a trace of azure
wrapped in a skeleton tree
just biding its time
Month: January 2015
Wordless Wednesday
January’s Bench Dream
For a summer loving lass like me, a balmy hour on a garden bench surrounded by plants is perfect. This one is at Penshurst Place, near Royal Tunbridge Wells, taken last June.
Jude has created a new monthly challenge, a photo of a bench. She has discovered that lots of people have a passion for taking photos of them, and have many in their collections. I’m a one of those bench anoraks, as well as windows and doors! If you are too, why not pop over http://smallbluegreenwords.wordpress.com/bench-series/ and join in?
Jude says,
For some time now I have been photographing benches when I come across them. I like benches. I especially like them when they are placed in a convenient position, like half way up a hill, or on the top of a cliff, preferably with a view. Some benches have plaques, some have slats, some are made of wood, some are good (to sit on). So for the next year, as a new feature, I am going to post a photo of a bench/seat each week. So you can take the weight of your feet and relax and breathe…
Jude is a real garden lover, so she is kicking off the challenge this month with the theme of garden benches
Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadowed
Experimenting with shadows can be a fun and rewarding way to push yourself to try something new with your camera, your subject, and your surroundings. Shadows can also add depth and drama to an otherwise ordinary image.
For this week’s Photo Challenge, find the shadows. You can choose a literal interpretation and shoot an actual shadow, or you can play with the light and dark, and create a moody scene, or capture your subject in a rich and interesting way.
So, I’ve tried to choose some images where something is shadowed!
The courtyard at Bridport Arts Centre is shadowed by a decorative canopy and the buildings on each side of Buckydoo Square.
She’s beautiful, you’ll just have to believe me as she is so well shadowed.
A Dartmoor day with the sort of weather that makes the clouds shadow the distant moor, beyond Scorhill.
Maybe you will join in?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/shadowed/
Lazy Poets Thursday Haiku
Little woodland elf
pink and purple riding hood
busy in the mist
Wordless Wednesday
There are many people who post Wordless Wednesdays, here are just a few that I know of.
https://cherylandrews.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/wordless-wednesday-7-january-2015/
Wordless Wednesday: Hinterland
https://anotherday2paradise.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/wordless-wednesday-froggie-went-a-rafting/comment-page-1/#comment-27375
Wordless Wednesday
Finding Sladers Yard
After a walk at Hive beach we arrived at West Bay around four o’clock on a winter afternoon, and drove around hoping for tea and cake. We parked and dashed to a café we’d spotted, just as they turned the sign to closed. I asked the staff member if there was another café nearby and she grunted that we could try across the road. Thank goodness they were closing, because ‘across the road’ was perfect.
She had directed us to Sladers Yard, a historic rope warehouse from the early nineteenth century, that supplied rope to the whole of the British Navy. Since 2006 it has been a café, and judging by the lemon polenta cake, the food is excellent. Here is the main café area.
There is a further multi purpose space, and the building is used as a party and wedding venue and for poetry and musical performance. Notice the building? 
It is beautifully done, with a perfect balance of restoration and rawness, and as a contemporary gallery it is a stunning backdrop for the art displayed.
Sladers is run by Petter Southall a furniture designer craftsman, and his wife Anna Powell. Petter’s work is the stuff of dreams, the kind of wood that makes you want to stroke it and inhale the fragrance.
Goodbye Sladers, I’ll be back in summer with enough time for lunch, outside in the yard.
Checking for the date of the building, I came across . . .
https://sladersyard.wordpress.com/ where you will find photos that are much better than mine, do have a peep.
Hive Beach Stroll
Friday was the most perfect winter day here and I had an extra day off, so it couldn’t be wasted! My friend and I set off heading east with a vague idea of perhaps Lyme Regis or Charmouth. Leaving the A30 at Honiton and taking the A35, a winding, up hill and down dale road passing through little villages, Wilmington, Kilmington and Raymonds Hill. Enjoying the view, high and wide, of east Devon and west Dorset, Golden Cap, a hill and cliff which is the highest on the south coast of England, waiting for me to climb one day.
Something took on us past the Charmouth and Lyme turning, towards Burton Bradstock, ten miles further and passing through we stopped instead at Hive beach which has a National Trust car park and access to the South West Coast Path. Hive is a noisy beach, not human noise but nature’s noise, as the waves crash onto the shore and then rush back down the steeply shelved shingle.
There were quote a few people walking off the seasons excesses on the beach so we thought we would check out the view from the cliff path.
We climbed quite high and Lyme Bay opened up.
At the highest point we looked north towards Bridport.
In the distance stands Colmer Hill, somewhere else I’d like to visit.
Then we circled around common land on the side of the hill.
And retraced our steps.
We had already sampled the Hive Beach Café’s coffee, so we set off to find tea and cake, tomorrow I’ll show you where!
We only had time for a short walk because the daylight was fading fast, but the area deserves some serious hiking, there is so much to see in West Dorset.
Reluctant William
New Years Day at Blackbury Camp and dens need building, according to Louisa anyway.
Weekly Photo Challenge: New
Michelle W. says,
It’s the first photo challenge of 2015, and the theme is “new.” Cliché? Perhaps, but clichés develop for a reason. For many of us, the year’s beginning is time to take stock of the past and plan for the future; this week, let’s get excited about those plans by celebrating what’s new.
Well, I’m expecting something new and really exciting this week but meanwhile, for me, these are pretty cool!
My new Christmas books, with their bright paper and sweet scent, tempting me into their pages, but I’m resisting until I’ve finished my current read.
Got something new to photograph? show us all here, https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/new/
Lucid Gypsy 