happy new year!

theme thursday - relax

cats know how to relax



so do daughters





friends



and other people






so do I!






1. charlie at home
2. happy cat near half moon bay, ca
3,4. in sausalito, ca
5. old friends
6. botannical gdns, brooklyn, ny
7. greenbelt festival, cheltenham, glos
8. san gimignano, tuscany
9. ravello, campania

good day

Long time no write. I think Facebook has made me a little lazy!

Good day today. Our older daughter has just got engaged (hooray) and we spent the day wandering around Selfridges looking at hideous Vera Wang wedding dresses (sorry, but we thought they were awful) and cooing over wedding stationery and ideas for table decorations.

All this talk of weddings has obviously softened my brain. I would normally be complaining at the fact that the stores were full of Christmas decorations in October, but all I did was smile. This has ruined my reputation of being something of a humbug re the festive season.

Selfridges has hung giant mirrorballs in the atrium. As well as slowly spinning round, they moved up and down on long chains. I could have travelled up and down the escalators all afternoon, watching the play of light against the walls.

Took this with my ipod, so it's a bit blurry, but still pretty.

in memory

remembering all victims of terror & violence
especially those of 9/11

balloon

I love this time of year, when summer takes one last bow, while autumn waits in rustling anticipation in the wings and maybe throws the odd hint of fall colours onto the stage.



Today it has been raining heavily, but last weekend the sun was shining and A finally took the balloon ride that the girls and I had got him for his 50th (almost 2 years ago.) It had been cancelled 3 times, due to wind or rain, or both. But this was 4th time lucky. I stayed on the ground, took photos and then went for a walk while he and 11 others drifted through the evening sky.


connecting the uninflated balloon to the basket


there seems to be a lot of balloon


filling it full of cold air


then hot air


almost ready


up,


up and


away

end of august ...

... and I've managed to blog everyday.

Will have a few days break now and leave you with some images of summer.











1. at the water's edge
2. beer!
3. summertime, and the livin is easy ...
4. you're never too young for a festival
5. purple

music monday - midlake

A new discovery for me. Heard them at Latitude Festival in July and was completely blown away.

weekend

Brief visit to Suffolk to see my father-in-law, who has recovered physically from major cardiac surgery earlier this year, but sadly is becoming mentally frail.

It was typical August Bank Holiday weather. Rain, rain and more rain. With the occasional break in the clouds to remind us that the sun was hiding away up there. The photos are from Southwold, famous for its theatre, pier and beach huts. (There was one of these for sale at a mere £32,000!)



They make a wonderful place to take shelter from the English weather ...

frescos

In the mountains to the west of Lake Garda is a tiny commune, Molina di Ledro, on the shores of Lake Ledro. Having taken shelter from a rainstorm, when the skies had cleared a little we took a walk around the village.
We were delighted to find that the villagers had painted modern day frescos on their houses







I think the one with the sheep is my favourite!

flowery friday - rose

I don't know the name of this rose. It came out of my mother's garden and, we think, out of her mother's before that.
It has a lovely scent and seems to be quite happy in my garden.
Maybe one day it will find a home with one of my daughters??

theme thursday - equal

Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité





If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
Carl Schurz 1829 - 1906




“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.”
Thucydides 460 - 404 BC




All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.
Bob Dylan 1941 -




People are pretty much alike. It's only that our differences are more susceptible to definition than our similarities.
Linda Ellerbee 1944 -




I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Martin Luther King, Jr 1929 - 1968




The free man must be born before freedom can be won, and the brotherly man must be born before full brotherhood can be won. It will come into being only if we build it out of our very muscle and bone - by trying to act it out.
Barbara Deming 1917 - 1984


1. pigeons in flight, paris
2. MI6 building, london
3. angel, paris
4. community, manhattan ny
5. children, brooklyn ny
6. civil rights memorial, montgomery al

wordless wednesday

tuneful tuesday - evergreen

Staying with the green theme for NaBloPoMo ...

music monday - greenslade

Back in the mid seventies I saw this band a few times at a local club. Variously described as prog-rock or prog-folk and with album art by the amazing Roger Dean, they provided a fabulous way of spending a really chilled evening.



They had a great drummer, Andy McCulloch, who also played with Manfred Mann, King Crimson & The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

Can't find much on Youtube, but you can listen to one of their albums, Spyglass Guest, here.

Hearing it now brings back lots of happy memories - crouched in the back of my friend's boyfriend's van, bracing ourselves against the sides as he swung round corners on our way to The Greyhound in Croydon. Standing near the back of the smoke-filled venue, being briefly distracted from the music when I realised that the couple in front of me, who were lying on the floor, were actually having sex beneath the cover of an army greatcoat.

Happy Days!

holidays

salo

Well, Lettuce is in India and our oldest is in Cornwall. Other friends are in France and colleagues are heading off to sunnier climes than London.

Time to browse through some more of the photos I took when we were in Italy in June.
After the first week in Tuscany we moved on to Lake Garda.



Ice cream coloured houses decorated the lake front in Gargnano, near where we stayed.



I love the way the Italians use earth colours too.


campione

sepia saturday

Browsing through some old photos the other day, I found these.



This is my father, George. He was born at the end of 1914, so would have been 24 at the start of WW2. This picture was taken in London in 1939. He held the rank of Corporal.



George spent part of the war in India and was attached to the Indian Army. He's sitting in the front row, third from the right.

He seems to have travelled through the Middle East, parts of Africa and around the Mediterranean too. I've got loads of tiny little photos - pictures of Jerusalem, of the sea, of camels and the pyramids. I'll try and scan some more on to the computer!

By the end of the war, he'd worked his way up to Captain. My father described the war as the happiest time of his life (I'm not sure how much actual combat he was involved in) and I'm not sure he ever completely readjusted to Civilian life.