The Sunday Post over at Jakes http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/sunday-post-pet/ has the theme of pets so here are
Daisy
and Dido
at the beach!
Month: May 2012
Weekly Photo Challenge: Hands
Hands are the subject of this weeks Photo Challenge, so here are my daughters!
For more interprestations of the challenge pop over here,
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/weekly-photo-challenge-hands/
Puffins, Lottery Tickets and the Crazy Polish Woman
Lucid Gypsy and the Crazy Polish Woman went for a lunchtime stroll and as usual we tried to put the world to rights, quite a task in half an hour and we soon got bored with trying! We moved on to the lottery, her desire to win, combined with the impossibility of that, when she doesn’t buy a ticket. She has bought a little globe and wants to go to as many places as possible in the world. Nothing unusual about that is there? Except that when she wins, she will spend the first £5000 visiting Iceland. Again not particularly unusual, I wouldn’t mind myself as long as it was in midsummer. She has a mission though. Puffins. She loves them, and has come across a fact that I for one did not know.
So she wants to travel to Iceland to warn them to leave. Ideally she will speak to each of them individually. Of course we debated whether these conversations should be carried out in English, Polish or Squawk (something she does when she gets excited, angry or just plain Crazy). It has to be Squawk, I don’t think there are many Puffins in Poland – but will be happy to be proved wrong – and they tend to avoid people in England, choosing instead to hang around on Lundy or the Scilly’s.
Aside from getting close enough in Iceland to have a conversation with them, of course there is the problem of recognising which ones you have warned already. Unless you are a Puffin they all look pretty much the same. So if they aren’t prepared to leave immediately, then some sort of label would be needed. Perhaps the ones that CPW has enlightened can be persuaded to spread the word in Puffin speak, and then she may be able to see some geysers and glaciers, in the day long day with the left over money.
She really is very worried about them and a world without Puffins would of course be terrible. If you are a follower of some of the celebrity chefs, you may already know what her fears are. If not, well please stop reading if you are of a sensitive disposition. You see it’s because they are eaten. Icelanders consider raw Puffin heart to be a delicacy.
I am going to buy CPW a lottery ticket.
One Year and Twenty Five Thousand for Lucid Gypsy
A year ago today I very tentatively started a blog and Lucid Gypsy was born. I had no idea where we were taking each other and if anyone would visit, just a vague plan to write travel and short fiction. It was a very slow start; I had to learn the techy stuff and kept it very simple for the first few days. Then I kind of worked out how to post photos and published Nest of Primates my first travel piece, which I still think is one of my best posts, but hasn’t had that many reads. (Interestingly, I’ve wondered for ages how to change the words on a link and have finally done it – WordPress has forced me to learn!) I posted five times last May and then disappeared for a while to Turkey, returning with a head stuffed with stories and a couple thousand photos.
I was stumbling though with no clue what to write or how to be seen. A turning point came when I discovered the Weekly Photo Challenge and was able to indulge my other passion, photography. Finding out how to tag and categorise well, made all the difference and eventually in November I had more than a thousand views. You may wonder why it took me so long; instructions are there to be read of course. Trouble is I can’t do instructions books for anything. I try to read how, but don’t get it and have to muddle my way through.
Slowly a following came and I began to meet some interesting people around the world. Does anyone remember having a pen friend as a child? Usually one foisted on you by school? Well the blogosphere is like having hundreds of pen friends, a fascinating way of learning about other cultures, and seeing photos of places taken by real people in everyday places as well as the grand tourist destinations.
Being a Gemini and a writer I have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and each time I look at someone’s blog I am transported to another person’s world, be it in the next county or a garden in the southern hemisphere. Lovely people I can’t thank you enough for your support, inspiration, laughter and tears.
At some point in the remaining four hours of today one of my five hundred plus followers will become the twenty five thousandth hit on Lucid Gypsy, how amazing that I should reach that number today!
Thank you so much.
100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups Week #42
This week’s 100 word challenge over at Julia’s http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week-42/
has five words for the prompt. They are LIBERTY, APPLE, YELLOW, ENORMOUS AND EMPIRE. I’m told my attempt is too cryptic this time so you may not get it 😦
Speed Date
It took me all night to make this. I’m so out of practice, haven’t cut a pattern for years. Enormous amount of fabric, Liberty print the length of the hall. Thank goodness it’s bright yellow; you can’t really see where I spilt the apple juice.
