Tag: beauty

A little bit of Sparkle

26/4/17 There is something quite magical about standing on the top of a hillside at 2am brushing your teeth in the moonlight. The crisp night air and a sky of the darkest blue filled with stars. There was not a sound but for the crackling of the fire when my partner rushed into tell me that it was snowing! It is the very first time that I’ve experienced this up on the hill and although it had been so cold that we couldn’t feel our fingers and toes all day it was still unexpected at almost the end of April. But there we were surrounded by a beautiful crunchy layer of white snow, totally pure and sparkling peaceful and quiet. We took the dog out for his nighttime walk. He was thrilled. His Mama and Daddy wandering around and rushing up and down the garden whilst he ran and rolled and ate the snow he was in heaven eating it and prancing about. One happy pup we went back indoors to warm ourselves up and hoped that the power would not fail us in the night, we would need the electric blanket. Unfortunately all the cameras were dead by then so we only got a couple of pictures by torchlight.

I checked the weather report again last night and saw there’s a possibility of Thundersnow. Our boy would love it.

How Beautiful Do You Feel? What is Your Perception of Beauty


Inspiration for this comes from a clip I recently saw again from earlier this year. It is where a photographer films the response on people’s faces when they are told they are beautiful. Asking you to watch what happens…

I have never considered myself to be beautiful. Thankfully otherpeople from  time to time have in my life.

I was not one of the “Beautiful People” as I grew up. You know the ones who seemed to have it all. Lots of friends, a good job, nice material things and a good life. But quite often life is not all as it seems for those people anyway.

Then the line of a song popped into my head as a reminder while I write this it is also something you hear so often. “Beauty’s only skin deep”

I beg to differ! 

Occasionally when dressed up in my finery for a night out or special occasion I have sometimes felt a little bit beautiful, but more “well presented” and usually a little uncomfortable but having been injured during the past two years, never more so than now and I have not been feeling beautiful for some time. Along with the small amount of self-confidence that I had having taken flight I now also have facial scars.

Sure, they are healing up and could have been much worse but they are there nevertheless and people do tend to look at you differently. As I show people who know me, I point  out that they are healing well, as though to reassure them that I will look and feel like me again sometime soon. I now understand why so many people hide under their daily face. The make up is not only there to enhance but to cover. I have never really worn a lot of make up and while the skin heals, since I have been able to recuperate at home I have stuck with little or no make up to help it. But plenty of Bio oil and Aloe Vera to renew the skin and help the scars.

I always thought that my eyes were my best attribute, but they really are the window to my soul and can be read so easily. Sometimes that worries me as I don’t want to always be an open book for all to read. But I digress slightly.

Over the years some of the people in my life have arrived and felt that I am beautiful. Some have been there fleetingly, others have stayed realising that beauty takes so many forms.

My beauty lies within me! 

It is not only skin deep. I am a nice person. I try to do my best for those around me in my life and others I have yet to meet. For a world that is so much bigger than mine. I cherish what nature gives us and encourage growth wherever possible.

So, you may ask Do I feel Beautiful? And as I stand shy of the mirror and think past looks alone I will answer yes. Grateful for having been shown that it does lie within us. So if you do not feel it, search within and when other’s shine a light upon your beauty and tell you you are beautiful embrace them and it and let your spirits rise.

Image: FB  Positive Outlooks 

Flora #1 Ornamental Poppies

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The other evening I was walking with my family and spotted some ornamental poppies growing in the front garden of an empty property.  Years ago, I attempted to grow some. I have tried to grow so many types of poppies over the years with varying success and currently only have yellow Icelandic ones.  I once had deep purple ones which were very beautiful and kept some of the seeds.  So I never miss the opportunity to collect the pods once the flowers have shown us their beauty.

Since the flowers had finished, as I often do I took some of the seeds from the flowers so that I may transplant them into our own garden once again. The rest I will scatter in the garden on the hill and give to friends and family.  That’s the thing with poppy seeds, there are so many that there are plenty to go around.

I took this particular photo when one once grew in our garden, it was a solitary red poppy. As though it was growing in memory of someone special, I hope that there will be many more, since we have lost many special people.

Bear River and the Diamond in the Rough

Some years ago, before Scotland or the Puppy even came into the equation about 2008, I was looking at property in a much more interesting place, to the one we inhabit.

Yes, I had itchy feet and thought about what it would be like to live in a different country. So a quick search for property abroad threw some interesting places into my thoughts. I thought about France, an awful lot.  I have always wanted a place in France….

But I also thought about somewhere farther afield where I might be able to get some land and make a beautiful place for holidays and could rent out.  It has always been something that is in the grand plan.

That was when I spotted it, a place which by name alone, fired the imagination and I began my research into this wonderful sounding place.

