Corner View - Gardens

I haven't taken part in Corner View for a while, but for me, gardens, this weeks theme is a great one. Volunteering with the National Trust for Scotland to undertake conservation work on properties across Scotland. Some are rugged outdoor areas but others are beautiful gardens....whilst my favourite part of National Trust work is the destruction, we do occasionally do something more constructive. You also get to visit some of the most beautifully kept large gardens....

But across Scotland there are also lots of beautiful small gardens, private gardens, that occasionally open as part of Scotland's Small Gardens scheme, where money is being raised for charity. I visited many in Ceres, Fife, with my parents last summer - a great source of inspiration.

The garden above is my favourite of course.....you can see my mum in her own small garden!

Go check out all the other gardens around the world at Corner View.....

Corner View - Spring

This weeks Corner View is all about spring.

The clocks changed in the UK this weekend heralding the start of British Summer Time and for the last 2 days many parts of Scotland have had snow.......wind......rain.....snow......I am not sure that we are ready for spring yet. Usually the daffodils are out and blossom beginning to appear on trees by now but not this year. However, some delightful signs of spring were evident when I was away in the Yorkshire Dales this past weekend:

Last spring I was in Japan....the most famous sign of spring being the cherry blossom (sakura)....it was beautiful...

Cherry blossoms and hanami parties in Shinjuku-Gyoen Park, Toyko

I am off to check out spring elsewhere on Corner View....

Corner View - Typical Architecture from your area

This week's Corner View is all about the typical architecture of your area........

I would be the first to admit that the place where I live is not the prettiest. Yes it has an amazing location at the mouth of a large river, with the mountains and the beach close by, but the city itself is a post-industrial city with all that this brings.....old factories no longer in use, low cost housing etc. However, that past has also left it with some huge mansion houses (there used to be more millionaires per head of population than anywhere else in the UK, courtesy of our jute industry), beautiful libraries funded by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and some large scale civic architecture.

In fact, the building voted the city's favourite has just reopened following a 4 year programme of refurbishment and modernisation. I walk past it each morning on my way to work. The McManus, is the city's gallery and museum housed in a "splendid gothic revival style building."

In many Scottish towns and cities Victorian tenement buildings are commonplace.....stone, purpose built flats, typically 6 or 8 to a block, with an indoor stairwell known as a close. Indeed, a tenement flat in Glasgow is owned by the National Trust and preserved by it's previous owner, Miss Toward who lived there with her mother from 1911 for over 50 years, keeping much of the Victorian furniture that belonged to her grandparents and not changing much in the flat that whole period. It is an amazing piece of social history.

We also have our fair share of 1960s architecture (and plans to demolish quite a lot of it too!)

We also have the first UK building designed by Frank Gehry, famous for the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Our's is small in comparison, but pretty perfect. It is part of a chain of Maggies Centres which provide support to cancer sufferers. "Maggie" was Maggie Keswick Jencks, the wife of landscape architect Charles Jencks, mother and landscape designer, who died of cancer, but before she died, she set up her charity to provide support for the many non-medical issues cancer brings. Maggies Centres exist in 6 UK locations, Dundee was the third and all are designed by world class architects including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid. There are 4 interim centres operating with plans for another 4. The interim centres are currently fundraising to build their permanent structures - designed (for free) by architects such as Kisho Kurokawa, Wilkinson Eyre, whilst Frank Gehry is designing the centre for Hong Kong.

Photo by Miomar at Flickr

We are also in the midst of an international architecture competition to design the proposed new V&A Museum for the city. So whilst we have to contend with an industrial past, we are moving forwards!

Go check out the other Corner View's to see some more typical and atypical architecture from around the world!

Corner View - Miniature Worlds

I haven't posted a Corner View post in a few weeks - no excuses, sheer laziness! But this week's post is called Miniature Worlds and I knew that I could come up with a post for this one.

I love to knit and felt and this often leads to the creation of miniature worlds!

