Travel Words – From Pyrenees to Pennines

There Were Three on a Bench …

Spotted at Bradford-upon- Avon, where we were saying goodbye to Becky (Queen of Squares) who had been a brilliant host to Anabel (Glasgow Gallivanter) and me when we stayed with her last Autumn. Here is a bench, providing space for three young people to do what they do best. Scrolling.

For Jude of Travel Words’ Challenge: Bench

Seven Kinds of Smooth

Jude’s Photo Challenge this week invites us to consider texture: Smooth.

It immediately made me think of that English folk song, Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron – I’ve included a YouTube clip at the end just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about. But I’m so un-keen on ironing there’s no chance at all I could submit a photo of a pile of neatly ironed, beautifully smooth clean and dry washing.

Back to the archives then.

I’ve ended up choosing these: click on the images to see them full size and to read the captions.

These stones at Alnmouth aren’t yet particularly smooth, though they are weathered. But their reflection, and that of the blue sky emphasise what smoothness they do have.

My goodness, that was a gnarled tree that we spotted in Vic, Catalunya. But look what the shadow has done to it- flattened and smoothed it completely.

This is at the Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Centre. I like those strong smooth steel claws contrasting with the decomposing and disintegrating grot that it spends its life seizing and masticating.

A smoothly polished metal spherical sculpture near St. Paul’s Cathedral London provides perfect reflections, even on a rainy day.

Smooth flowing architectural lines, smoothly polished concrete, smooth mirrored reflections on smooth water: La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Valencia.

The obvious one: a rose, but using a pinhole lens to direct attention to the only subject here: the smooth petals.

Grotty old tyres in a rather grotty farmyard. But years of use has made their surfaces smooth, as moving close in demonstrates.

Jude at Travel Words‘ 2029 Photo Challenge #9

A Line of Trees

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the world and its vicissitudes. And I’ve got just the thing. One of our favourite walks, near Masham, near home. It offers wetlands with waterbirds, calming pastures of sheep, woodland, a stretch along the riverside – all available in a four mile stroll.

This month, Jude of Travel Words invites us to consider Pattern. This walk has plenty, starting with the skeins of geese often to be seen designing sinuous flight lines across the sky.

I’m going to show you a particular line of trees that I’m fond of, towards the end of the walk. A repeated pattern, tree after tree after tree. Sometimes, especially in high summer, these are enough to fill my mental screen. At other times, I notice the pattern echoed. A line of sheep, maybe. A different line – of fencing. Even – and I never manage to catch this in the same shot – a line of snagged sheep’s wool caught on nearby barbed wire.