Cat in a bag

Like all great speleologists my cat likes exploring tight and small spaces. For instance she found a pack of felt pens in this bag.

Her caving experience also includes behind the bathroom sink pedestal, under the washing on the laundry airer, and underneath my hubby’s overcoat where it touches the floor. She will lie in wait, or extend a paw quietly to catch her brother as he is passing. A miniature lion in her den.

Gate house

View of the gatehouse of the cemetery with masses of Clematis Montana? growing up and around trees in the grounds. Splendid gates and brick pillars add to the impression of a proud building. I enjoyed walking through the cemetery tonight, in a gentle rain. The somber clouds echoing the place.

I like the subtle colours in this photo, mostly muted except for the lime greens of some of the newly grown leaves, sulphurous and alive, balancing out the pinks, greys and browns. It had just stopped raining (we had been sheltering under a tree when I took this photo). I dont know what I think of buildings in cemeteries, could anyone acyually live there or is it offices? and who locks up the gates at night- is there an official gate keeper?

Graveyard tree

Trees are wonderful things, they live for much longer than humans and they show their lives in their limbs. This evergreen must have been damaged t some stage with one limb shooting off at a right angle then growing straight up parallel to the main trunk. The greenery starts part way up the trunk, perhaps the lower branches have fallen or been cut back. What history it must have seen over the years?

Wheel

Photo from 1981.

View through a terraced house window with one of my husbands bike wheels hanging in the window. He used to repair bikes for a while. He was probably replacing some spokes or had the tyre and tube off to repair a puncture.

It might not be the prettiest photo but it documents a time and a place. Forty years ago! A real film camera. Photos with rounded corners. I think taken with an olympus trip, on iso 100 speed film. I have albums with real photos…

Memories.

Blossom and bricks!

An odd combination

Walking up our hill there is a section of unadopted road that has a massive pothole. Someone has filled it in with old bricks and stones and bits of pottery shards. As I looked at it today I thought it had filled up with snow. But no, it was pink blossom nestled in the dips and dents. I reminded me of things floating in a river. I’ve taken this photo because it was an interesting juxtaposition of material, soft and hard, dark and light, natural and man made…

Upright

Upright bottle oven somewhere near the canal in Burslem, from a photo I took on a walk with the closer to home group on Saturday. I didn’t have time to stop and read the sign about it as I was at the back of the group. Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt. Metallic silver pen, metallic colours, dried up black felt pens, black felt pen, charcoal stick.

Smiling faces

Smiling cloud faces, view of Snowdonia, Wales, UK , June I think, 2019. Wishing I was there now. We haven’t been able to visit for over a year because of Covid…I saw this again today and remembered how enjoyable it was just travelling, exploring, driving down roads I’d never been down before. I don’t mind not driving much, but I’d like to go to a few nice places again….

Potholes

Walked around our local streets on today’s walk and saw these massive potholes! It looks like they are due to be filled in but how on earth did they get this big in the first place?

I’ve been watching video of the latest Mars exploration and these look bigger than some of the craters there!

If you hit one of these at normal speed I think that you would damage your suspension in a car, and it could make a bike wheel collapse. Talk about an accident waiting to happen.

I know these are nothing in the scheme of things, just a bit surprising.

Positive and negative

Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt.
Finally did a positive/negative self portrait after trying to think what I could do. I used the edge of a page cut off and added to the centre of this to make an interesting division.
Sometimes the challenges are really hard to do. I was going to draw a battery! Not exactly interesting. The negative side of the photo really lacked detail even when I tried changing the exposure.