A visitor in the snow.

Well hello from snowy u.k.
I had a little visitor today...this is my resident robin!

He came for a feed.

Don't you think he looks smart with his little red vest against the white snow?

That's all for now as blogger doesn't like me at the moment...
having lots of problems posting photos...
might manage a flower tomorrow for
'friday flower'.

Friday Flower.

My Friday flower, or flowers in this case, is dedicated to my followers, all 12 of them. My blog is only new and it was started purely as a journal of my adventures here in Europe. So to have any followers at all is a bonus and absolutely unexpected. So thankyou very much for coming to visit and I hope you were entertained for a little while!

For more Friday flowers visit Laura and Melissa, they would love for you to drop in!

Minus 3 and counting.

This morning dawned crystal clear, with blue skies and frosty surfaces. On the school run my little snowflake was glowing red at me from my dashboard because it was -3'. The country roads were icy and slippery so I drove like a Nanna taking my time, glancing at the frozen puddles on the side of the road and the icy white fields beyond the hedges.

When I got home into my warm house, I didn't stay long....just grabbed my camera and gloves and took off for a walk around the village...

crunching on the frozen grass...

up the lane...

through the gate...

 

and onto the fields.

The frost hung around all day and the temperature didn't get higher than 2'.

Apparently we are expecting a light dusting of snow tonight and possibly tomorrow...fingers crossed!

A Pompeii Teaser.

While I attempt to organize the over 200 photos that we took in Pompeii recently, I thought I would post a little teaser that I put together with my nifty new Picasa 3. It took me a while to work it all out and I'm still experimenting but this is what I have come up with...

This is a collage of the very beautiful frescoes which traditionally adorned many Roman walls and ceilings within Pompeii. In some cases the colours are very vibrant, especially the blues and reds. Although a lot of them have been undoubtedly touched up and restored it's amazing to think that they have survived, buried under ash and mud for nearly 2000 years!

More to come, but I promise I won't publish all 200 plus!

Back Row, Centre.

Yesterday, hubby and I decided to brave the crowds and head to the cinema to see the latest Harry Potter film...'The Deathly Hallows'. I love going to the pics but I do find it very stressful.

At first I was a bit reluctant as this was the film's first weekend and I hate crowds, especially here in England where there seems to be 10 times as many people at every event than there would be in Australia, but Hubby assured me that they were running this movie every 30 minutes in 8 different cinemas so I eventually agreed. We decided that our best bet would be to book online...now this is really easy...you just need to pick up your ticket by sticking your credit/debit card in a little machine at the cinema and voila!

As we had booked the 11.30am show (which cramped my style a little for a Sunday morning...having to get out of bed by 10.30 and all), the carpark was not too bad...plenty of the cheaper parks available...only 30p an hour! However, I did start to worry as we walked towards the entrance as there seemed to be quite a number of families heading in the same direction...possibly all going to the same session as us! I started to stress....would our tickets have a seat allocation, if not, what sort of seat would we manage to get....I don't want my nose pressed up against the actual screen! So my pace quickened, with hubby running to catch up after placing the ticket in the car window, we strolled (quickly) inside and up the stairs....hardly anyone there...whew! Not even a queue at the ticket machine which usually has one out of four working!

We had plenty of time...25 minutes till the start...so after a quick trip to the loo we entered cinema no. 11...but more anxiety...would someone have beaten us to the back row centre.....a family with 5 or 6 kids in toe...which would mean we would have to sit in the second back row with kids kicking our seats.....

No...it was o.k. the people who had beaten us in there were, for some strange reason, sitting much farther forward, some were even sitting in the bays against the wall! Why would you do that when you could have back row centre?

So we planted ourselves nicely in the back row centre...with hubby proceeding to play sudoku on his blackberry while I counted the seats to make sure I was actually 'dead centre'! I then proceeded to  worry if someone was going to sit right beside me or, even worse, straight in front of me! This can be very annoying when the cinema is fairly empty, which it was. A lady did eventually sit one seat from me  then had the cheek to put her coat on the spare seat between us but after a shooting a few dirty looks her way I could deal!

Anyway, so far so good, no-one in front.

The lights began to dim, but oh no here comes a family...late...looking for seats. I crossed my fingers hoping they wouldn't plonk themselves down right in front....luckily they also preferred to sit against the wall...strange...but very relieved I sat back to watch the movie previews which were mostly the annoying animated type movies...were they going to preview anything decent?

Finally the main event began, and I settled down to watch...however this particular cinema complex has the annoying habit of leaving a bank of dimmed overhead lights on...I guess so that nobody does a header down the stairs in the middle of the movie...you know...those irritating people that have to go out to the loo or the snack shop in the middle of the feature..but once Harry appeared on the screen I found I didn't even notice...whew!

Much later....nearly 3 hours later....the credits were rolling....but....do we stay till the very last to see if there's a spoiler for the second part or not....

Friday Flower

I know I haven't been around this week, been busy sorting car insurance, blog sound effects and photographic tools on Picasa...think my head is going to explode.

Then I signed in and checked out some favourite blogs and two ladies are promoting 'Friday Flower'. The idea is to post a photo of a flower...well I ran round like an idiot photographing a few bedraggled flowers with the flash on, which is never really great...lots of shadow and over exposed shots ...but here's my hurried results.

I promise I will do better next time.

In the meantime go and pay a visit to Laura at A Place for Tea and Melissa at Miss Sew & So.

Playing with leaves.

