Woollie Yellow

Tracy over at Prickly Pear Bloom is hosting a yellow photo week this week, to remind us all of summer! Here's a few from my archives to brighten up my blog! Check out all the other participants for a little hint of summer!

Clockwise from top right  (update: make that top left - never did know my left from my right!!!) - canoes in Stockholm, aspen in Rocky Mountain National Park, field of rape in Fife, Scotland and a yellow house in Auxerre, France. 

Summer Loving Photo Week - Day 5

I am a little late with day 5 of the Summer Loving Photo Week (but it is still the same week so I guess I am ok!) organised by Green Jello! 

My final thoughts of summer relate to long long nights! These two photos were taken on the 20th of June - almost the longest day here in the northern hemisphere - my parents front garden, the first taken at 930pm and the second at 1030pm. 

It always amazes me that it can be so light in the evenings, you'd think after all these years I would be used to it!

Summer Loving Photo Week Day 4

This has been a good week of photos - fun to think about summer and all that it means and to see what it means to other people!

For me, washing drying outside is a true sign of summer:

Photo: Siena, Italy 2005

Summer Loving Photo Week Day 3

Ok, it's day 4 but day 3 was busy busy and I was knackered...... between 1pm to 6pm on Tuesday and 10am to 230pm on Wednesday I was interviewing. We managed to interview 11 people and had to chose 2 to offer jobs to. It was hard. Then last night I went running - second time this week and it felt good. 

So, here it is, my third photo for Green Jello's Summer Loving Photo Week....a summer barbecue! Nothing better than being out of doors, the smell of sausages cooking on the BBQ, enjoying the sun.

Wait, did I say sun??? Plan a BBQ in Scotland and it's bound to rain. I remember one particularly soggy BBQ where we all had to wear bin liners to try to keep dry, build a shelter for the BBQ to enable us to cook and then eat the food sitting in the car!!

Ok this was a BBQ disaster but after a little dusting down the food tasted good!

 Summer Loving Day 2

Day 2 of Green Jello/Anne's Summer Loving Photo week and what shall I post today. It hasn't felt particularly summery today, grey, cold and damp..... so perhaps it would be best to remind you of a little trip I took last June to Oslo and another in July to friends in Worcester, England.... a little reminder of summer - UK (and European) style! You've just got to love it!!

1. Can you see the raindrops? My visit to the Folk Museum in Oslo - lots of old buildings from all over Norway, beautiful sunny day - not!! It didn't stop for the 2 or the 2.5 days that I was in Oslo - even had to change clothes during the day as I was so wet!! 

2. Floods in Worcester, England - watching you watching us!

Summer Loving Photo Week

Anne over at Green Jello is organising a Summer Loving Photo Week..... I'll be posting a summer filled photo each day this week and so will:

Anne

Deirdre

Lina

Tracy

J (it's her blog swan-song!!)

Tracey

Hege

My first photos are of my favourite place to be in summer - the sea - usually sea so cold that you cannot swim, but it looks beautiful all the same! The smell of the salty air, the sound of the waves lapping the shore.... the light dancing on the water....

Update Tuesday 17th - I thought I should tell you where the photos are from - clockwise from top left:

1. Julia Pfeiffer State Park, California - the second most photographed waterfall in the USA - falling straight onto the beach, how cool is that??

2. Oslo Harbour

3. Sweden, coast south of Stockholm

4. Pittenweem, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland

WINTER WHITES - FINAL DAY

I think I am a little late with my last winter white for Shari's photo week but better late than never. This is actually a photo I took in Switzerland in 2006 but I think it sums up winter white very well - it's a white van and it has a giant sausage on the side - the perfect winter food!!

Woollie - Winter White Photos - Day 4

I think I am a day behind with posting the winter white photos so I'll get 2 on the go today. This one is the KaDeWe Christmas tree in Berlin - taken in December. Last year their tree was all bronze and green  and this year white and gold.

