Photo walking round local towns

This is one of our ‘goals’ this year.  I have just finished an album that records ‘52 walks’ taken during 2010 (actually I only did 48, but I’m OK with that!), and I wanted another photography challenge.  I didn’t want to do a photo a day, or even a weekly challenge, so I created my very own challenge, with no pressure!  I am not specifying how many town photo walks we will do, or how often, just as and when the fancy (and the weather) takes us!

Last Sunday morning was glorious blue sky and sunshine, so we took ourselves, and Merlin off to walk around Shoreham by Sea, a small town about 7 miles east of here, at the mouth of the River Adur.

We started off walking along a path by the river right by the houseboats.  Lots of artists live here: safe to say, it’s an alternative lifestyle.  There have been some very ingenious restorations, and some have photos and information on the original boat mounted by the path.

Here’s the view across the river towards the town itself

We walked across the footbridge and sat on the quayside drinking our coffee – lovely!

This photo was taken from the bridge looking east.

and here’s the view to the west:

and here’s the rather ugly bridge!  The bridge connects Shoreham Beach to the town.  The way round by road is much further.  Shoreham Beach has always had a rather ‘arty’ feel.  There are some lovely houses fronting the sea shore.

The town is dominated by the magnificent St Mary de Haura church, which dates back to the 12th century.  There are narrow streets full of lovely old cottages all around here.

Here’s the newest building, the Ropetackle centre.  It replaced some very ramshackle buildings and looks splendid at the end of the High Street.  This is used as a music and entertainment venue.  I am slightly embarrassed to say we haven’t been there yet.  Behind are the usual modern waterfront apartments that are springing up near all waterways!

Lastly a view across to the railway bridge and Lancing College in the background.  The main A27 road is between the railway bridge and the college.  There is a water sports centre just here so there are often canoeists at low tide.

South Downs Way

Gosh!  It’s 10 days since I last posted.  I guess not a lot has been happening – I don’t seem to be inspired to take any photos lately.  I have so many now of my everyday life, that I can’t think of new things to photograph.  Hmm, time to revisit the ‘Picture Inspiration’ class on BPC!  I am working hard on a big quilt, and my Venice scrapbook album, so not a lot of craftiness to show you at the moment.

But…yesterday, the sun was shining so we decided to take one of our occasional forrays onto the South Downs Way.  It’s a path that takes you over 100 miles from Beachy Head in the East to Winchester in the West, and it follows the ridge of the South Downs.  Every so often we drive to the next car park and walk for a couple of hours or so.  Yesterday we parked at Cocking, and walked eastwards back towards where we last stopped.  We walked about 3 miles to the village of Graffham, then back again. 

This part of the path is through woodland so not many sweeping views to show you.  But we came across these cute brown sheep.  Love that some of them have white faces!

That path you can see on the hill in the background is the next bit of our walk.  Westwards to Petersfield, we’ll soon be in Hampshire!

10 on the 10th

Mindful of my ECONOMICAL word this year, I am going to try and not sign up for any more online scrapbooking classes!

So.. I would like to revisit some of those I have half not done over the next few months:

from www.shimelle.com:

Something from almost nothing

Pretty Paper party

Love your Pictures, Love your Pages

True Stories

 

from www.bigpictureclasses.com

Picture Inspiration (Tracey Clark)

28 days of sketches (Lisa Day)

One Little Word (Ali Edwards)

Write Now! (Amy Sorensen)

Telling Stories Deeply (Karen Grunberg)

 

from www.aliedwards.com

Storyology

 

I’ll report back how I get on!

Friendship Quilt

I meet once a month with my cabin friends, Burnice and Tash.  We meet in  Burnice’s craft cabin in her garden, and have lately concentrated on quilting, although we do the odd papercrafting too, drink the odd mug of tea, and eat cake!  We decided to make each other blocks for a friendship quilt as a Christmas present.

We gave each other 1 fat quarter, which had to be incorporated in the block.

Burnice’s block.  I gave her the house fabric in the border.  isn’t this lovely?  I love the yo-yo flowers and there are little charms dangling from the ribbon, a sewing machine, a cup and a clock.

Tash’s block.  I gave her the green house fabric.  These 4 blocks come from the book ‘Hobo Quilts’.  The book tells of the secret language of hobos ‘riding the rails’ from the 1880s to 1940s America.  These blocks represent (clockwise) good water – because I live near the sea, work available –because of the spades, and I like gardening,  housewife feeds for chores – because I am a housewife, and well guarded house – because of my dog(more likely he will lick an intruder to death).  tash really put a lot of thought into this!

