BLOG
May 19, 2010 01:19PM
Although I still intend to continue with this blog, I've got a new photo blog: Pictures From Everyday Life.
Here's what I say in the About bit on the blog...
"I have been blogging for several years now and normally include quite a lot of photographs in my blog. I thought that it would be nice to start a photo blog though. The photos in these pages will not necessarily be high quality, although some of them might be. Rather they will be of things that I see as I go about my normal day. On occasions the subject matter will be of something that catches my eye and that I want to photograph. In most cases though the photos will be more by way of snaps, where the important thing is the subject matter that I want to comment on or simply a record of things that are going on in my life.
I am not a professional photographer (as will become apparent), and I’m not even sure that you could call me an amateur photographer. I have been taking photos since I was 4 years old and do so because I enjoy it. I have never been to classes on photography and do not belong to a photographic society (mainly because I do not feel I am good enough). I do take inspiration from books and from looking at others’ photos, though, and as a result feel that my photography has improved over the past few years. If you would like to see more of my photos they can be found on Flickr where I post as Julia Livesey.
A bit about me: I am in my 50s and live in Poole, Dorset (UK) with my husband and 2 dogs. I took early retirement when I was made redundant in 2007 so theoretically have plenty of spare time on my hands. The dogs seem to take up an inordinate amount of that spare time, however. I walk them at least once a day, so there will be a lot of photos from our walks.
I hope that you enjoy looking at my Photo blog."
Please feel free to take a look at it. You can find it here:
Pictures From Everyday Life
I'd be grateful for any feedback.
view comments(0) |
post comment
April 11, 2010 07:11AM
So much for my regular blogging! This morning Chris has taken the dogs out as there is footie on this afternoon. I was planning to sit and read The Guardian Magazine from yesterday, but then remembered that I hadn’t written anything in ages, so here I am sitting at the table writing.
We’ve been having another spell of fine weather these past few days (after even more heavy rain for a couple of weeks). It’s been lovely walking the dogs in the sun. I’m in short sleeved T-shirts. Max gets very hot very quickly. In fact, he woke me up at 1.30am this morning panting heavily. I had the window shut as Jez was on the bed with us, but had to open it. Which meant she woke up and started barking. But at least Max stopped panting!
I’ve been busy in the garden this week. I’ve dug the two largest beds over and have put in a few new plants. I’ve got the two smaller beds left to do. I’ve also attempted to re-seed the lawn (or should I say large area of mud with patches of grass growing on it). A combination of a very wet winter, dogs and workmen have all conspired to ruin my lawn. I’m not sure how well the seed will grow, especially with dogs wandering all over it.
The big news from the last month is that we’ve booked a holiday (well, I’ve booked a holiday). We are off to South Devon, a place called Bolberry Down near Hope Cove, for a week at the beginning of May. You can see the details here . It will be interesting to see how the dogs cope – and how we cope with taking the dogs away. I can’t bring myself to put them in kennels (let alone afford to) though. I think they’ve both had enough of that from their RSPCA days. Of course, Jez was with her siblings and really too young for it to have any impact on her (she actually loves going back there). But they told me Max hated it. I’m trying to work out how we can actually fit everything in the car, as the dogs take up the whole boot area and Chris can fill a car when he goes away for a weekend, let alone a week. We need to fit in 2 big bags of our stuff, 2 throws for the furniture, 2 duvets for the dogs, dogs towels, our towels, laptop, Wii (yes, we’re taking that), cameras & tripod, dog food and bowls, leads, harnesses, at least some food for us… the list goes on. And we’ve only got a small hatchback. I want to buy a roofbox, but the only make that will fit our car is Thule, which is expensive (almost as much as the cost of the cottage for the week), and Chris is dead against it.
On Easter Sunday we went over to lunch at Dad’s. We had Roast Lamb, which I love but never cook as Chris doesn’t like it (Dad cooked Chris a pork chop).
We all had Easter Eggs, including the dogs.
And I really like this photo of Jez and my Dad.
