Pretty feet

I love shoes in many hues (and rhyming!).  I have several pairs in red and purple but my new shoes for summer are lime

I knew I would buy them when I 1st saw them in the shops but wanted to wait until the weather would allow me to wear them.

I was delighted to purchase lime shoes for 2 reasons.  First because I had a lovely pair of lime shoes about 5 years ago, when I was in NZ

and secondly, and I know this may be controversial, I think lime goes with everything.

How about you, do you love your shoes to zing with colour or do you prefer them to quietly do their job without drawing any attention?

Getting ready for the Commonwealth Games

I do like to be prepared and, yes, the games are a year away but preparations are underway.  Glasgow is host to the games next year so I thought I’d participate.  No I haven’t been hiding athletic prowess !

I’m hoping to be a spectator – I’ve been online to order tickets for rugby 7s and athletics but will not know if I have any until October when the organisers will randomly allocate the tickets amongst those who booked. 

And I’m hoping to be a volunteer – working with the Commonwealth Organisation in assisting the team organisers.  if successful I’ll be part of a team assigned to a particular country and with my experience in the Pacific I’m hoping it will be one of the small island nations.  I attended an interview earlier this month and will hear if I was successful in October or November with training starting next March.

At the interview I did manage to have my photo taken with the Games mascot – Clyde (the name of the river in Glasgow)

I’m hoping this is not my only interaction with the games !

foraging treasures

Picking wild blackberries provided a pleasant afternoon’s pursuit, red fingers, prickles and now promises of winter delight in my freezer.

[following Abi’s idea of a photo and 20 words to tell a story]

sculpture park with cameras

yesterday for my birthday we visited a local sculpture park

Me, Dad, my sister and her partner all had our cameras so we all have plenty of photos of photographers (Mum stayed in the cafe)

the park has many large amazing and intriguing pieces spread through the woods

and my favourite – sculpted grass mounds that you can walk around, by Charles Jencks

#bytheriver swans

Lovely blue sky and sunshine today and the wind from earlier in the week has gone so my daily walk by the water was a pleasure. I always take my camera on my walks and decided to share what I see semi regularly here in blogland.

The swans were so picturesque today – there were 20 or so up and down the river.

If you have ever been near flying swans you’ll know that their wings beating make quite a noise.  I kept my camera in my hand to try to capture the swans in flight – mostly pointing in their general direction and clicking then finding the swans back home using the zoom on the computer.  From 9 pictures I managed to capture some decent shots of swans in flight. I love the long necks of the top one.

And this swan was gliding about and feeding alone.  When I stopped to photograph him he came over, I suspect (s)he was hoping I had some bread.

I wasn’t the only person out enjoying the clear weather.  There were plenty of dogs running about (and their owners) and I couldn’t resist snapping this man enjoying the sun and the view.

Do you have a regular walk route?  what do you see?

on the bright side

one of the things that I find hard to re-adjust to back in Scotland after 20 years in New Zealand is the long hours of darkness in winter – at the moment it gets dark around 3.30pm and is still not fully light as I type this at 8.20am.

But in normal ‘Pollyanna’ mode I found a plus side now that the festive lights have been lit.  As well as the lit decorations down the high street, the council wraps several trees with small lights.  I love how these trees look and have even been tempted out for a short walk after dark to see them

When more of the houses in my neighbourhood have their house lights and trees up I intend to do another after dark photowalk to capture the magic.

Hanging on

I’ve noticed a lot of roses still hanging on in the gardens around here, including mine.  I was surprised, though, to see marigolds producing flowers at this time of year. 

[box with arrow is from Ali Edwards]

360 degree

 

Over the weekend I

* enjoyed more fabulous autumnal colours -  I particularly liked the clear blue sky with the copper coloured beech leaves.

* watched on TV the All Blacks (NZ) beat Scotland at rugby.  Probably the only time that I happily sing along to both national anthems.  No real wrench over who to support because a win for New Zealand (current World Champions) was assumed by all and Scotland is used to ‘glorious defeat’.  Fabulous displays of fast open play.

*set up the Wii I borrowed from my nephew and made it work thanks to some tutorials on YouTube

 

And looking forward

* rain forecast to start the week – a promise of clear weather on Thursday

* using Just Dance on the Wii instead of my daily walk – question is do I close the blinds when I dance during the day or accept people walking past will be able to see me dance?

* evenings glued to the TV with two strangely compelling reality competitions running nightly at the moment – MasterChef Professional and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here

* trip to Glasgow on Tuesday to see my nephew and his group’s latest play

* more stuff sorting – it’s all improvement from here now piles have been sorted and just need putting away