Photo Challenge

On Windmill Hill ~ Thursday’s Special

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Yesterday the wind was whistling into Shropshire through the Cheshire Gap, and despite the apparent stillness and bright sunshine in this photograph, it was one big icy blast up on Windmill Hill. I did not stay long. But in the shelter of the woods, lower down the hill, I did stop to catch these mossy tree roots:

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And then among the fallen leaves I found this very strange fungus:

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This week at Thursday’s Special Paula has given us five word prompts to choose from. My choice for these photos is protuberant. Pop over to Paula’s to join in.

Thursday’s Special: Pick A Word

Come Hail, Gale, Snow, Frost, Rain And…

…the hesperantha in the garden is STILL flowering – albeit translucently and only at her stem tips. She has been buried under a foot of snow for nearly a week, frozen and defrosted, and refrozen. Then we’ve had downpours and mighty windstorms. I don’t really know what to make of her, other than to give her a big round of applause. She’s been flowering continuously since August.

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Daily Post: growth

Favourites Over The Fence In 2017

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Actually, despite knowing where we all are calendar-wise, I’m feeling most disorientated just now, and it’s got nothing to do with too much Prosecco. It seems as if the whole year has rolled by without my being wholly present. Where did it go? Perhaps I was too busy trying to bury my head in the proverbial sand, for although all was well in the Farrell household (for which we are truly grateful), there was too much happening in the rest of the world that was deeply tragic, or infuriating, or just plain bonkers.  It makes me want to re-wind the year and start again with all our grownup brains switched on. Ah, well. A new year. A fresh start. So let’s aim to do our best in 2018. In the meantime here’s a sample of this year’s seasonal ponderings – over the garden fence – a favourite displacement activity for this writer on the Edge:

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Happy New Year!

 

Daily Post: Favourites

The Last Turtle Of Summer ~ Peroulia Dreaming 11

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After wandering around Koroni Castle we descended down the stepped streets to the harbour front in search of ice creams and coffee. Greek ice cream is delicious and ours came in many astonishing flavours. We wolfed it down like five year olds. Next we settled ourselves at a seaside cafe and ordered coffee, but we had not been there long when the waiter came dashing to tell us there was a big turtle to be seen just off the quayside. ‘It is the last turtle of summer,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow it will be gone.’

A little crowd had gathered and was peering into the stormy looking water. The weather had changed, and there was a cool wind blowing off the Messenian Gulf. It was hard to spot the turtle between the dark ripples, and I missed a couple of chances to take a photo as it popped its snout above water. Then a silly young Frenchman decided he wanted to swim with it, jumped in and scared it away. ‘Merde’, said his girlfriend. Merde, indeed.

So here is my best shot. Little more than a peek. But then it is good to know that there are still loggerhead turtles around the Peloponnese. One of their breeding beaches is at Koroni on the far side of the castle. Every year between June and mid-September the turtles make some 46 nests there. These are monitored throughout the summer by ARCHELON, The Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, along with a host of volunteers from around the world. Good on them, I say, and bon voyage last loggerhead of summer.

You can find out more about Archelon, The Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece HERE.

 

Daily Post: Peek

Related: The Castle At Koroni

The Weather On The Edge ~ Black & White Sunday

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I often snap this view before I dive through the gap in the field hedge and into the allotment. I’ve said before how fascinated I am by the movement of weather beyond the brow of the hill. Sometimes I think it looks as unreal as a theatre backdrop, and especially so on blue-sky days. But as I am writing this, the sky is leaden, and the air full of chaff from the combine harvester as it thunders up and down the hill. Farm machinery these days is so over-sized and overbearing, the wheat cut and threshed in one process. The whole field will be cleared in an hour.

Anyway, that’s beside the point. This is an exercise in photo-editing, courtesy of Paula at Black & White Sunday. This week she asks us to show her a colour photo that has been transformed into monochrome – and ‘after and before’. Below is the original:

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Please visit Paula at the link above for more afters and befores.

From My Window ~ Black & White Sunday

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According to the old tithe maps the field behind our house was known as Townsend Meadow, and for obvious reasons: it lies on the north end of town directly below Wenlock Edge. For nearly a year now Shropshire Council has been building a large attenuation pond just over the brow of this hill. The objective is to reduce the effect of flash flooding, holding back storm water that runs off surrounding hills, turns all the roads and brooks into rivers which then converge in the centre of Much Wenlock.

In July 2007, over fifty houses in the town were badly flooded. Ours was fortunate not to be one of them; although our house is built into the foot of this hill, the main burden of run off flows around rather than through our property.

The fence in this photo was the first thing to go up before work on the pond began. The tree that appears to be in the corner is a piece of ‘borrowed  landscape’ and is actually some distance away in the field hedgerow. And the rooks were just passing.

Before the fence went  up I did not particularly notice the tree, but now I like the way this visual convergence gives an accent to what before was a rather featureless wheat field.

It was even more exciting when the big digger moved in.

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copyright 2017 Tish Farrell

 

Black & White Sunday  This week Paula’s challenge is STRUCTURE