Debbie Bliss - Knitted Farm

Mochi Mochi Land Log & Woodins

It also never ceases to amaze me how small the real world is becoming.....with friends moving all over the planet and blogs linking people who would never have "met" before the cyber world gave us all a helping hand.

Corner View - Favourite Hang Out

I am late with my favourite hangout post for this week's Corner View! My favourite hang out tends to be wherever my friends/family are but I do have a couple of favourite places.....

Outdoors it would be the near the sea, on the beach, any beach, a cold windy Scottish beach with massive waves or a warm sunny beach lapped by an inviting ocean....here are some of the beaches I visited in the last couple of years....be warned, there are many...

The Ayrshire Coast, Scotland

Rockcliffe Beach, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

Tentsmuir Beach, Fife, Scotland - my closest, favourite beach!

Ullapool, Scotland

South of Stockholm

North of Copenhagen, Denmark

Beach Cricket, Elie, Fife, Scotland

Hydra, Greece

Miyajima Island, Japan

Atop the Muckle, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland

Pittenweem, Fife, Scotland - my favourite seaside destination!

It's in Pittenweem that you'll find my favourite after beach (particularly in winter) hang out - The Cocoa Tree......chocolates to buy, chocolate cafe, chocolate heaven...

Now I am off to check out all the other great hangouts!

Corner View - Personal Style - Girl but not Girly!

This week's Corner View is all about personal style. I tried all week to take photos of what I was wearing but since it hardly got light all week all the photos I took looked like I was wearing black all the time....wait.....I do wear black a lot....

I do know what I like and what suits me, I have a slightly quirky, but not way out there sense of dress....my biggest issue being that I struggle to wear more that 2 colours at once...slight phobia about wearing too many colours - so usually it's black with some other colour - blue jeans, purple cord dresses, grey Rob Ryan skirts from Clothkits....in fact when I look closely at my wardrobe there's an awful lot of Gap....not sure that makes me quirky at all!

Along with my Clothkits skirt (which I managed to persuade someone to make for me for a bottle of wine and some homemade shortbread) my favourite purchases this winter have been a beautiful navy raincoat from French designer Lilith and my Camper slippers.....so warm, so comfy...made me a slipper wearer..

Corner View - Holidays

Welcome back to Spain Daily's Corner View.....this week's Corner View theme is holidays - something I probably have too many of! But it is nice, in the midst of a cold winter to remember all the places I've been recently....some of them which were actually warm!

These are a few photos from some of my many trips in the last 3 years - Greece, Switzerland, Japan, Oslo, Stockholm, Paris, Andalucia, London, Colorado, Berlin to name a few....you may be able to enlarge the mosaic by clicking on it.

There won't be any prizes but you may be able to guess where some of the photos are from!

I'm off to check out everyone else's holidays!

Happy 2010 to all Corner View participants.

Corner View - Books

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."  ~Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991

This week's Corner View is "Books".....I grew up in a household full of books, more books than a bookstore.....I grew up loving books....listening to my parents reading me stories, watching and helping as my mum taught children to read for over 30 years (OK I wasn't there for 30 years)......brought the words to life and the stories to the forefront of their imaginations .....there can be no better gift, teaching someone to read.

Now for the quote above, I truly don't have enough bookshelves in my house. Books are stored under the bed, in a pile next to the bed and anywhere else they can find a home.

Corner View - Corner of my Home (and a little peek outside!)

This week's Corner View is a Corner of my Home...hmm.....I only have one corner I feel comfortable posting....the rest could use some work!  The living room is however, one room I am happy with so I can post that....

But apart from that, the most spectacular thing about my home is the view from the window.....take this morning for example, I was almost late for work because I spent 20 minutes watching the sun come up and the sky changing from black, to orange, to blue, reflected in the water below....

I am off to see everyone else's homes!!

Corner View - Menu al Dia!

This week's Corner View theme is Menu al Dia - what would be on the menu in your local restaurants.....well here in Scotland, traditional food would be fish and chips, steak pie or mince and tatties......

Whilst in Dundee, traditional food would be (Dundee vernacular coming up): "Twa pehs, twa plehn bridies an'an'inyin'in'an'a." 