Bear River, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Now, it’s a bit of a way away from the folks if we were to up sticks and head off there, but it would be a fantastic adventure I’m sure and might be an ideal place to open a business of some sort at the time and is a tidal river which means it’s most likely to have a good availability for Seafood, which is important to me.

So what could go wrong, there were relatively cheap flights to Canada from the UK accessible airports to us and the very sound of the place sounded idyllic. The exchange rate of the Canadian Dollar meant that there was 2.3 dollars against the British Pound at the time.  Which was pretty darn good.

I had cousins which emigrated to Canada about 30 years ago, never to be seen again, they loved it so much there that they have not returned to the UK.  And trust me, when you have got the getaways, then that sounds just far enough away to do it.  I tried to research the area as much as possible.  It ticked a lot of boxes for me at the time. The area is not far from the ferry crossing from Digby to Maine, in the US which is another place I have longed to see, for many years.  Lobster and Scallops are readily available on the Canadian side near to Bear River and since I have a love of Bears, it seemed the perfect place to take my partner.  It is after all his nickname.  Apparently it is a haven for artists and there are boats nearby whilst being surrounded by wonderful forests and mountains, which you could access to ski all within about an hours travelling time.  The nearest airport, Halifax was also about an hour away.  See, I am painting a beautiful picture.

There was a house there which was not furnished, which means that my imagination could furnish it at the same time, with endless possibilities.  A timber clad house in a slightly New England style built in the early 1900’s. I wish that I still had the file with the photos which I had saved of it (but the loss of a hard drive put pay to that).  It had everything that I wanted in a house, huge space, a porch going around the outside.  A utility room, basement and attic, more space than I could think to fill and was described as a “Diamond in the Rough” by the agent selling it.  The rooms were painted in bright colours, it had huge windows which overlooked a massive garden of at least a couple of acres and was on the outskirts of town.  So it was rural enough but still had facilities nearby.  The rooms lent themselves to antique furniture and the whole place reminded me of a huge American or Scandinavian Lake house, the type I would love to live in.  It had four large bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and large receptions, more than enough space to do the entertaining that I thought I would get the opportunity to do once all our friends came out to visit us there for holidays, the parties we would have there. Oh Boy, Christmas would be just amazing in a place like that.  Yes, I had imagined the Christmas Tree in the hallway.

Alas, It was not meant to be…  I looked into selling most of our worldly goods to get the place and thought about what our new life there might bring.

Then two things brought me back to earth with a bump.  Or more like a thud actually.  At the time I was in touch with Wilf, someone I was connected with on MySpace, (Oh the early days of ancient social media, before Myspace became a bit sordid).  He was a DJ who built Kayaks in his spare time, they were beautiful, real pieces of art.  It turned out that he knew the area and when I mentioned that I had been looking at properties there, advised me against it. Wilf told me that it used to be lovely, just like I had imagined, but in recent years the place had gone downhill and there was now a crime and drug problem there due to the closure of an industry and the mass unemployment that followed.

Just to add water to the fire, my partner also scuppered the plan completely after lengthy discussions about the possibility of living there.  He agreed that it sounded great, but said that I could not anticipate how cold the winter months would be.  Having travelled a bit and spent some time in Canada he was ahead of me and recalled just how low the temperatures are.  The fact that you can be cut off from civilisation for weeks, sometimes months.  He asked how would I feel about that? Hmm I thought, perhaps it would make a good summer residence then? (I wasn’t giving up hope) But summer is going to be colder than here in the UK too possibly.  My bones and joints ached at the mere thought of it so I resigned myself to the fact, that it could be lonely and cold there.

But after all that the memory of the place, specifically the house, that “Diamond in the Rough” has returned in my thoughts for several years, like a wonderful place on my wish list.  I think of what I would have done to that house and how living surrounded by the mountains and Bears near to a river, in a town filled with Artists and Artisans could fire the imagination.

A quick return via Google takes me to a wonderful article, Welcome to Bear River – Huffpost  which was written in 2014 and sums up exactly what I thought the place could be and how it might have become that special place for us. At the time when we were looking the country was apparently in deep recession as the UK was about to be too and I was to find out. Clearly the time was not right for us, but never say never, after all we now have a puppy who would love the cold, and there is always a log burner to keep us warm.

Oh Daydreamer, when will you learn…

 

Decay #6 Blessed with a great outlook

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On Bank Holiday Monday I spent the afternoon with my sister.  We chilled out at home talking about all kinds of things then ventured out in the car to a nearby river.  It is lovely how a quick trip to water brightens the day.

She has recently bought a car and I am enjoying the afternoons where we can go out and see some of the great countryside which surrounds us, where I get to show her the places she hasn’t seen before, which are right on our doorstep and she gets to practice her driving.  It makes a change not to be the driver. More importantly, we also get to be sisters again, when we are out on our own and just be ourselves.  We were talking about location shoots since she is after some new promotional pictures for her work and I tried to think of places which were a little out of the ordinary.

