Esther Chilton Water prompt…

Posted on May 16, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Atlantic, holidays, Lake, Memories, north sea, Ocean, Rain, River, Tears, Water, WindermereLeave a comment

I just wrote this for Esther’s weekly prompt. This week is Water:

Water today means too much rain. It’s been falling all day. Sometimes it’s a river flowing in the lake district. My hubby tried to tickle trout while we were on holiday one year. He was unsuccessful. Water is lake Windermere, before it got polluted with toxic green algae. Home of Arctic Char fish that got trapped there in the end of the last ice age. Water means the Atlantic and North Sea coasts where we visited on many holidays. I need to visit them again. Water is my tears of regret and happiness over all these memories.

Bluebell memory

Posted on February 6, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged bluebell woods, Boat, Lake, Life, mud, Rode hall, Sailing, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Walk, Westport lake4 Comments

One spring a few years ago we went to Rode Hall in Staffordshire and walked round the bluebell filled woods. Hubby took his little red motorboat to try and sail it on the lake but there is not a safe place to launch it from, so I took this photo of him looking longingly at the lake, boat in the bag next to him.

He did sail his boats on the smaller of the two lakes at Westport later in the year. One day he sailed it and it ran out of power a few feet out from the shore. He tried to pull it back in with a broken branch. It drifted further out! So he took his shoes off, rolled up his trousers and waded out! As he clambered out with the boat his legs up to his knees were covered in black mud. We didn’t have a towel so he had to sit on a couple of carrier bags in the car. The mud was very smelly so we drove home with the windows wide open! He was always adventurous bless him X

Tree with a face…

Posted on February 3, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Ent, Eyes, Fun, Lake, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Tree, Treebeard, View, Walk, Westport lakeLeave a comment

Westport lake tree, off the beaten track, down a side path.

Somebody has taken a sign off this tree, they have left two “eyes” in place. My friend saw it first and it made me laugh. Is it an ent? Is it Treebeard… I can imagine a mouth and nose! It was good to escape even though it was drizzling and grey. Good to enjoy time outside.

Cygnet into Swan

Posted on January 4, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Baby swan, Cygnet, Lake, Nature, Photo, Swan, Water, Westport lake, Wildfowl, Wildlife2 Comments

The ugly duckling hides in the reeds, brown feathers gradually lost, snow white feathers uncovered. Soon it will be a majestic Swan.

Photo from a walk in 2020, Westport lake in Stoke on Trent.

Koi

Posted on September 3, 2023 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Biddulph, carp, Fish, Goldfish, Koi, Lake, Memory, Pool, Random thoughts, Size2 Comments

Koi carp, big goldfish. Did you know goldfish grow to fit the size of their container, they stay small in a bowl, but can grow much bigger in a lake or pond. These were at Biddulph Grange garden a couple of years ago. You could climb down some steps near the top of the lake and see them swimming. I think the shop there sold fish food? But I don’t really remember. They certainly came up to the steps when people stood on them.

I think fish must be able to think. Not just have three second memories, their behaviour makes me think they can learn. I wonder what it’s like to be a fish? And I think carp can live to quite old ages. Anyway that’s all I know about them!

Boat house

Posted on May 13, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Age, Boat house, Green, Lake, Life, life belt, old wood, Photograph, renewed, Rode hall, TimeLeave a comment

There it sits, down by the lake. How old is it? Are there boats still moored inside? A life belt is still attached to the back wall as the wood gently greens and rots… .

I’ve never been down the steep steps to the shore, it’s green and slippery and there is no handrail. If I was young I would explore. The reeds and rushes are starting to grow up, and no doubt moorhens or coots will be nesting there soon. Chicks still waiting to be laid in their eggs. There are Canada geese about. Life is renewing.

Obelisk

Posted on May 8, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Carved, History, initials, Lake, lakeside, Landscape, Memorial, obelisk, Photograph, Time6 Comments

By a lake, an old obelisk. No inscription except carved trysts, g+j, p+b? How old are they? The letters are neatly carved, so I would guess early twentieth century, when people were taught to be neat (even when defacing this!). I guess they will be related to the owners of the hall? I would have taken a close up but other people wanted to take photos. Perhaps we will go back and investigate more. There may be details on the websites. Whatever it signifies or memorialises, it is a strong statement on the hill above the lake….

The water horse

Posted on April 9, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Horse, Imagined, Lake, Life, Mystery, Photodirector, pond weed, Short story, Sketch, Water, water horseLeave a comment

Looking down into the water I saw a reflected horse, brown and white with a dark mane. Pleased to see some life around me I looked up from the reflection, but there was nothing there. Only an old tree overhanging the water, flecked with red and brown leaves, that was all, then the sky and a wooden fence….

I looked back down into the water, it was murky now, covered with ripples from the wind, no sign of my previous vision.

I stood up and started walking around the path. The lake was not big and it took me ten minutes to walk through the grass and sedges to the gate. The lake was in a dip so it was soon disappearing behind me. Flowers and hedges shimmering in the sun. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a horses head appearing out of the water, it stepped onto the bank, it started to trot, gallop, it was moving fast towards me. Covered in pond weed, mud slipping off its coat, steaming in the sunshine. I RAN as fast as I could. I could feel its breath on my neck as I reached the gate and flew through it. I stumbled and looked up. Just the sky with white clouds scudding by. No water horse!

Make a photo look like a reflection

Posted on February 10, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged flipped picture, imaginary lake, Lake, Photo, photo manipulation, Pond, Reflected, SymmetryLeave a comment

Simply use an app that can flip your photo over and join one image to the other. You can get some surreal images of apparent reflections. In this case I’ve created an image looking like the landscape is reflected in a lake or large pond. Symmetry is a wonderful thing!

At the lake

Posted on October 2, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged black and green, Dangerous, flat battery, Lake, motor boat, murky, radio controlled, Small lake, wading, WaterLeave a comment

At the lake my hubby sailed his radio controlled speedboat. All was fine for a while. He sent it round a little bouy a few times, although he did come a bit close to some ducks though. But then the battery started going flat, he kept sending it out and it started to slow down. He got it back but sent it for one last run and… It stopped and stuck by the bouy! What to do? We threw a couple of stones but it drifted outwards. Oh no! Hubby took his trousers off! No! Waded into the lake with his shoes on! No! Used a branch to get the boat, almost fell over into the foul smelling water and waded out. Then he put his trousers back on (with black and green coloured legs). He had to squelch a few hundred yards to the car. It was brave but silly, people have drowned in the big lake, luckily the small lake was shallow at that edge. But after all that’s happened recently, well I wasn’t happy.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Lake