Scavenger Photo Hunt - January

The word prompts for this month's Scavenger Photo Hunt which is organised by Kate at 'I Live I Love I Craft' blog are as follows
  Metallic, Plate, Made, Aged, Modern, My Own Choice

Metallic - I struggled a bit with this one but I thought that the ceramic pear in our kitchen window had a metallic sheen to it.

Plate  - a plate camera.  I took this photo in September 2017 when we visited The Bromley House Library in the centre of Nottingham on a Heritage Open Days Weekend.  Here is a - link - to the post I wrote at the time

Made - we had quite a bit of vegetable casserole left so we topped it with mashed sweet potato and made a sort of vegetable Shepherd's Pie.

Aged - our aged cat Max decided he wanted to go out in the snow.  He made his way very gingerly, with his rickety back legs, towards the pond but wouldn't go any further into the wet snowy grass beyond so I picked him up and carried him back inside.  In April, if he gets there, he will reach the venerable age of twenty three. 

Modern - A modern replica of an ancient helmet in our local museum - The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. It is one of two made to enhance the understanding of the pieces found in the Staffordshire Hoard; it is a helmet which was thought to be 'fit for a King' but was found 'exploded' into well over 1,000 fragments, many of which were missing, so reconstruction was guided by the designs of other contemporary helmets.  The other replica helmet is in Birmingham City Museum. 

My Own Choice - I'm looking forward to taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch this coming weekend but I don't expect to see one of these in the garden. This was a young emu in a field close to where we walked a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't on its own there were three others in the field and all of them came close to the fence to say hello, appearing rather eerily out of the mist.

Click on the link below to find other bloggers who are joining in this month.

Photo Scavenger Hunt - October

It's nearly the end of October so I'm joining in with Hawthorn at I live, I love, I craft, I am me blog with this month's Photo Scavenger Hunt.

The words for October are

Making

Empty

Starts with an F

Paper

Neat

Street

Kettle

Unexpected

Vase

My Own Choice

************

Making - Banana Bread, a recipe from my old BeRo book.  It's a good recipe for using up old ripe bananas, it has walnuts in the mixture too and is definitely a cake rather than bread.  Lovely with afternoon tea.

Empty - a clean, empty drain under the steps up to 13 Oak Cottages, the worker's cottage at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire.

Starts with an 'F' - Fungi and Fly Agaric spotted at Trentham Gardens early in October.

Paper - Also at Trentham Gardens a paper notice pinned to a board near where Georgina the gardeners' black cat has her little house.  She was adopted by the workers there and was always on hand to greet visitors who made it up to the top of the Italian Gardens near the ruins of the old house.  She has been taken home by one of the gardeners so that she can enjoy her old age in peace and quiet.

 Neat - a preening Egyptian Goose on the JCB lake near Rocester, it will soon be looking neat and tidy.

Street - Rosslyn Road in Longton lit by morning sunlight. The building just behind the wall is the library.

Kettle - more than one kettle in a display at a kitchen shop in Bakewell.  I think one of these would last for ages.  We use a Le Creuset cast iron casserole which was given us as a wedding present 38 years ago two or three times a week.

Unexpected - last week when I pulled up the blind on the landing window I spotted the above scene.  What on earth?  We get squirrels and foxes in the garden plus cats but non of them would have caused that amount of destruction and anyway they all jump over the fence if they have to.  There were claw marks on some of the shattered pieces of wood and a latrine hole in one of the raised beds.  Got to be a badger,  Bad badger!  There are tons of ways in and out of the garden but you had to fight your way through a solid fence, we've mended the fence but left the runs for now as we don't want the fence to be broken again.

Vase - a vase of flowers at Whightwick Manor near Wolverhampton taken earlier this year when we met friends there for a visit and lunch.

My Own Choice - another goose just because I like them.  This one is a Barnacle Goose, one of many at the JCB lake at Rocester.

Click on the link below to find other bloggers who are joining in this month.

Photo Scavenger Hunt - September

Where did September go?  Already it's the last day of the month and the days seem to have gone by so quickly.  We've had a short break in Wales, taken a few walks and visited a garden or two and a  couple of buildings over the Heritage Open Days weekend but mostly we've been at home pottering in the garden and making jam and chutney from the left overs of the produce we have grown.

I think all the photos I've used were taken in September so here are my selection for this month's Scavenger hunt organised by I Live, I Love, I Craft, I am Me blog - here

Shut - a gate in RSPB Combes Valley Nature Reserve, near Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands.  Taken on a recent Sunday morning walk there.

Copper - Kettle on a shelf in the Worker's Cottage at Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, Dore, Sheffield which we visited on 20th September.

Wrist- The wrist from the statue of local author Arnold Bennett outside the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Bethesda Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent which we visited on Thursday last week.

Quarter - a quarter of a Cox's apple, very crisp and tasty it was too.

It begins with a C - Caterpillar, a fox moth caterpillar found on a much used path leading to a shop and cafe at the top of Horseshoe Pass near Llangollen in Wales.  We managed to get it to crawl onto a leaflet we'd just picked up in the shop and we moved it to safety otherwise it would have been trampled by huge biker boots as at least twenty bikes had just arrived in the car park nearby.

Foam - I stood for ages watching the sea hit the rocks at the end of Llanbedrog beach on the Llyn Peninsula where we had walked as far as we could. I was determined to touch the rocks before we started to go back towards the village. 