My block, using up some of my gorgeous batiks!  This is a pinwheel block.

We all made the same for our 4th block, this wonky house represents the cabin, and the ribbon says, ‘laugh often, sit long, talk much’, which is just what we do!

And here’s what they look like all stitched together.  I would like to do more borders and make it a bit bigger.  What do you think?

You can see Tash’s quilt here

Resourceful–No 1

I cleared out a card-making scraps drawer at the weekend and made these:

I made this one for my brother-in-law, whose birthday was this week.  The wellingtons are peel-offs, coloured with pencil crayon.  All the papers and card are from my scraps drawer – and I had forgotten I had the little round Birthday greetings!

The girl was already stamped, so I coloured her in with my Promarker pens (I really should use them more often!), and the pink background was some practise with the brayer some time ago. The big butterfly is another peel-off already coloured in with pencil crayon.

And the scraps drawer?  It is all nice and tidy again now, and I knwo what is in there!

 

My word for the year is RESOURCEFUl, and this is number 1 in an occasional series for 2012.

Queen Elizabeth II

I am feeling unashamedly royalist today!  Our wonderful Queen has been on the throne for 60 years.  What an achievement!  Here she is today doing a ‘walk-about’ in King’s Lynn Norfolk.

www.bbc.co.uk

She became Queen on the death of her father, King George VI, on 6th February 1952.  She herself was in Kenya when her father died, as she and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh were visiting on the King’s behalf as he was too ill.  How sad that she wasn’t with him!  What a mixture of emotions she must have had!  Have a look here for some pictures of those moments.

Queen Elizabeth has an unerring dedication and sense of duty to our country and the Commonwealth.  Here’s an extract of her message for today.

"In this special year, as I dedicate myself anew to your service, I hope we will all be reminded of the power of togetherness and the convening strength of family, friendship and good neighbourliness, examples of which I have been fortunate to see throughout my reign and which my family and I look forward to seeing in many forms as we travel throughout the United Kingdom and the wider Commonwealth."

www.bbc.co.uk

Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Phillip

I think we have a brilliant year ahead with double celebration, the Queen’s diamond jubilee, and the Olympics in London!  Bring it on!

Storytelling Sunday–Venice 2008

I’ve been scrapping photos from a mini break in Venice we took to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in 2008.  Such fun to re-live the holiday!

But, here’s the story:

We were due to fly out on the Sunday, our anniversary being on the Tuesday. On the Friday evening we were walking the dog and chatting about what we would do when we were in Venice, when I suddenly said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if my passport was out of date?”

Gulp!  Guess what?  Yes, as soon as we got home, we checked it and found it several months out of date! 

This set us off into major panic mode!  It soon became evident that we would have to go to London on Monday to get a passport quickly.  Maurice managed to change our flights and hotel reservations to the Tuesday.  So.. an unexpected trip to London!  It was incredibly nerve-wracking as I was sure we’d forget something necessary for identification.  But no need to worry, it all went very smoothly.

And our mini-break?  It was truly wonderful!  We absolutely loved Venice, no better place to spend our anniversary.

I’m linking up with Sian’s Storytelling Sunday.

 

Finally, here’s my page for yesterday’s crop.  Our theme was ‘soft’, and I couldn’t resist these photos of Nicholas way back in 1991 jumping on our bed!  I’m happy to say this LO was voted everyone’s favourite, woohoo!

One Little Word 2012

I signed up for this class by Ali Edwards last year, but didn’t do any of the prompts!  However, I did keep my word BALANCE in mind all year, and used it to inspire my monthly goals. Read more here.

 

This year, in tune with my words, RESOURCEFUL and ECONOMICAL, I am going back to all the old classes I haven’t completed.  So here’s my take on the first months prompt, letting my word in:

I love the 9 section page protector, and Ali’s designed cards! You can see that I have left 2 cards blank and these are for quotes.  I couldn’t find any that were meaningful to me when I trawled the internet.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I haven’t done too well with my words so far, as I have been ill for much of January and away in Spain for the rest!  But watch this space!  I am focussing in on cheap meals to cook for February.  If it carries on being this cold, the slow cooker will definately come into it’s own!

If you’d like to see more, take a look at Margie’s fabulous blog hop!