Angel needs to build a small portfolio of photos to demonstrate that she should be given a place on the photography course she wants to take next year. Here are some pictures she took of Star last weekend:
I was stumped on what to post for this theme - then I found this picture of Star and A-next-door in my iPhoto folder. Perfect.
Visit Jane at Spain Daily for more street fashion from around the world.
Next week's theme ... music.
I'm sure I won't get around to it every week, but I love this idea. Jane of Spain Daily hosts this meme where bloggers around the world post pictures of the view from their own little corner, sharing a common theme. This week's "back door view" theme makes for a nice easy start.
We have a modest sized town garden (or backyard as it would be called across the pond!), which is a grassed area on two levels, with a patio area in front of the living room. This is the view from the patio door, looking across past the dining room wall to the old and slightly rickety swing set that takes up most of the higher level.
This is the lower level looking down from the patio - toddler toys, a swingball set and washing line. Sadly, no flowers, due to my black thumbs and Tevye's tendency to assume anything that grows is a weed. There is a nice boundary hedge, though, which was already well established when we bought the house sixteen years ago.
Looking across the patio from the back door leading out of the dining room. A swing seat and a table and chairs fill up most of the space.
And for good measure, here are the views from the upstairs rear windows. Although it is part of a large housing estate (neighbourhood?) there is still a lot of greenery. This looks across from Cherub's window to a green space between the estate and the main road (which runs in front of the large trees in the background).
This view from Angel's window shows our back gate, more hedges, and trees in the green area running between ours and our neighbours' gardens and the next row of houses.
HT: Pamela. And do check out Jane's links for a fascinating world tour.
One last April photo (what do you mean, it's May?) ... a detail shot this time. This is the top of one of the gable ends of a school building from the 1880s (late Victorian again!). I loved the way the striped roof tiles, the decorative ridge, the stone chimney and the weather vane all worked together. The weather vane has a church (it is a Church of England school) and the date 2000 on top, so I presume was put up to celebrate the millenium.
Thank you Jennifer for hosting this shower of photos. It has made me look at the buildings around me in a new way ... I would never have noticed these details before.
Two more buildings in Church Square, both of them opposite the Victorian terrace in yesterday's post. First, the Golden Bell Pub, which has slightly mysterious origins. One reference says it was built on the site of a lodging house used by stone masons who built All Saints Church, but there doesn't seem to be any proof of this. The first certain reference to the Golden Bell as a pub comes from the late 18th century, but a somewhat unreliable Victorian register says it was first licensed in 1603. The front of the building dates from the 18th century, but other parts are older.
And on the other side of the entrance way to the right of the Golden Bell in the picture, The Post Office, another Victorian building dating from 1887.
I love this terrace of Victorian houses in Church Square. Built in 1855 they were originally six upmarket private homes - plenty of room for the servants! - but now are all offices. The entrance to the church in the previous photos is just to the left. And yes, that church is still in use - Church of England of course. You can see photos of the inside here.
Back home again ... and here is the beautiful thirteenth century Church (dedicated to All Saints) in the town centre:
The ironwork on the west end door is also thirteenth century, made by the same master craftsmen as the ironwork at Westminster Abbey (I couldn't get quite the whole of the door in the shot as I had to poke the camera through the metal grille that screens off the porch):
The Church has a glorious sixty metre tall spire which can be seen from all the approaches to the town - when we see the spire, we know we are almost home:
The brickwork on the spire is convex, curving outwards slightly to make it appear straight from a distance (I don't claim to understand how this illusion works!). I took this picture looking upwards from the base of the spire, and it is just possible to see the curve:
Doesn't this Georgian house in the village of Upwey, Dorset look Jane Austen-ish?
My last building from Dorchester - Napper's Mite. Originally almshouses built by Sir Robert Napper in 1616, it now houses shops and a cafe. Just look at that beautiful stone!
The name and date of the building are on the plaque under the bell tower ...
This is the view through the entrance archway ... a series of consecutive arches, leading through a courtyard and out the other side ...
This is the rear of the building ... I love the roof line with all those chimneys ...
Lots of photos to add to my April Shower from our holiday. To kick off, here is the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester - more Victorian Gothic, built in 1884.
How gorgeous is this window?
I took these photos of the roof of Truro Cathedral when we were in Cornwall last summer. The building looks old but isn't - mock Gothic, rather than the real thing, built in the late 19th century.
I think I can just about get away with counting these as buildings ... public payphones are rapidly becoming an anachronism in the face of the ubiquitous mobile phone, and most of the traditional red British phone boxes have been replaced. A few have been kept to preserve character, including these two. The building you can just see behind is the house on which Mary Norton based The Borrowers, now a school.
These photos are of a row of almshouses, built by a charity in the nineteenth century to provide accommodation for "poor widows". I didn't manage to get quite the whole row into this shot, as I chopped off the first house.
I love the shape of this door and the leaded light windows.
And the stonework on the gable end of the first house.
Last year I took up Marianna of the S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen's idea of posting a photo everyday during April. I didn't keep it up for the whole month, but I enjoyed what I did. This year I'm on the late side, but I'm not going to let that stop me joining in her new April's Shower of Photos.
In 2008 I chose nature as the theme for my photos. This year I'm ringing the changes by taking photos of buildings - no particular reason, except that it is something different, and I'm hoping it will make me look at my surroundings more carefully. I made a start this afternoon when I went into town to pick up a library book. The building on the left looking out of this alleyway is one of the oldest in town - sixteenth century, I think. I was quite pleased with myself for working out that I needed to turn on the flash because I was looking from deep shadow out into bright sun.
We did go to the zoo ... not for too long, and feeling a bit blurry, but we went. (And yes, thank you, I feel a lot better today. It was just a 24 hour thing.)
I took my camera, and thanks to Sandra's suggestions decided to experiment with different colour settings. A bit of hunting through menus and I discovered my camera - a cheap but adequate Panasonic digital - has five options: standard, natural, vivid, sepia and black-and-white. This otter was posing beautifully on a rock while he ate some fish. Here he is in standard colour ...
And here in black and white. I rather liked the effect of the water ...
Then I started playing with the vivid colour setting. Here is Cherub looking vividly pensive in a playhouse ...
And here she is naturally pensive (at least, I think this was on the natural setting, but it may have been standard. I lost track.) ...
The only sepia shot I tried was of a bison and it was not a success. Two photos I did like were this mongoose (natural, as the cage background was vivid enough in its own right!) ...
... and the dwarf crocodile, which being grey on grey with odd lighting (his heat lamp) needed a colour boost from the vivid setting.
I liked the shape of this ash tree, still looking rather wintry against the grey .
On Saturday mornings we often take Little Cherub to the canal to feed the ducks. I managed to get a good close up of this mallard.
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