Scarf - my newest scarf which I've very attached to at the moment.  I was sitting opposite Paul when he took this photo during our trip  on the Welsh Highland railway from Porthmadog to Caernarvon earlier this month.

 Line - the end of the line at Caernarvon on the Welsh Highland Railway. We had an hour in the town before the train returned to Porthmadog through the mist covered mountains, rain soaked landscape and flooded roads and fields.

Nostalgia - when I saw the rag rugs made by the Hamlet Haberdashers Textile Group in the worker's cottage at the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet Museum I was transported back to my grandmother's house.  When I was a child I used to spend a few days there sometimes and I remember she had several rag rugs including one in front of the hearth of a big black range which she kept polished and where she used to leave bread to rise covered with a clean white tea towel. She made the rugs herself using lots of scraps of material from old frocks, shirts and pinafores with the dark edges made from an old gabardine macintosh.  She used to make the rugs sitting at the huge, scrubbed white kitchen table.

My Own Choice - Gorgeous Dahlias in Mrs Bateman's Dahlia Walk at Biddulph Grange Gardens which is our nearest National Trust Property.  

Click on the link below to find more bloggers who are taking part this month.

 

Photo Scavenger Hunt - August

I used to enjoy joining in with the Photo Scavenger Hunt which was organised by Greenthumb but that ended a few years ago now so it was great to find a new hunt via Louise at Ramblings of a Roachling.  The new Scavenger Hunt is organised by 'I Live, I Love, I Craft I am Me' blog - link here.
 Follow the link to find more.

Here are my photos for August

 

 1.  Relaxed - this elderly stag was very relaxed snoozing under a tree right near the car park at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham.  We spotted him when we went to look at the 'Dinosaurs of China' Exhibition in early July.

2.  It begins with an 'M' - Max our twenty-one year old cat taking a gentle stroll in the garden, he doesn't go out very often and likes us to be around when he does.

3.  Time for - Elevenses - five minutes to get to the coffee shop!  Clock on the tower of St Mary's Church, Nantwich, Cheshire.

4.  Tangerine - on a recent visit to Bridgemere Garden World near Nantwich in Cheshire there was a display of a new variety of Geum called Tangerine.

5.  It begins with an 'O' - a new plant for the garden this one is a Heuchera and it is called 'Obsidian'.

6.  Whiskery - I thought that the dying flowers at the top of the Artichoke looked quite whiskery.

7.  Lace - a lace collar or cape attached to a dress which was on display in Winterbourne House, Birmingham when we visited in June.

8.  Bridge - under the road bridge (No 60) which goes over the Shropshire Union Canal at Tyrley Locks near Market Drayton.

9.  Letters - on a bicycle at Austin's Deli and Coffee Shop in Nantwich, Cheshire.

 

10.  My Own Choice -  This scene at Middleport Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent may look familiar if you watch 'The Great Pottery Throw Down' - this is where all the challenges were done.  We were able to visit 'The Great Exhibition' where many of the items made by the contestants were on display on and around the tables they worked at. The exhibition ends on 3rd September.

Photo Scavenger Hunt - February

February has dashed by so quickly in its haste to get into Spring! It is usually a month I dread but it hasn't been too bad this year, quite kind in fact.  It is time for this month's Photo Scavenger Hunt kindly hosted by greenthumb at Made with Love. I completely missed January's hunt so it is good to be back again. February's topics are......

Green

The grass in the fields was looking fresh and green as we walked around the reservoir at Tittesworth in the Staffordshire Moorlands near Leek.  The sheep were enjoying munching the grass.  The Roaches can be seen in the distance.

2

Two teasels at the Wolseley Centre, headquarters of the Staffordshire wildlife Trust near Rugeley in Staffordshire.  The teasels were in the garden area near the bird feeders.  This brought back childhood memories for me, a friend and I kept a couple of teasels in a shoe box for ages and pretended they were baby hedgehogs.  It kept us happy for ages - we were only six or seven at the time!

Cool

 We had a cool morning walk around the lake at Trentham Gardens, it was definitely scarf, hat and gloves weather.  The lake was frozen in parts and all the puddles were icy.

Somewhere you went

 We visited the Shirehall at Stafford to see an exhibition called, 'Still, still life' it was fascinating but of course no photos allowed of the exhibition.  Also in the building is the old court house and gaol.  I did take photos in there and I'll share them another time, just one I'm including further along here.

Up

The plane was up but coming down to land at Manchester Airport, the planes are taking off and landing at regular intervals  Photo taken from the John Lewis car park at Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire.

Frame

The River Trent and water meadows framed in the window of the bird hide at Trentham Gardens. 

From a Low angle

I had to crouch right down to get this photos of a Hellebore flower in the gardens at Trentham after our cool walk around the lake.

On the Shelf

Specimens on a display shelf  in the natural history gallery at Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

Writing

 A hand written notice about speciality teas in the Lakeside cafe at Trentham Gardens.

Inside

 Inside the holding cell under the court house at the Shire Hall, Stafford.  An art installation by Sophie Symes which shows lichen growing on a body.  It depicts the feeling of being overwhelmed taking over the body and likens it to lichen growing on and overwhelming a tree.

Line

Steam train on the line at Cheddleton Station which is on the Churnet Valley Railway near Leek in Staffordshire

Shape

 We were trying to work out from its shape what the new sculpture was at Trentham Gardens.  It is between the lake and the River Trent where you can sometimes see Kingfishers and that is what the sculpture is going to be - a diving Kingfisher.

Click on the link below to find others who are participating