Weekly Photo Challenge: Elemental

It’s not the easiest thing to find an image that shows all four primal elements at once.

However, this picture, taken along a lane about a mile from here, undoubtedly conveys three of them: air, water and earth. And since the sun was shining, perhaps that could be taken for fire. In any case, it’s a tranquil rural scene.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Elemental

Tuesdays of Texture: Ruined Abbey

This partly overgrown double arched window can be found at the medieval Franciscan Abbaye de la Réau in the Vienne département of France. It looks like it’s had some restoration work done on it, but there’s a long way to go.

Tuesdays of Texture 8 August 2017

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Golden

When I saw that Frank had set us the theme of ‘Golden’ for this week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge, I knew exactly where to look in my library.

Here are two images captured in the lobby of the Sir Bani Yas Hotel, on the eponymous nature reserve in Abu Dhabi. The first is a crescent of stone mounted against a golden background:

This second image is one of my personal favourites, and one I’ve used in a previous post. Looking directly upwards, it shows the huge lanterns suspended from the golden atrium. Never knowingly understated.

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Golden

The Path To…..?

This little-used track runs off the ‘main’ road between here and the nearby village of Saint-Martial-sur-Isop. It probably leads to an isolated farmhouse, but who knows?

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Paths

Thursday Doors: Liverpool (1)

I was back to my Merseyside roots a few weeks ago (armed only with an oldish iPhone rather than my ‘proper’ camera kit) and spent a nostalgic day wandering around the centre of Liverpool.

Of course, a lot of it has been modernised since it was my stamping-ground almost fifty years ago, but there are still plenty of doors that have been around far longer than I have, as I’ll be showing over the next couple of weeks.

To begin with, here is a selection from the area around the Philharmonic Hall and the Anglican cathedral. One of Liverpool’s ‘posher’ thoroughfares is Rodney Street, dating from Georgian times and now – as the local equivalent to London’s Harley Street – largely occupied by medical and dental practices.

Over a hunderd years ago, my grandmother was a domestic servant in one of these grand houses, although probably not this one, which, according to the plaque, was the birthplace (in 1809) of W. E . Gladstone, who was Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister on no less than four separate occasions.

Another impressive example from further along the street:

Nearby is Hope Place, with its Georgian terraces set back from the street:

Heading back downhill into the heart of the city, you pass this long-standing edifice, which is where football referees go to complete their training:

And finally for this week, by way of contrast, just opposite the entrance to the Mersey Tunnel is a small green space called St. John’s Gardens. If memory serves, these used to be the entrances to the Ladies and Gents public conveniences:

Thursday Doors 3 August 2017

Weekly Photo Challenge: Textures

These reeds contrast with and at the same time emphasise the smooth flow of the River Indre as it flows through the town of Loches in central France.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Textures

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Three

These  three flowers were found in Monet’s Garden at Giverny:

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Three

Tuesdays of Texture: Wild Flowers

This year, we (which is to say Madame) sowed a mix of bee-friendly wild flowers in a couple of our raised beds. The bees certainly like them and it’s interesting to see some flowers that I certainly haven’t encountered before – like this colourful and very bristly specimen.

Tuesdays of Texture 1 August 2017

Dhow #179

The wooden dhow is the traditional sea-going vessel of the Arabian Gulf. This one had been taken out of the water for maintenance in the Bateen area of Abu Dhabi.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Numbers

Thursday Doors: Meillant (2)

This week we have the second instalment of doors in the town of Meillant. Last week we focused on the imposing Chateau, but we are ranging a little further afield this time – although to begin with only as far as the family chapel, which stands in front of the main house:

Just inside the entrance to the site is this visitor centre, which houses a number of miniature models of the chateau and other prominent buildings:

All the doors so far have been in more or less pristine condition, but these two examples in the grounds of the Chateau are rather more neglected – and mysterious:

Finally, because there is a town (or village at any rate) outside the walls, two examples of where the other half 99.9% live:

 

Thursday Doors 27 July 2017