I thought of just the place and took her along the river. It was threatening rain all afternoon, so we went over there early evening for an hour or so, despite the slightly grey evening, we messed around with our cameras and I came away Happy with a load of new shots and making new memories as she put it.  Although I will not be the photographer for her promo shots, I also got some nice ones of her.

I decided that I would add some more images, bit by bit to the series called Decay, which I have photographed over a period of time.  So, here goes…

 

Look Up

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Image used with Kind Permission, Kristin Granger – Gratitude in All. 

As my morning browsing took a new turn , I saw this image. It reminded me of how things used to be, when younger we were encouraged to look away and not look others in the eyes. Whenever we walked together his eyes averted to the floor, as to cause no conflict with others, not meeting their gaze as they passed, in case they might think badly of him. (I never asked for what, afraid of what darkness might come from his mind) He missed out on what was around him for so long, became sad, withdrawn and introverted, or was he always that way.  It is one of the reasons why I rebelled and have something to say to him now “Yes, Look up see it and smile.  Relish in the beauty that surrounds you before it is gone.”

Gratitude in All – Facebook

 

George’s Hidden Treasure

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When we came and found it,
We looked here and there.
Picked a spot to sit,
but wasn’t even a chair.
I thought I’d tell what I know about George,
And the friendship that we would forge.
You see, the house it had been stripped,
Of all his worldly goods.
Or so we thought, as we tripped,
Around the sheds and woods.
But as we ventured all around,
The odd treasure still to be found.
An occasional thing had been replaced,
Or scattered about, a little defaced.
In the sheds hung his old tools,
The scavengers, were only fools.
Inside the house there was a table,
But with small minds they weren’t able.
For a moment to stop and think,
As to why it was covered in ink.
I wanted to do a little research,
In the garden, of pine and birch.
There’s bottles and baskets and old clothes,
Digging around an old treasure trove.

Picture a place with a scene of beauty,
Looking around at nature’s bounty.
A place filled with such mystery,
As I began to research his story.
There were pots that had been made by hand,
Strange things I’d found buried on the land.
Antique ladders, a walking stick
To get you about when you’re in the thick.
A painting or two hidden above the stair,
Behind the wall when I stripped it bare.
Writing was not just his legacy,
He was an artist who craved to be free.
Visiting ladies to the hilltop would clamour,
To his studio to sit, with none of the glamour.
He would sit alone and he’d paint
In the house, so cold and very quaint.
Perhaps he had some heating supply,
Upon which he could rely.
There disrobed on a couch she might lay,
Whilst the farmer was off, making hay.

Around these parts it was said, he’s a scribe,
The odd bottle of brandy was known to imbibe.
Walking around, you should take a look
Searched to find copies of his book.
For this is the place he chose to reside,
Next to the house where the horses will ride.
Lived there alone and up there he hunted,
With coldness of winter he was confronted.
Wrote books about writing and he had laid claim,
of stories and cooking which wasn’t so plain.
There was a short doorway, it wasn’t so tall,
But it did for him, he was decidedly small.
Some time ago I read of his travels,
But with time, the story unravels.
But over the years, the things that he crafted
Remain buried here and they’ve lasted.
Things he created, sit out the back,
There in the garden, a wonderful plaque.
His scattered remains of the man he once was,
We leave it right there, just because.
Although the scribe has temporarily vacated,
The delight to share, is unabated.
The place where he once took his pleasure,
He still resides in his time of leisure.
As guardians here now we’ve been sent,
His spirit has shown, for us it was meant.
For right up here might be where it began,
The house that belonged to a little wee man.
He visited once to bid us adieu
Now raising a glass to him, Salut.

A Wildflower Garden

044I thought that I’d plant a wildflower garden,
To discourage the edges around us to harden.
Through the fields cutting a swathe.
For bugs and Bees, there to enslave.
It would have lupins’, the odd cornflower,
To brighten the way and harness it’s power.
Colours bright will form an array,
From your journey your eyes might stray.
Wander there and scatter around,
Seedlings to grow all over the ground.
Opening up before your eyes,
Turn the corner to your surprise.
Along over there by the side of the road,
There to embrace and the wildlife to goad.
A small chance of some encouragement,
From Nature to do her best it’s meant.
To entice from your face a smile to see,
As blossom and pollen fly to be free.
Floating along, up on a cloud,
A cloak over countryside to shroud.
Near pond and stream and hedgerow,
Earthworms and Beetles busy below.
Waiting through winter, for the cold to pass,
Busy creating the green and the grass.
Buds and leaves begin to sprout,
Sharing their beauty once they are out.