Sunday, 13 May 2012

Self Portrait

This week's Pleasing Photo is a (kind of!) self portrait, taken during my first outing since being ill. Here it is:


I love the way the early evening sunlight slants through the trees around here. (That is, when there is any sunlight to speak of - which there has been this weekend, hooray!)

I wandered abroad for only about 25 minutes on Friday evening. I tried out a number of photographs, several of which were failures. I'm always drawn to the patterns in the mud and the reflections in puddles, but quite often they don't come out anything like how I expected. So instead, here are a couple of upward-looking shots:



On Saturday I was fit to go a little further afield, walking as far as the fabric shop, where I needed to purchase some elastic for a certain sewing project I have finally begun (sorry, Becky!). Today I made it to church and back, and very much enjoyed the service.

My feet have been encased all weekend in a new pair of Toms shoes. (Not Thom's shoes*. That's different.) What I like most about them is how the manufacturer give a pair of shoes to a child in need for every single pair they sell to people like us... but I also like the way they're surprisingly comfortable - kind of almost like wearing a sock instead of a shoe. Noah likes the way they look stylish (or so he says). I'm also very fond of the fact that, despite the subdued black of their outer surface (purchased to wear to work), the inside is decorated with printed elephants, rhinos and lions. Even if they look boring, I know they're not.

* When I talk about wearing Thom's shoes, I mean the pair of red Converse trainers three sizes too big for me which my kind little brother gave to me as a birthday present after he'd worn them for a year or so.

Friday, 11 May 2012

Monument

Last week's pleasing photo is not particularly pleasing... it's ok, but it was taken with my iPhone. My time last week was mainly taken up with going on the Year 5 Residential then being ill, which is my excuse for pretty much everything.

Ashridge Monument
And another couple of photos showing what me and Noah got up to over the weekend (with me feeling steadily more queasy...)

Our first trip to an English Taco Bell!

Noah feeding Marmite Marmite. She didn't like it.

Marmite on the Sofa

This is my Pleasing Photo from two weeks ago (29th April). It's of our new cat, Marmite (who was much newer when the photo was taken!)


She's a very tricky cat to photograph (or is that just all cats?!) so I can see that I'm going to have to build up my skills before I get any really good snaps of her (although I like this one ok). She's very curious, but also extremely nervous... the phrase 'scaredy cat' springs to mind frequently, particularly when she scarpers upstairs at full speed just because somebody sneezes. She'll come over to be stroked but never for very long; hates being picked up; loves it when Noah plays laser pointer with her and has sat on my lap (or rather, on a cushion on my lap) only twice (both occasions involving considerable persistence on my part). She miaows a lot and has extremely soft fur. On the whole, we like having a cat :)


Monday, 16 April 2012

Family Photo Shoot

It was pretty hard to select a single Pleasing Photo from all the family mugshots I took at our meet-up for Mum's birthday last weekend. But eventually I selected this shot of my littlest brother:



Some other fun photos from Saturday:

Which brother looks shiftiest?



Noah's handiwork :)





Thursday, 12 April 2012

Two Pleasing Photos

Because our holiday in Snowdonia (woohoo!) followed by a busy Easter weekend leaves me a little behind with this photo-posting challenge... but the photos were taken in the relevant weeks, so I still feel more or less on track.

Firstly, taken on Saturday 31st March at perhaps the best-loved day trip destination from when the Sutcliffes lived in Cannock...


A further clue to our destination may be found in the additional photos below.

Secondly, taken in a village (does it count as a village?) we never actually visited, despite staying nearby on holiday...


Portmeirion was certainly an interesting place to visit. We both liked the way that the architect fitted the buildings into the natural setting - some of them really looked like they were growing out of the rocks. Except, of course, that everything is painted an exciting colour. Fun!

A few other contenders for the last two PP titles:

It was, of course, Stokesay Castle
Taken at Portmeirion again

Noah was delighted with Caernarfon Castle.

Isn't he sweet?

Noah calls this "A classic Kate photo'

Neolithic burial mound on Angelsey!

Looking from Beaumaris to the snow-capped peaks on the mainland

Monday, 26 March 2012

New Boots and the John Bunyan

Noah's got new boots!

Noah (in the new boots), staring up at one of England's famously ginormous trees...
This is ahead of our Easter holiday trip to Snowdonia, about which we are both very excited. So of course, on Saturday, we had to go for a walk to break them in. It had to be quite a short walk because we didn't get to set off until about 4pm, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable one. We drove to Marford Road and had a stroll down to Coleman Green, where the John Bunyan (so named because that prestigious gentleman once stayed the night in a nearby cottage, of which only the chimney remains!) offers a pleasingly wide range of vegetarian food in the midst of a quite astonishing selection of willow pattern plates and Toby jugs.

Near the beginning of the walk

PP#12: Rusty Gate

Sunset through a (different) gate

Pathfinders Weekend

So this post is a whole week late... well, life's a busy thing sometimes. I did take this photo on Pathfinders Weekend, an exciting excursion for our 11 to 14 year-olds to long-established scouting centre Gilwell Park. I took many more photos, of course (though Noah took even more than I did), but as most of them had young'uns in the frame I thought I'd better not use any on my blog. To be honest it was raining most of the time, so the pictures didn't come out great. I like this one, though, of the prayer room we set up on Saturday evening. Illooms are quite literally brilliant!

Pleasing Photo #11: Prayer Room