In the Summertime

“Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon”

— Cecil Day Lewis

You may have noticed I have been missing from the blogging world for a couple of weeks, several reasons for this. Firstly we have had lots of visitors, secondly the weather really has been too nice to spend much time sitting indoors at the computer, and thirdly we are in the process of trying to sell out home of thirty plus years and move to the city for our retirement, which, as many you will know, is an extremely stressful and time consuming activity!

this week I did manage to get ten minutes with my camera between meetings at the beautiful Hilliers Gardens in near Romsey - the English Country Garden, what better way to celebrate summer?

There was plenty of variety to choose from, I loved the soft greens and gold here

and I loved the grandeur of this artichoke flower

There were insects aplenty

butterflies and bees

Plants with defined structure

Plants that blended and melded with each other and the 'art in the garden'

and finally my absolute favourite, the burning pink heart of summer ( no idea what it is!)

Hope you are all enjoying your summer wherever you are!

Autumn Colours - Town and Country

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower”

— Albert Camus

I have been busy photographing the autumn colours over the last week or so, they are just about at their peak now and really rather wonderful this year. It's not the same every year, some times the leaves just seem to dry up and fall off the trees with out really turning properly, others they get whipped off the trees by a gale before they reach their full potential.

I am going to share some pictures I took in our garden, in the local woods and finally in Winchester. The home and woods photos have had textures added to them; these are from 2 Lil Owls and I downloaded them on a great deal from Design Cuts

These pictures were taken on a dull, drizzly day, but I have to say tha although I really love the beauty of the muted autumn colours, they are much harder to capture successfully . The top photo here has been popped through Lightroom so is not just as shot; the bottom one has had textures added which have really lifted it.

The contrast is much less marked with these next two and I really like both versions very much.

Off for a walk in the woods now and this time its a bright sunny day, with mid afternoon light and the sun blazing through the leaves.

I really like both versions of the sun on these ferns, the bottom one is the original, which do you like best?

The final photo was taken on the way home as the sun twinkled at us through the taller trees.

This next set of pictures were taken in Winchester last Friday when I popped out for a quick lunchtime photo walk (a rare treat). These have just had my usual Lightroom adjustments - no textures this time. I headed down to the cathedral thinking the trees on the approach would look gorgeous - not so, they had't really changed in colour and had lost many of their leaves. I headed round to the back of the cathedral to see what I could find there. What I found was a hive of activity in preparation for the Christmas Market.

Further on though I noticed something I hadn't spotted before, a Barbara Hepworh sculpture apparently done as an homage to Joan Miro, I thought it look rather fine against the backdrop of autumn leaves.

I also loved the bright blue of this door

Heading back to the office I was struck by this memorial to one of the Riffle brigades emblazoned against the blue sky with the poppy wreaths still at its foot

Nearly back at the office, my final photo opportunity of the day was the Elizabeth Frink Horse and Rider which was in the embrace of a waterfall of brightly coloured leaves.

Hope you have a great week - see you next time X

Carried Away With Grunge?

I think I have mentioned previously that I am currently taking a photoshop grunge e-course and am really loving it - the problem is how to stop myself getting completely carried away and adding grunge to absolutely every picture I take.

Yesterday I popped out to a local stately home I haven't visited in a while. Its a National Trust property the Vyne near Basingstoke. The building has a fascinating history which you can find out more about by reading this article.

True to form I don't have any grand pictures of the facade but here you can just see it peeking out between the trees across the lake

Something different to see on this visit were a number of art installations around the house and garden - unfortunately there are no details on the website nor was there info to pick up so I can't tell you mud about the artists or their concepts, and I have to say that some of the NT volunteers were clearly not smitten by the whole thing!

One of the main pieces was a fabric tree with birds and flowers situated in the tapestry room with roots descending into the room below via the fireplace, seen here together with some lovely wooden pomegranates, a symbol of Catherine of Aragorn who apparently visited with her husband Henry viii

This picture only shows a small branch of the tree against he background of the room but the tree in its entirety was huge!

My favourite installation however was in the library

I loved all the little cut out figures and of course really couldn't resist grunging up this one

Out in the grounds the most impressive feature was the summerhouse which also had an installation of birds partying - they were really spread about the space so didn't lend itself to photography, but this might give you an idea of the summerhouse, the birds and the beautiful garden around it

Inspired by the installations I decided to try my own artistic concept by merging the summerhouse with the fabric tree and one of the birds - I'd love to know whether you think it works.

One final ungrunged picture from the way back to the car park - the green on these willows and their reflections was just stunning

Hmm only two with grunge, not bad at all considering my current obsession, see you soon and keep sharing the sparking moments!