Now, you may well ask what on earth would you be eating......2 pies (Scotch pies - hard water pastry with mutton filling), 2 plain bridies (think pastry filled with beef mince/onion) and an onion one as well......would be the answer to that question!

Or slightly further afield (13 or so miles) is Arbroath, home to the Arbroath smokie - locally caught, smoked haddock - in 2004 the Arbroath Smokie received Protected Geographic Indications status, much like Champagne or Parma ham, which means that the name "Arbroath Smokie" can only be used to describe the genuine article - it can only be used to describe haddock smoked in the traditional manner within an 8km radius of Arbroath. The traditional method of smoking is to tie the tails of 2 fish together and to hang them over a stick, smoking them for between 45 to 90 minutes, under a hessian cloth which allows the fish to "breathe in" the smoke until they turn a beautiful golden colour!

Of course, nowadays you're just as likely to be eating a Thai green curry or a Chow Mein or a Pizza as some onion bridies!

If you enjoy reading about food, go and check out all the other "Menus al Dia" on Jane's blog - or check back in later in the week, I've just been to Paris and as usual managed to spend much of my time taking photos of food!!

Corner View - Contrasts

This weeks Corner View is contrasts.....I'm a little lacking in inspiration so I'll just go with the thing we Scots tend to talk about the most - the weather........ I'll try to do better next week! 

2 different days, 2 different beaches in Scotland....

Corner View - Water

This week Dana is hosting Corner View and the theme was chosen by Trinsch and is l' aqua or water!

Here in Scotland water is something we know a lot about.....it surrounds our island country and it is often to be found falling from the sky! We live with the constant threat of water all around us.....we have so many names of rain....like the Inuit and snow. Think of smirr, the soft mist of rain that leaves you soaked, but is so gentle you are not even sure it is worth putting up the umbrella. Or think of a dreich day, one that is grey and wet or being drookit.....soaked to the skin!

Can you see the rain?

The sea is another always present reminder of water. Indeed, I am not sure I could live far from the sea....I love to walk on the beach, to hear the waves crashing on the rocks, to smell the seaweed and to hear the seagulls.....

Pittenweem

Or perhaps the most famous water of all - the Gaelic uisge'beah - water of life, otherwise known as whisky! Scotland's most famous export.....

Distillery - Islay

Saligo Bay, Islay  - more water!

Go check out all the other Corner Views over at Spain Daily...that's where I'm headed.

Corner View - My Dream

This week's Corner View over at Spain Daily is My Dream.....

Keep the people round me smiling! Enjoy life to the fullest! Love and be loved......do they all sound trite? I hope not!

And for the photos one I fulfilled this year.....visit Japan! Now I just need to think of...where next on the globe?

Corner View - Love

This week's Corner View theme is Love....

No real words today.....but to me, family and friends mean love!

Updated: thinking today about love I realised that I have the greatest role models in my life - my parents have been together since my mum was 17 and my dad 23....now almost 54 years later they are still together.......through thick and thin.....thank you mum and dad!

Corner View - Souvenirs

This week's Corner View is all about souvenirs from your home town, topic chosen by Epe......I didn't manage to take any photos of this one .....but there are a few out there on the web....

As a city, we've worked hard in recent years to increase visitor numbers, as a post-industrial city that hasn't always been easy.....but you can see Captain Scott's ship Discovery that he sailed to the Antarctic, you can visit a restored jute mill (think of the coverings for wagons crossing the States with pioneers and that's jute) or the Science Centre or the DCA Contemporary Arts Centre and our setting at the mouth of the River Tay is second to none....but souvenirs.....the traditional would have to be Dundee Cake. You can find a recipe for this traditional delicacy here!

Or you could buy a Beano - local publishing company DC Thomson have been producing the Beano since 1933, with characters such as Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx.....we don't always have statues to real people in Dundee, we have statues to comic book characters such as Minnie the Minx and Desperate Dan!! Click on the link to see Minnie and Dan in bronze right outside my work!