotterdam- Hull ferry: a view from the deck.

And we’ll head straight for Granada. We might get there just in time for the sunset.

Granada

A Very Old Post Box

Blogging challenges, England, North Yorkshire

See this little window? It’s not very spectacular, being at one side of the old cottage shown in the featured photo, in the nearby village of Studley Roger. But I think it’s quite privileged. It’s just above one of the oldest post boxes in the area, one of the diminishing number of post boxes still to exist from the reign of Queen Victoria. Its design means it can’t have existed before 1857, and it’s certainly 19th century in origin. So the window earns its fifteen minutes of fame as a Monday Window, and the box itself as a bonus for Jude’s Life in Colour, which this month celebrates the colour red.

Monday Window

A Red Letter Day?

Blogging challenges, England, Germany, Spain

This month, Jude is inviting us to hunt for red in her Life in Colour challenge. So let’s go on a Virtual Day Trip and hunt for red. I think we’ll travel in the bus that was conveniently parked in the next village when the Tour de France came to Yorkshire. West Tanfield is also where we see the poppies in the featured photo.

We’ll whip over to Bradford first, call in at the Bombay Stores, and get some headgear for you chaps.

Still in Yorkshire, we’ll pop in to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see Damian Hirst’s Virgin Mother.

Berlin next. We’ve only time to wander down a handsome street …

… before arriving for a quick visit to the Berlin Wall.

Right. That’s Germany done. Straight off to Spain. Are you peckish yet? Seeing all these peppers, tomatoes and pots of Moorish-style tea has made me think of food.

  • la Rioja
  • Premià de Mar
  • Granada

Where next? We could catch a wedding in Seville …

… and please don’t tell me we’ve come to Córdoba just to see this garage door.

We’ll forget that by visiting La Concepción Historical Botanical Gardens, Málaga.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve nearly had enough for one day. Time for a glass of wine, I think …

Then there’s just time to write a few postcards, and post them in that perky pillar box I know in Buxton.

I’ve realised that Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge is also about the colour red. Let’s make this post multi-task!

A History of a Holiday in Fifteen Trees and Twenty Blues

Blogging challenges, Spain

Typical of me to miscount. This isn’t the last day of the month. But these are my last squares. Alongside my one and only square today are other shots, mainly in blue, for Jude’s monthly Life in Colour challenge. They’re all included as a final salute to our memorable month in Spain – until Monday, that is, when I’ll showcase the clothes lines that we spotted for Andrew’s Monday Washing Lines.

A palm tree in Premià: with a backdrop of the blue skies we saw day after day after day.
  • Sunrise in the Bay of Biscay, aboard the Galicia
  • Arriving in Santander
  • Someone lost their trainers in Premià
  • Blue shutters, a blue door in the old part of Premià
  • A curious graffito in Premià
  • Street art in Premià
  • Standing on the beach in Premià looking over at Barcelona
  • A beachside restaurant in Premià on a breezy day.
  • Whoever thought of putting the seven dwarfs in niches at the top of their house? Someone in Premià, that’s who.
  • On the waterfront at Premià. This was once where the goods yard was, near the station. During the Spanish Civil War it became a Republican fortress.
  • A stork near Zaragoza
  • Not a cathedral, not a palace, but a bank in Zaragoza
  • This lion is one of four guarding the entrance to the Zarazoga on its oldest bridge.
  • Street art in Tudela
  • A lighthouse near San Sebastian
  • Street art in Santander
  • More street art in Santander
  • Barely blue skies on the ferry from Santander to Portsmouth

TreeSquare And thanks, as ever, for your Squares challenge Becky. A lovely month of choosing, squaring and sharing images of trees, ‘our most intimate connection with nature’ ( George Nakashima)

A Whiter Shade of White?

Blogging challenges

Casting around for suitable ideas for Jude’s Life in Colour – White – challenge, I remembered a post I’d written two years ago. Not only does it work for Jude (up to a point) but it fits the bill for Fandango’s Flashback Friday. Here it is:

IDENTICAL?

I’ve never been much good at twiddling with the controls on my camera.  I even joined a photography course recently, in an effort to get to grips with apertures, shutter speeds and ISO controls.  But it just made my head hurt, and I reverted to ‘Automatic’ as my default modus operandi.  I decided I’m a snaphot-ist, not a photographer.

Yesterday however, just for a bit of fun, and having an hour to spare, I turned to the ‘palette’ settings and took an identical shot using every single one. Though I forgot to take one on ‘Automatic’, so the tale isn’t quite complete. Can’t do it now. This little twig of blossom (cherry?), a chance discovery found in the road, wilted in the night.

Which do you like best?  As ever, click on any image to see it full size.  They’re in strict alphabetical order – no favouritism here.

Bleach by-pass
  • Cross process
  • Dynamic monochrome
  • Expressive
  • Fantasy
  • High-dynamic
  • High key
  • Impressive -art
  • Low-key
  • Miniature effect
  • Monochrome
  • Old-days
  • One point colour

  • Retro
  • Rough monochrome
  • Sepia
  • Silky-monochrome
  • Soft-focus
  • Star-filter
  • Sunshine
  • Toy-effect
  • Toy-pop

Three posts in three days. That’s a bit much. But I’ve pushed out all my last thoughts before taking a blogging break. I just might post the odd thing – such as Six Degrees of Separation at the start of next month – but so total will be my break that – sorry – I may not even read your offerings, fellow bloggers.

Lilac and clematis, all at once

Blogging challenges, Gardens

Last week, I showed you wisteria on the front of the house. Today, we’ll sneak into the walled garden and look at the clematis framing one of the windows in our neighbour’s house – there it is in the featured photo. And here’s the lilac, just coming out:

And here’s the view from the kitchen window – the lilac’s still budded, but soon it will be fully out – for one week only – before becoming once more a rather unremarkable shrub.

I may produce more lilac for Jude’s Life in Colour: two shades of purple to go at in just a few days. But I promised another window view for Ludwig’s Monday Window. So here we are.

Wisteria Windows

Blogging challenges, Gardens

This is the time of year when the outside of our house, and the one to which we’re attached deck themselves in scented clouds of wisteria.

There’s lilac below the kitchen window: that’ll bloom very soon: already the tightly furled buds are loosening and hinting at the soft mauves and purples that will emerge. That’ll be for next week then.

Life in Colour #18

Monday Window

Spring Yellows, from Aconites to Buttercups

Ariège, Blogging challenges, North Yorkshire

So many of our favourite springtime flowers have cheerful sunny faces., beginning in January with aconites, then going via celandines, daffodils, marsh marigolds, primroses, dandelions and cowslips to glorious meadows of buttercups in June. Here are just a few of them.

I can’t end the post though, without reminding myself of the crowds, the hosts of daffodils in the woodland slopes of the Pyrenees, nearby to where we lived in France. The French don’t have the same love affair with the daffodil that we have here in England, but this was a spectacle I’ve never seen bettered anywhere.

Life in Colour

Six Word Saturday