just rambling about … enjoy the "post"-cards
I love travelling, but I also love coming home to all things familiar. One of my favourite local things to do on a Sunday morning is to head down to Columbia Road market to have breakfast, before having a wander around the flower & plant stalls. The market has become popular with London tourists, so I have to get cracking fairly early to avoid the crowds.
~ Spotted Cow
The other highlight of our Scottish Highlands trip, was the gondola ride up to the Nevis Range. They call it a gondola, but to me it’s a cable car. Gondolas make me think of the Venice boats navigated by Italian men in straw hats. Anyway, it’s not the gondola ride itself, but the scenery from the top of the mountain.
The mist lifted and fell in cycles when we arrived at the top. I must be out of rhythm with nature because whenever I got to the end of a walking trail and stood at the viewpoint, the fog descended and all I saw was whiteout!
~ Spotted Cow
Who remembers the late, great Farrah Fawcett? When I was a girl, television still had some novelty and we used to sit down as a family and watch Charlie’s Angels and the Six Million Dollar Man all together. I cut out magazine pictures of Farrah and stuck them on my bedroom wall. I desperately wanted the Farrah flick and endured endless teasing at my failed efforts. After all, I was 8 or 9 years old. I didn’t have curling tongs or gels or hairsprays, only my trusty comb and a desire to be re-born in her hairstyle.
Last weekend, on a flea market jaunt, I saw Farrah Fawcett’s picture up on a wall, and it triggered those memories.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgia
~ Spotted Cow
Most of the main walls of Lewes Castle are intact. However, in some sections like this one, only an edge of a wall remains.
In the picture you can see that the wall is leaning slightly to the right. I straightened the doorway, but the resulting image showed the chairs & people leaning awkwardly and I had to un-do the change. The ground must have shifted in the years since the wall was built.
~ Spotted Cow
In my quest for cool spaces in the Madrid heat, I found this living wall in front of the Caixaforum art centre, with seating that neatly frames the city’s inhabitants – including flighted ones – taking a break from the summer’s intensity.
~ Spotted Cow
Palacio de Cristal, Parque Retiro, Madrid
The Crystal Palace edifice isn’t rare like a diamond, but there are not so many of them around. Certainly, I’ve only ever seen pictures of the London Crystal Palace which was destroyed by fire, and upon which the Madrid one is modelled. It was originally built as a greenhouse – and it reminds me of the Kew Garden greenhouses – but these days it is used for art exhibitions.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was very hot inside when I went to have a look at what seemed a disparate set of exhibits, including a swinging pendulum that looked like an upside-down Empire State Building, a model ship hoisted at an angle and various retro electronics. The greenhouse wasn’t much respite from the heat outside, but it was a beautiful building to admire. I lingered to take some photographs indoors and had to be patient for what I thought was the right grouping and movement of people, with the right space between them. Such is the character of street photography that you can’t direct people around as you would like !
~ Spotted Cow
I love the creativity of street art on electricity boxes that you see in many cities, but I don’t tend to take pictures of them. Until today, that is, when I saw a composition that made me laugh. The stationary bicycle looks like it’s chasing the cartoon monster downhill. I snapped the picture quickly with my camera phone … and hopped out of the way of a beeping car. I’m going to have to come back with my proper camera and hope that a bicycle is there again.
~ Spotted Cow
I’m back from Madrid and there’s just time for a quickie weekly entry. Madrid in August is a scorcher. The evening I landed, it was 34°C (or about 93°F) at midnight when I got into the hotel. Thank goodness for air-conditioning. It made sense to spend my first morning acclimatising at the Parque Retiro – Madrid’s second largest park – where there was lots of greenery and shade, while I did some people-watching … and snapping.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning
~ Spotted Cow
Not quite cherries … but afternoon tea, especially at the Royal Opera House, is quite special !
Weekly Photo Challenge: Cherry On Top
~ Spotted Cow
I like capturing details with my macro lens … and most often it’s insects among flowers, like this one from my friend’s garden in Suffolk. And of course, a bee isn’t an insect !
