Spending the last few days basking in the Spring sunshine, I thought it fitting to post a couple of colourful flowery images before the temperatures sink once again to almost Wintery values.
Springtime
Spring 2013
Officially it’s not Spring yet, but the weather man keeps going on about the ‘Meteorological beginning of Spring’ which seem to fall a couple of weeks earlier than ‘proper’ Spring. All I know is that yesterday felt very Springy, and I was drawn into the garden to do a bit of bush trimming.
You may have noticed that I have been neglecting my blog recently…. and you’d be absolutely right, but I’m quite certain that I’ll be getting back into the swing of things again soon.
Early Start
Around 7:30 this Saturday morning and the snow almost cleared. I decided to take a short break and grab a couple of wintry shots with my mobile phone before starting the day properly with a bowl of hot porridge. The phone is certainly not on equal terms with a ‘real’ camera, but considering the prevailing lighting conditions, hand held by a hungry photographer, I’m quite satisfied with the results.
Autumn returns
After last weeks snowy weekend it was very pleasant to have a warm and pleasant Saturday today. I was busily doing a lot of not much in the garden, and enjoying sweeping up a leaf or two here and there.
Landscape foreground
Today I had actually planned a deep and interesting discussion on the advantages of landscape foreground. But having noticed this pretty little thing dangling over my head in the doorway this morning, I decided to put that off until another day.
All those arachnologists among you will immediately recognise this attractive creature as a female Argiope bruennichi (wasp spider). I’m not quite sure why she decided to spin her web above our front door because grasshoppers seldom hop that way… they tend to prefer grass. Perhaps if she’s still there in the morning I might move her to somewhere more green and pleasant.
ISO 100 – Enlarged and cropped by Gimp
A Day in the Garden
Last weekend I noticed I had no neighbours. Gone. Vanished. It seemed as if I was living in a small clearing midst in some forgotten jungle, cut off from the outside world by dense trees and impenetrable undergrowth.
But then it dawned on me: It’s almost mid June and I’ve been avoiding the garden since the snow left. A party here, a wet Saturday there, an abundance of excuses not to grab a fork and get stuck in.
Well yesterday my luck ran out, the sun smiled upon me and there was absolutely no reason not to start work. So I donned my wellies and fought my way through the excess foliage.
In our garden the whole lettuce crop has to be consumed within two days, otherwise they suddenly change into six foot high flowers. Our strawberries, on the other hand, appear individually….. actually I’m getting quite excited because it’ll soon be my turn to eat one again. But it’s the back of the garden, hidden from view area which poses the biggest challenge. Whereas other village gardens proudly show off their wonderful, lush flowering shrubs mine seem to sit there, inconspicuous under a thick blanket of thorny weeds and things unwanted.
It’s still by no means weed free, but at least I can see the neighbour’s house again and the hibiscus bushes can once again see the light of day.
Short pause
It’s been quite a while since I last posted anything on this blog, and the reasons are many fold.
First of all I’ve been spending far too many enjoyable hours playing about with new laptop and PC 🙂
see the Hardware page on http://www.harding.ch/computer/compi-index.html
Then of course there was……
Work: I’ve either been leaving early in the morning or getting home late in the evening. Both seem to form a natural barrier against taking any sort of reasonable pictures.
The time of the year: During the summer months I tend to browse through Photo magazines on the way to work, and soak up motivation by the pagefull. But during the darker time of the year I’m seen standing on platforms and sitting in trains with my head buried deeply in a paperback – In case anyone’s interested, I’m about halfway through Ken Follett’s ‘Fall of Giants’ as always, a jolly good read!
Social ‘duties’: and last but not least, various Christmas markets, decorated shops and cosy bars all seem to compete for a slice of my time.
Perhaps I need a nice new camera to get me back on track? 😉
New Hardware
In the last posting I mentioned something about heaving this blog back on the photographic track. Concentrating on all things picturesque. Today therefore, I will keep nice and quiet about when I got up, what I had for lunch and where I went etc.etc. and let art speak for me – hehehe
Pity really: Because today was a rather special day. Wife was out and about, so I had a day with the dog AND the new laptop 🙂
Oh, did I just let slip something about new laptop? Oh dear, but to be honest, in this very digital age I suppose one could say that a laptop is just as much part of photo kit as an SD card or a tripod.
So to cut a very long story short, I spent the day chatting to the dog about all things technical, eating my favorite cheese and (lots of) onion sandwiches for lunch and quenching the arising thirst with a very refreshing beer. Apart from ambling through the countryside for a few hours with dog and camera, the whole day was spent installing, configuring and generally getting acquainted with my new purchase and the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. I know, it really has nothing to do with photos at all, but not to worry.
The Weather: again
Somewhere on my blog it’s written quite plainly that “Vic’s Blog is, broadly speaking, a photo blog.”
Well, that was certainly the original intention, and from time to time I do find myself writing about photographic things and discussing B&W stuff etc. etc.
However, more often than not, I seem to drift totally off topic and waffle on about what I did at the weekend or how the day progressed weather wise. Not very interesting for the vast majority I’ll grant you, but somehow it just easier to write.
Now, in an effort to heave the blog back on track, I’ve decided to at least try to write about more photo related stuff during the next few postings. That could well be quite difficult though, because let’s face it, who am I to discuss photography? Well, I enjoy taking pictures, but is that really enough?
We’ll have to wait and see how long this new phase will last, but for the moment I must write a line or two about the weather: The Indian summer has passed and has now turned wonderfully autumnal presenting damp, leafy pictures everywhere. Oh, and it’s quite chilly too, so it was decided that a fire be lit to enable us to hear the TV over the sound of chattering teeth.
Wednesday Evening
This evening I attended a so called ‘do’ at work, you know the sort of thing: ‘get to know thy colleague’. To cut a long story short; the food was splendid, the barbecue was magnificent and nobody went thirsty 😉
To lend this evening’s post a hint of autumn, I’ve included a couple of “still life” sort of pictures of our traditionally decorated straw bale which greets visitors at our front door.