Now that we are well on our way to winter and the autumn leaves are very nearly all on the ground, I found some beauty in dead brown leaves, white wicker, a red brick wall and a still pretty hedge....

p.s. I'm working on the sound effect.

Robins.

To celebrate my new sound effect....can you here the little robins singing?.....I thought I would talk about these cute little characters.

They are endearing little birds with their cocky little attitudes and their spindly little legs.

I forgot that I had these photos...we took them in Devon earlier this year. I don't know quite how we managed it as they are notoriously hard to catch....very nervous...very quick to fly off the minute we raise the camera.

They will nest in any number of unlikely spots...for example...barbeque's, bristles of upturned brooms, watering cans, hats and even bicycle handlebars!

We have robins in our garden and I was absolutely thrilled when we discovered that they were nesting in a small fir tree. We watched for weeks as they built the nest, then after the event, flitted back and forth feeding their young.

It was a bit confusing at first as I thought it may have been a gay marriage. Both birds seem to be male...however after consulting Wikipedia I found out that both the male and female are identical, both sporting bright orange/red chests...mystery solved.

I waited and waited for the appearance of the young robins learning to fly, but never in fact saw them. Apparently, being the super clever birds that they are, they merely fly off and don't come back to the nest. They will then stay in the neighborhood improving their flying skills before taking off into the wild.

Robins are extremely territorial and will aggressively defend their turf. A portion of their mortality rate is related to the fact that they will fight to the death. The female, after rearing her family, will move away whilst the male will guard his territory all year round. In fact the robin is one of the only birds to be heard singing on Christmas day.

They are the gardener's friend, known to hang around awaiting upturned worms. In folklore they are highly regarded and may never be harmed.

Tom, an elderly gentleman that lives in our village, told me that as a young boy he would often steal birds eggs out of nests (a common children's practice back then), but he knew never to touch a robin's egg!

In 1960 the robin was crowned the U.K.'s national bird!

My Masons.

One of may favourite things in the house is my Mason 'Vista' china, that I started collecting in Australia and brought with me to England. I was attracted to it because of it's beautiful raspberry print which worked well with my red accents throughout the house.

I initially only had the four dinner plates and some cups and saucers, all of which is very old and not really usable, purely for decoration.

The red really pops against the white dresser.

Whilst living here in England I have occasionally come across the odd piece like this little milk jug...

and this large platter.

Then one day the village hall held a jumble sale...I walked in and there it was...a box full of my masons and some other raspberry and white china.

For the princely sum of 20 pounds, I acquired 10 dinner plates, 9 dessert plates and 6 cups and saucers, plus the other bits and pieces which co-ordinate beautifully with the masons.

This china is not as old, and as far as I can tell, has not been used a great deal.

So now we have enough to actually use!

But then one day I found a brown transferware platter....

P.S. About the Sheep.

I feel I should explain my post the other day..'To Jan'...this was for my sister who visited for 6 weeks in June. Now during the course of her visit I dragged her around the village for numerous walks (well actually 2...we were busy shopping...eating...drinking) in an effort to stay fit (because of the eating and drinking) and to show her 'an English village'. Many times (twice) we would stroll across the farmer's fields, dodging the mole hills and the sheep sh*t and avoiding at all costs, the sheep.

Now you have to understand that Jan never has and never will be a nature lover! I was so keen to show her the mole hills (I think they're fascinating), the squirrels, the robins (of course) and the cute by then, teenage sheep that had been born in spring. You see I love all that stuff, but Jan was definitely not fascinated!

In fact we ceased our walks because she was a little (a lot) frightened of the sheep and their teenage offspring, regardless of the fact that they would usually amble off and away from us the moment we went through the stile.

So after that, the closest she got to that species was when I cooked lovely spring lamb for dinner!

p.s. Laura, I'll let you know whether he has a 'happy ending' next spring!

Beautiful Amalfi.

A few weeks ago whilst holidaying in Sorrento, Italy, I took a bus tour along the Amalfi coast. This coast line and it's associated villages all overlook the Bay of Salerno. The locals call it 1000 bends, and we wound our way along a road that was perched on the edge of cliffs with sheer drops to the Mediterranean below.

The day dawned perfectly blue and I have to admit it was possibly the most breathtaking scenery I've ever experienced!

Approaching Positano.

known as a 'vertical village' as it is entirely built on the hillside...

with just a tiny piece of beach.

Some of the buildings are beautiful shades of pink...

steep steps were evident everywhere...

par for the course in a village like this!

More beautiful scenes on the way to Amalfi...

with luxurious hotels perched on cliffs...

and even a cemetery with a million dollar view.

 

The village of  Amalfi from the water....

a fort that has been developed into a hotel...

lovely blue shutters....

Sophia Loren's little holiday shack...

and high above the village.. a church.

Two shots of the Amalfi Piazza del Duomo...it really was a beautiful day.

Pretty apartments above the shops.

This is the Amalfi Cathedral or "Sant' Andrea Duomo"...with it's Arabic influenced golden mosaics, built sometime in the 1200's.

 

 Our last stop was the pretty village of Ravello, home each year to the Ravello Music Festival in honor of Robert Wagner who was inspired by the gardens here for his opera 'Parsifal'.

Entrance to the Villa Rufolo with it's beautiful restored gardens.

San Giovanni del Toro dates back to the year 1000.

Interesting shops were to be found here...

with lots of the essentials....

as well as pretty pottery.....

and necessities.

Autumn colour.

Definitely one to put in your 'bucket list'.