Hooray for chicken fillets, I’ve always wanted to wear an Empire line dress. A bonnet would be too much, but my hair’s up. I feel like a bride, perhaps that’s a good omen.
Speed dating with an Austen theme, only in Winchester eh? Is this the right room?
Oh my God.
Austen.
Powers.
Not Jane.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue
Les Jardins Majorelle in Marrakech were once owned by Yves St Laurent and his ashes are scattered there. The garden was designed by Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s and 30s and his father, the artist Louis’s name is given to the bright colour of Majorelle Blue. In the heart of the city, it is open to the public and it’s wonderful to arrive by Caleche. The cobalt blue is everywhere around the twelve acre garden and the day I visited the sky was a close match.
These photos are part of the Weekly Photo Challenge here, http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/weekly-photo-challenge-blue/
Totnes and the River Dart
Totnes is a little town in the South Hams where a friend, alluding to it’s alternative population, once said you can see the haze of the wacky baccy floating above as you approach. The name sign on the road from Dartington says it’s twinned with Narnia. Totnes is packed with little hippy shops, second hand bookshops, wholefoods, and cafes to suit everyone, it’s a super place for a pootle. Every alternative therapy known to man can be sampled, needless to say it’s on a ley line.
Before leaving the town centre I had a chat with a lady who runs a geisha house http://www.sarasvati-arts.co.uk/hachisu/index.html she was dressed in a beautiful kimono. One of the alternative therapies on offer is ‘gonging’, where you sit close to one of these and you are immersed in its sound. Excuse the reflections on this photo, but I had to share it, click to open and read about a Pastor offering an unusual service!
Walking down the town we reached the River Dart and had a short walk on the Access for all ‘ path. We met a couple in their 80’s you were having trip down memory lane. They had grown up in Totnes and said that as children their parents had warned them away from the river because they would drown. Needless to say that didn’t stop them from jumping in and swimming around the weir. They weren’t swimming this time, or walking – they had cycled, only around eight miles, not their usual distance of up to thirty!
Further along I took these photos of a canoeist who looked like he was having a great time. On the walk back we found him on the river bank with his canoe deflated. He had parked in Totnes, caught the steam train up to Buckfastleigh, about seven miles, boat in backpack and then paddled downstream. We envied him, it sounds idyllic, but no doubt I, if not friend, would have drowned. I hope you like the sound of Totnes, for further posts about the area click on Dartington in my category cloud and if you click on the first photo a slide show will appear!
The Sunday Post: Work
Jakes theme this week is work and once again he has created a clever animation here http://jakesprinters.wordpress.com/
Here are my work photos.
Rug making in Anatolia, a woman’s work.
Palm oil production in Ghana, the whole family share the work, even very small children.
Building repairs that seem to be shared work.
Rug uh – guarding? a man’s work!
# Friday Fictioneers – Lunacy
This is my first Friday Fictioneers 100 word post. The photo below is the prompt for this week.
Here is the link if you would like to join in. http://madisonwoods.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/photo-prompt-for-100-word-flash-fridayfictioneers-29/ and my story.
Lunacy
‘Daughter, at last it is favourable. Yesterday’s rains have made the earth soft, and moist. Now, the moon is shining her benevolence.’
‘This is a good time mummy? What makes it so?’
‘She is waning and her energy draws into the soil, she makes roots grow strong, it is time to sow our yam seed.’ They bent to dig and plant the seed together.
‘Wife what is this crazy woman talk you put in the child’s head? Plants need sun and water, not this lunacy. Tell me when you’ve finished and I will slaughter the goat and sprinkle its blood.’
Happy Scarecrow Nonsense
My friend at work came in today and said she had seen the scarecrows! It’s becoming a modern tradition in the countryside to have scarecrows not just in fields but in hedges, gateways and front gardens. D had seen them in the village of Newton St Cyres, a few miles outside Exeter and this evening I was heading through there anyway.
These are a few of my finds!
I’m afraid it was getting dark and that’s my excuse for grainy photos!
I know that scarecrows are found all over the world, but usually just in fields? These were for a competition, to raise funds for charity and the winner has the prize of, um, well knowing they have the most interesting and goofy creation! Maybe you know about competitions like this somewhere else in the world? Let me know if you do!
Thanks to D for telling they were there 🙂 and visit Margekatherine who is hosting a week of happy posts.
http://margekatherine.com/2012/05/09/happiness-care-to-share/
Lucid Gypsy 