These beautiful winter white baubles were a window display in a department store in Lausanne in November 2006. 

Woollie - Day 3 of The Glass Doorknob's Winter White Photo Week

With a chill in the air and a brisk wind blowing us on our way, it is definitely still winter, with the sun not rising until almost 8am and it getting dark by 415. However, the days are getting longer and the feeling that spring will arrive soon keeps us all going through the darkness - that and the thought of snuggling up with your knitting on the sofa!

And no, this is not my sofa! I don't think I'd like to snuggle up on this bench - brrr!!

WOOLLIE - SUNRISE

Two posts in one day - this doesn't happen often, but I couldn't wait any longer to show you the beautiful sunrise viewed from my living room window on Monday morning! It really was one of the best ever!  

I am not sure that the old saying "Red Sky at Night, Shepherd's Delight, Red Sky in the Morning, Shepherd's Warning" came true on Monday. Here in Scotland we didn't have the rain and the snow seen in Northern England.

These photos were taken between 740am and 755am (I think I managed to take about 35 photos as the sky just kept getting better and better) and I promise I haven't done anything creative to the photos - just point and shoot!! I love the way the red sky is reflecting in the river - both the river and sky, afire!

WOOLLIE - WINTER PHOTOS DAY 2

It's great to see so many "winter" shots - thanks to Shari's photo week. I have participated in a number of photo weeks before, some based on colour, some on specific items each day of the week, such as your feet, or your lunch - I enjoy doing these - sometimes using photos from my archives and other times taking new photos particularly for the occasion.

I love this photo - it was taken last January in Baxter Park in Dundee, the one day that we had a lot of snow (living right on the coast it doesn't happen very often) but the park was magical that day, filled with the hollers of children sledging down the slopes, snowballs flying and trees bowing under the snow!

Here are some of the other places you can go to see the "winter" photos:

Woollie - Winter Photo Week

I've decided to take part in Shari's Winter Photo week - look out for icy cool pictures popping up all over blogland!

IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD - HOME

It's the last day in Greenjello's Neighbourhood project Go and check out her blog and all the other neighbourhooders out there - there are some great posts and some great photos!

The last day brings neighbourhood "home". So it's time to see some of the corners of my home. I can only show you a few because the bed isn't made yet and the kitchen is full of stuff to take to the Lake District this weekend!

But my living room I love - it's large. I live in an old tenement building which means large rooms and high ceilings. I have a bay window in the living room and am so lucky to have a diret view over the city, River Tay to the sea beyond. The thing I like most about my house is the light - I need my home to be bright!

Now I guess is also the chance to post about the latest acquisition for my home - my new sofa - in fact my first ever sofa (the previous one belonged to my landlord). I bought it a few weeks ago but it just arrived on Wednesday and I am happily sitting on it whilst I type up this post. I just need to get some cushions for it - there are quite a few colours through the mulberry fabric to choose from although I am veering towards bright pink velvet. They would also go with my new rocking chair!





I also love my fireplace, the mantelpiece is always used to show off the latest crafty items, postcards from my friends and photos of my friends children.



Books are another important feature of my home (oh and boxes full of yarn). I love to read (thanks to my bookaholic dad) and to knit........



Thanks Greenjello for organising this week and hi to all the new bloggers I found out there because of it! I will be back to your blogs!!

IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD - SPECIAL

What makes my neighbourhood special.....well I live here for one thing (just kidding!!) My town is over 800 years old and has a pretty remarkable industrial history. Famous in the past for "jute, jam and journalism" - think of the covered wagons carrying pioneers across the United States - the covers are made of jute from Dundee, think of Dennis the Menace and famous old comics such as the Beano (first published in 1938) and the Dandy (first published in 1937) which are still being published today and introduced such characters as Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan, Minnie the Minx (see yesterday's post), Beryl the Peril and the Bash Street Kids.

