Weekly Photo Challenge: Smile
Posted on April 4, 2018
Should you ever find yourself in the town of Saint-Junien and need to have a new key cut, this is the place you’re looking for.
Heroic Failure
Posted on March 30, 2018
A noble name for a noble, but ultimately doomed (curry houses tend not to work out too well in France) enterprise in the back streets of Cahors.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Rise/Set
Posted on March 29, 2018
WordPress wants to see some images of sunrises and/or sunsets for their latest Weekly Photo Challenge.
I don’t have many sunrises, probably because that would involve getting up early. However, in the past I have posted a few sunsets (all the decent ones, it seems) under various threads, so here is a little compendium of a few of the better examples, beginning with the same view that I put up in response to last week’s ‘Favourite Place’ challenge:
More exotically, this was taken on a sunset cruise off Muscat, in Oman:
and this one in the game reserve on Sir Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi – the giraffe enclosure, to be exact:
This, though, is probably the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever captured – just outside Beverley, in East Yorkshire:
Thursday Doors: Rancon revisited (1)
Posted on March 29, 2018
As promised, we’re taking a short break from the cornucopia of doors from Cahors in order to revisit another place that’s featured on this blog before.
Almost two years ago, I posted some doors from the nearby (30 minutes by car) village of Rancon. Those images were taken during the annual medieval fair, when the place gets quite busy. However, a recent quiet and sunny Sunday morning proved to be much quieter, and the absence of the stalls of the artisan market opened up some vistas that hadn’t been obvious before.
Perhaps most notably is this doorway (or possibly gateway), which stands on its own around the back of the church. I could find nothing that gave any provenance for it, although it must surely once have been part of a grand edifice.
Speaking of the church, which is fortified and dates from the 17th century:
Rather less grand, but just as interesting, is this door at the side of the church…
…which is next to:
Finally, for this week, a couple of private houses, the first just by the mysterious gateway…
…and the second on the main street, which is where we’ll be concentrating next week.
Thursday Doors 29 March 2018
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Memories
Posted on March 27, 2018
This week, Frank asked us to share a photo that encapsulates special memories.
Memories of family are always important, of course but we will also always treasure the ten years we spent living in Abu Dhabi.
This image encapsulates both. Taken in the Corniche Park, here with Madame is our darling daughter and our twin grandsons, on their first visit to Abu Dhabi back in 2008.
Portrait of a sheep about to be shorn
Posted on March 23, 2018
This sheep was patiently waiting its turn to be sheared when I spotted it at last year’s ‘Wool Fair’ in nearby Saint-Martial-sur-Isop.
Thursday Doors: Return To Cahors (3)
Posted on March 22, 2018
A third instalment of doors from last month’s trip to Cahors. To start with, three doors featuring progressively more elaborate carving.
The first two are also examples of old doors juxtaposed with more modern ones:
These next two could be described as a ‘before and after’:
And finally a door that isn’t brown:
(There are plenty more doors to come from Cahors, but for the next couple of weeks, just for the sake of variety, I’ll be posting some samples from another more leisurely re-visit to a place that’s featured here before.)
Thursday Doors 22 March 2018
Weekly Photo Challenge: Favourite Place
Posted on March 22, 2018
Echoing the theme of ‘Place’ set by Frank at Dutch Goes The Photo! on Tuesday, WordPress’ theme for their latest Weekly Photo Challenge is ‘Favourite Place’.
For the sake of consistency – and because where I am now really is my favourite place – what can I do but post another image of home?
For Frank’s challenge, I showed an image of some trees that form part of the boundary between my two fields. Here, though, is one of those fields, as it was when we first saw it back in 2004.
The wooden fencing has been replaced by the wall seen in the other image, and the sheep – which belonged to our neighbour – have gone. Overall, it looks a little better groomed now than it did back then, although that’s probably only because the growing season hasn’t kicked in properly yet.
Restful (or, as they say round here, ‘tranquille’) isn’t it?
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Place
Posted on March 20, 2018
As Frank himself notes, after last week’s theme of ‘Time’ the only logical choice for this week is ‘Place’. Accordingly, he invites us to share an image of a favourite place (or places).
Well, they do say there’s no place like home, and I doubt that I’ll be the only one putting up a picture of their own place in response to this challenge.
No apologies though, because I don’t think that this is the worst view out of a back door you could ever find. We have two fields on the other side of that wall and these frost-laden trees form part of the boundary between them.
Weekly Photo Challenge: I’d Rather Be…
Posted on March 16, 2018
The latest WordPress weekly Photo Challenge is a particularly interesting – and difficult – one. We are asked to post an image illustrating what we would rather be doing.
It seems to me that one’s starting point is crucial here. It all rather depends on what I’m doing at the time the question is posed. I can think of lots of things I might (have to) be doing where watching paint dry would be a more acceptable alternative. Equally, there are a few things I would rather be doing than just about anything else.
Neither of these categories, however, really lend themselves to being pictured – and certainly not in the public domain.
The truth is, I would probably rather be taking photographs than anything else: this is, after all, my principal interest. And if I was being more specific, it would be taking photographs of interesting doors.
So this:
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