Weekly Photo Challenge: Details
~ Spotted Cow
A British summer sunset at 9.30pm in Brighton. Glorious. I don’t usually have my camera to hand for sunset shots and it was a mighty leap when I saw this scene out of the window.
I have a Snap Chat post about taking sunset images, titled “Why are sunsets notoriously difficult?“, that you might want to check out. It’s reminded me that I haven’t done a Snap Chat post in ages.
~ Spotted Cow
I’ve used this image previously for the Challenge, but it’s appropriate here too and I love how the bird is watching the clouds drift by.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Look Up
~ Spotted Cow
Dead and alive. I’m not sure what that carcass is – a whale, I guess – but I thought it was amusing that the penguin chose to lie in a similar pose.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Opposites
~ Spotted Cow
Partners in crime. These two lambs looked like they had been up to no good as they walked out sheepishly – no pun intended – from under the farm machinery.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Partners
~ Spotted Cow
Pure laziness. Cows lying about on a hillside.
Devil’s Dyke on the South Downs Way, Sussex.
~ Spotted Cow
The Amalfi Coast is undoubtedly lemon country. We walked through lemon groves everyday, and limoncello bottles lined the shelves of every tourist shop. Admittedly, I’ve never got over the limoncello’s cough syrup taste, but I don’t dislike it so much as to refuse an aperitif.
Several times, at the street stalls, I came across what looked like giant, genetically modified lemons with a very gnarly rind. I never found out what they were called, although they’re obviously from the same family. The monster lemons are impressive when stacked up next to their conventional cousins.
~ Spotted Cow
On one of the days during the Amalfi Coast trip, we visited a dairy where they made the cheese by hand. It was a remarkably simple and clean, big, white room, lacking in fancy machinery, where the cheesemaker demonstrated his trade. Unfortunately, I can’t describe much because I ended up at the back of the standing group and couldn’t see for the most part. I did, however, get pushed to the front to watch him knead and twist the curd.
There was a small counter shop in the front of house and I bought one of the funny shaped cheeses hanging on the rod. The cheese is called caciocavallo, and in the local area they use it on pizza. The dairy maid was very accommodating and let me take her picture.
~ Spotted Cow
Randomly, on an East London street … by the same street artist – Gregos – as the picture in the photo challenge !
~ Spotted Cow
Amalfi Coast. Earth … and Heaven. A somewhat ominous marker as we started our ascent up Tre Calli, which translates unromantically into Three Callouses – the peaks of which you might be able to see if not for the mist.
~ Spotted Cow
I’ve just come back from a week-long walking holiday on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. The weather was variable, but the views were beautiful when they weren’t shrouded in mist (more about that another time). On the last full day, we walked the Path of The Gods, which runs along the cliff edge from Bomerano to Nocelle for about 8km. The views are jaw-dropping. As you can see from the picture, the lookout points are immensely popular photo stops. The admiration is shared by all … although admittedly, the dog seems somewhat unimpressed.
I’ll post more pictures in the coming weeks. The Post-Holiday Unpacking Fairy hasn’t turned up, and I have to deal with the small mountains of laundry on the floor.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Admiration
~ Spotted Cow
7 Day Nature Challenge. Day 5
On a road trip in North East Turkey, we chanced upon a moss forest which had a rather magical, if eerie, quality.
The lovely Joanne from Coffee Fuels My Photography invited me to the 7 Day Nature Challenge, and I would urge you to join too.
~ Spotted Cow
This collection of beach pebbles makes for a lovely abstract, and perfect for this week’s photo challenge.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Abstract
However, I’m going to do a double submission this week. The lovely Joanne of Coffee Fuels My Photography invited me to the 7 Day Nature Challenge, and I’m going to make this Day 1. She’s just finished with her set of nature images and you should go over and have a look. While I love living in London, I am envious of her Canadian mountain views. Also, I’m inviting anyone who is inspired by nature to take part in the challenge.
~ Spotted Cow
For this week’s photo challenge, I’ve resisted the hundreds of grainy food photos taken with my phone, and gone with meal prep time at a Swedish fish bar in Stockholm.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Dinnertime
~ Spotted Cow
Wandering Cows 
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