August–Month in Numbers

Welcome to my month in numbers for August.  As usual I am linking up with Julie’s blog. 

It’s been a productive Summer in the garden.  I have harvested 6 different vegetables: beans, chard, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, sweetcorn and beetroot.  My largest cucumber measured 13 inches long, and weighed 1lb 8oz.  My largest tomato (so far) weighed 14oz.

I picked 3 corns and we had them for lunch one Saturday.  They went straight into the pot from the garden, and boy! did they taste sweet!

I visited 2 stunning gardens this month.  Christopher Lloyd’s garden at Great Dixter in East Sussex is somewhere I had always wanted to go:

This last weekend, we visited Charleston House, country home of the Bloomsbury set in the early part of the 20th century.  It is in East Sussex too, just past Lewes.  No photos allowed inside the house, but here’s a few of the garden. 

We loved the inside of the house!  Every piece of furniture had been painted by Vanessa Bell or Duncan Grant.  Such lovely muted colours and designs!  I really want to have a go myself.

There was 1 very large wasps nest that was in our loft.  The wasps were very busy, there must have been thousands in there!  The Pest Control man from the council came to cover it in toxic powder, and now the wasps have gone.  6 wasps escaped into the house, 5 of which were killed by his spray and 1 survived to be let out of the window.

We had 2 rides out on the new bike (Triumph Bonneville). 1 to Charleston above, and 1 to Petworth, a pretty little village in West Sussex that is full of antique shops!  Within a walking distance of half a mile radius there are 24 antique and interior design shops!

 

That’s it from me this month!  Do pop over to Julies blog to have a look at what everyone else has been up to in August,numerically of course!

Shoreham photo walk

Shoreham is a small harbour town about 10 miles to the East of us.  One dull Sunday morning recently we decided to drive over there for a photo walk.

Here’s the lovely St Mary De Haura church, which dates back to 1103, and dominates the centre of town.

We made our way through the town to the new footbridge across the river, over to Shoreham Beach.  Shoreham Beach was first built on in the early 20th century.  The first buildings were converted railway carriages!  None of them are left now.  During the 1960s lots of modern ‘avant-garde’ houses were built along there – but sadly the weather has battered them, coming straight from the sea.  The few we walked past looked very sad in the dreary weather:

As we made our way back over the river, we spotted this very photogenic boat:

You can see the new footbridge and the church in the background.  The funny thing is -  as we were clicking away with our cameras, a man popped his head out of the boat.  We had no idea that it was inhabited!!  I don’t think he was too impressed with us photographing his boat, so we made a quick exit!  We were tempted by lots of little tea shops in the high street, so we stopped to have a drink before we went home.

More Scavenger Hunt photos

Here’s some more of my Scavenger Hunt photos (se Rinda’s blog for details)

9 A FOUNTAIN

I found this one at the National Trust Gardens at Nymans yesterday

16 A BRIDE

I thought about this one for a while.  Where was I going to see a bride?  We were not invited to any weddings this summer.  I thought about photographing the bridal shop in town, or a bridal magazine, I even tried to photograph the Victorian bride in the costume department of our local museum.  Then I realised that she was staring right at me!  This painting of ‘Her Wedding day’ by Anton Weisz hangs in our bedroom.

17 A CHURCH, CHAPEL, CATHEDRAL, MOSQUE OR TEMPLE

A disused chapel in the back streets of Worthing.  It was built in 1850, but has been shut down for many years and looks like it might be falling into disrepair.

A MOVIE POSTER

Here’s 5 movies!  As advertised at our local theatre, the last week in August:

AN OUTDOOR STAIRWAY

Found in the same back streets as the Gospel hall above.  I love this curved stairway at the back of some apartments.  I had to go back to get this picture as there were too many cars and vans parked in front to get a picture the first time I found it.

That just leaves me 2 to get, an swing hanging from a tree, and a roadside stall.  Hope you like my photos!

A Page of the Day and a Town Walk

Yesterday I went to my monthly scrapbook crop in Brighton.  Each month we have a theme and we all vote for the ‘page of the day’.  Yesterday’s theme was Dance.  My original idea was to scrap some old photos of Lucy in her ballet outfit practising her pointe in the lounge.  But I can’t find them on the computer!  I wasted an hour or more on Friday trying to find them.  So what to do? 

Flicking through some photos in my ‘garden’ category I found these photos of fuschias.  They always remind me of little ballerinas!

Sketch by Shimelle (of course!) from her pretty paper party class, and notice the ink spray – that’s something I don’t do very often.  I am happy to say this won our page of the day competition!

We decided to do another ‘town walk’ this morning.  Before we ventured out the sun was shining and there were fluffy little white clouds in a blue sky – perfect for photography!  Unfortunately, by the time we arrived in Steyning a little town a few miles to the north of Worthing, the clouds were more grey than white, and there was less blue sky showing!  Consequently, my photos aren’t the best I have ever taken!

Steyning has some gorgeous old buildings, here’s some views of the High Street:

We love this pub!  It’s one of a few old fashioned pubs that hasn’t been turned into a bijou resturant.  It does do food, we were very tempted by the Sunday Roast £10 for 2 courses, but I already had a roast dinner planned at home today.

Like many market towns in Britain, there are lots of cute shops like this:

And of course, we had to walk down Dog Lane!

We ended our walk in a lovely park where Merlin had a lovely run, and drunk our flask of coffee, and ate hot cross buns.  Lovely!

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.