Zoom in on the spinner

the winter fair and market has opened in the middle of Edinburgh - lots of stalls selling food and potential gifts plus rides like this big wheel and nice sedate carousels.  I'm always amazed that people pay to be spun around at a great height but it was busy all afternoon and provided some great photo shots.  I'm confident this is not the last time I'll be featuring the market here this year.

Hoping you are all enjoying your week and looking forward to seeing what you are sharing this week.

me on Monday

at my computer Monday morning drinking coffee from my new mug, reading e-mail and blogs and processing my photos from the weekend

it was another rugby watching, crocheting and Connie the cat stroking kind of Saturday (and I was delighted that both of ‘my nations’ won). 

Sunday was a winter fair and market visiting, low sun in the eye and lens avoiding, hot dog eating, strictly come dancing enjoying type of day

waving to blogland at the start of another week (and an extra wave to Sian for this lovely meme) and hoping you all have a good week

zoom in on grazers

no not me grazing festive foods although that may feature in a December zoom

both the Canadian and Greylag geese are spending a lot of their time grazing the grass beside the river at the moment, in big mixed groups.  They are so used to people from when the hatch that it is no problem that they graze where we walk - they sometimes take a step away or hiss but that's it.

hope you are all keeping warm as you zoom in and out

me on Monday

good morning from a wet and overcast Edinburgh. 

I’m wearing my new top and I’ve persuaded Connie the cat to take her tablet and turned around her food bowl so she will eat the food on the other side of the bowl.

Much of my weekend was the same as last weekend with lots of rugby and crochet – but no cold.

Also progress on 2 seasonal decoration projects – sewing a long piece of crochet around a polystyrene ring ready for decoration; and preparing lots of shiny triangles.  This project was prompted by the decoration in John Lewis store and I had thought through how to cut the card and join them with paperclips and that the secret to it looking fabulous was to have lots.  What I’d skimmed over in this thinking was that I would need to punch a hole in the top of each triangle individually to ensure placement and stop undue bending. I’ll share both as they progress

and I remembered to check out the window at dusk to catch the glorious but short lived red sky

Thanks Sian for this idea of recapping the weekend and waving to everyone on Monday morning – have a great week

Zoom out on the squares

my cold is on the mend but the upside is that I have made good progress on crocheting squares to send to the Knit a Square charity who makes up blankets for children in need in South Africa.  I'm aiming to have made 35 by the end of this month - enough for one blanket

I found some ends of fluffy wool in my stash and decided to use it to add one row of texture.

enjoying all the seasonal sights being shared by you all in your zoom pairings

Me on Monday

another weekend over and time to follow Sian’s practice of starting the week with a quick re-cap (feels like my sing language class which always starts with a re-cap of last week, and I’m seeing the sign for re-cap as I type but can’t do it while typing!)

anyway to my weekend, which was a game of 2 halves as they say and summarised with 2 photos

Saturday

I spent the afternoon happily watching rugby on TV, with some crochet for the quiet bits and a purring cat and admiring the bunting hanging above the TV which I made earlier in the day from some William Morris wallpaper that I came across in my stash. Entertaining rugby without getting wet is a winner in my book and balancing my southern and northern hemisphere allegiances I was very pleased with the results.

Sunday

my sneezing had developed into a cold with blocked nose and aches so plenty of time on the sofa with my crochet, kindle and playing Triple Town on my tablet.  Hoping it clears up fast.

Wishing you all a good week

5 in (2)5 on 5th November

which of course means fireworks around here – the local council puts on a fabulous display on the beach. This is probably the one time that I am glad it gets dark early as if was really dark for the display at 7pm.  In New Zealand (where strangely they also have fireworks on 5th to mark an attempt to blow up the UK parliament) we had to wait until 9pm for some darkness for the display.

I love fireworks and trying to photograph them.  This year I used the high speed burst setting on my camera which meant I had 600 photos to work through but did mean that I captured some pleasing shots.

Following Sandie’s lovely 5 in 5 monthly meme I’ve whittled it down to my favourite 5 to share – in 3 collages

are you a firework lover?

zooming slowly on a walk

a this time of year, with lots of bare trees I tend to spend a lot of my walk looking up and admiring the dark shapes contrasting against the sky - total cloud cover today.

always fascinating to see what has caught the eye of all the lovely bloggers who join me each week in zooming in and zooming out

me on Monday

hello blogland on another autumnal Monday morning

my weekend included –

a trip to the monthly organic market for yummy cake and bread and geranium soap;

sitting on the wall by the sand and enjoying coffee and then playing with shadow photos;

trying to understand what Connie the cat wants when she comes to find me and grumbles;

enjoying the contrast of bare trees against a blue sky;

making chilli;

crocheting more charity blanket squares and white spheres for a December project;

and trying to persuade the cat that she can’t be part of the crochet!

Wishing you all a good week and thanks to Sian for encouraging this weekly wave.