Skills developed in the construction of boats for the whaling industry allowed the skilled craftsmen of Dundee to build the RRS Discovery (Royal Research Ship) which carried both Ernest Shackleton and Captain Scott to the Antarctic. Using the techniques required to strengthen boats sailing through cold waters to catch whales (we don't do it anymore I promise) the Discovery was the first research ship to be built in Dundee in 1901 and the last 3-masted wooden ship to be built in the UK. It spent 2 years trapped in the ice in the Antarctic!!

The ship returned to Dundee in the late 1980s and Discovery Point was built as a museum to the ship and the bravery of the Antarctic explorers she carried.



The Space Shuttle Discovery is named after the RRS Discovery and now the city's slogan is "Dundee: City of Discovery". We are however, working towards discoveries of other kinds - with the Wellcome Trust Biocentre housing hundreds of scientists working on cures for some of the world's worst diseases - cancer, diabetes, heart disease, African sleeping sickness etc.

There are of course other things that make this place special for me: Friends - many who I met here no longer live here but they helped to shape my experience of the City and to make me happy living here. And I apologise to all my friends for using their photos here - I think they are all great photos!!

IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD - DAY 3 - WEIRD

It's day 3 in "In my neighbourhood week" was a challenge. What is weird in my neighbourhood - me? everybody?

First thing that struck me as weird when I got up this morning was that half my neighbourhood seemed to disappear only to reappear an hour later - where had it been, was it like the mysterious "Brigadoon" that enigmatic Scottish town that only appears for 1 day every 100 years....



Also weird that I didn't think about the fact that you would be able to a ghostie reflected in my window....



Also weird in my neighbourhood - we have statues to famous cartoon characters as opposed to famous real people!!



Desperate Dan is the largest, cow pie eating cowboy ever, towering at almost 7ft whilst Minnie the Minx and her catapault is mischevious, impudent and somewhat flirtatious (i.e. the Minx)...

IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD - "FUN"

Day 2 of Green Jello's photo project is "fun" in the neighbourhood.

Fun in my neighbourhood is very dependent on being with my friends and relaxing in good company. The weather here in Scotland often scuppers plans at the last minute and you learn to be flexible when creating your fun. Snatched barbecues or picnics are often the best fun of all and you often have to not let the weather put you off - as comedian Billy Connelly once said of Scotland "there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes!"

Today was not a good day for outdoor fun - the skies were laden and grey and the rain was falling and it has helped to shape this post. It rains so frequently here in Scotland that we have a great number of words for precipitation (a bit like the Inuit and snow) - dreich, smirr, rain, drizzle, plowtery, we could have a damp sea haar or a thunder-plump, a gandiegow or a sump and it could be raining auld wives and pipe staves making us all drookit!

Fun today - cycling to work or lunch in City Square:



Fun on other days: Picnic in the park, hiking in the sunshine (sorry, did I say sunshine)!

NEIGHBOURHOOD WEEK - PEACEFUL

Over a Greenjello Anne is hosting a photo week project based on "in the neighbourhood" and I decided to take part.

Today is peaceful....

I live in a neighbourhood (notice the UK spelling - a difference already) in the City Centre so it is never very peaceful, with buses and cars buzzing up and down the road most of the day and night. I do have shutters on my bedroom window which help to make it a more peaceful place, but you have to search for true peace in a city centre. It can usually be found in a park - sitting solitary on a bench looking at the trees and skies, but in my city there are a few other places to escape to for peace, the riverside or the beach. I live close to the sea and cannot imagine not feeling the salty air on my skin and being able to walk on the sand. Whilst in Colorado last week I realised that the sea would be one of the things that I would miss if I were to live in Colorado and everytime I looked over the plain from Boulder towards Denver I kept thinking I would see the sea....

ELEMENT - METAL

The final day of Shari's Elements Week is Metal. This one was also quite interesting - there is so much metal around but it's not something that I usually take a photograph of. So here goes:

Can anyone guess what it is?



Is it any clearer now?