The following day I walked to Upton Country Park as there was a craft show on there. I managed to get my cousin a birthday present for the end of this month (as was the plan), but also got a really nice freshwater pearl and amethyst necklace for Pat’s 90th birthday in September, as well as a necklace & earrings for me. It was the start of the nice weather, so I got a few nice shots of flowers in the gardens.
I’ve also been taking some photos of birds in the garden while I’ve been digging - well, mainly photos of the robin. I’m told that our European robins are different to the US robins, although they are all part of the same family. Ours are much smaller and look much cuter. I must remember to buy Christmas cards with robins on for my US friends this year!
And I mustn’t forget the blackbird.
Well, I think that will do for today. It will take me ages to resize and upload these photos and get them into this blog, so I’d better get started.
view comments(8) |
post comment
March 04, 2010 12:07PM
Well so much for my regular blogging! Too many distractions at the moment, I think. I’ll try and fill in most of the key bits of the past couple of weeks since I last posted, although I think I’ll leave the saga of my falling out with B&Q until I’ve got a bit more time.
So the Wii arrived. I’m very pleased with it, and have been having lots of fun. I’m using the balance board to do some warm up type exercises and hoola hoop stuff, but am still doing my pilates. I’m useless at the balance games on it, but they’re still good fun. I seem to excess at the obstacle course in the Wii Fit Plus games for some reason.
At Katja’s recommendation I bought Mario Kart and Chris & I are now wasting many hours failing to win a race! That’s not strictly true, but there are some courses where I don’t seem to be able to come anywhere other than last. If I thought I was bad at driving in GTA IV then I’m hopeless in this. I also splashed out (well used my Tesco reward vouchers) to buy Band Hero (with the guitar, mic & drum kit) and the Beatles Band Hero game. We haven’t even attempted the drums yet, but are totally useless at the guitar. I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of progressing to using all 5 buttons. But then, in a way, who cares – we are having fun and enjoying ourselves. I think it’s rather surprised Chris – he didn’t think he’d use it, but is enjoying it. Then yesterday I bought the Dance routine game, as Maria said it was really good exercise and I enjoy dancing. But it’s odd. I always thought I had quite a good sense of rhythm, but either the game/remotes are playing up or my timing is crap.
This week Tiger Woods PGA tour golf arrived on loan from my DVD rental company. Chris was a bit miffed that I could hit the ball a lot further than him right from the start. And he found it really tiring (mainly cos he kept taking massive swings at balls which failed to go the distance in the tutorials – LOL!). I’ve told him it’s good exercise. I got a big groan when I asked if he, as he was playing as Tiger Woods, he got to shag the women in the crowd.
So, that’s the Wii.
Last Saturday was my Dad’s birthday, so I asked him and Pat over for Sunday lunch. I did the Caribbean Pot Roast again as it was so nice. It was a good choice. At 89 Pat doesn’t tend to eat a lot, but she kept taking more and said it was the nicest meal she’d had in years. I was really pleased. In the afternoon I introduced them to the Wii which was fun. They enjoyed it, and Pat did really well at the boxing! Anyway, here’s a couple of photos from Sunday for you.
I was beginning to think that we’d never see the last of the rain. I am sick of tired of muddy walks, muddy dogs and a muddy house. And I’m forever cleaning. But the weather looks as though it might finally have broken the past couple of days as we’ve been having quite a bit of sunshine. It’s making walks a lot more pleasant, as you can see from the photos I took at Hamworthy on Tuesday.
Also, since my last blog, cattle have been bought over to this side of Canford Heath as part of the heath maintenance programme. They keep back the gorse and trample in seeds etc, apparently. We managed to meet them last week – Jez and Max were most excited. There are about 8-10 of them, I think (they were in the trees when we met them). I was surprised how big they were – for some reason I had been expecting them to be slightly smaller (although it’s not as though I don’t know how big a cow is).
Better go now – Chris is on his way home with the dogs and I’ll be expected to towel Max off.
view comments(3) |
post comment
Next
