Shadow Shot Sunday

I made crab apple jelly with the crab apples the children and I picked at school. I have been looking through 'The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady', which is a book I have loved for a long time, and recently found a copy of in a charity shop. It is a nature journal with lovely watercolours, notes on weather, finds and also poetry. I wanted to take a picture of my jelly in the sunlight, as it is an amazing amber colour. It tastes good too-nice with cheese and biscuits. I bought four jars, in a massive overestimation of how much the apples would make-but half a jar is better than none! The first page pictured is a painting of those red and white toadstools, and the second is of crab apples and sloes-which I have also been using this week. I love the feeling af autumn the photos gives me.

For more shadow shots from around the world, visit Tracy at HeyHarriet here.

Autumn loveliness and circles

Autumn is my favourite season I think, as I love the grey days, and when the sun does come out everything sparkles and glows. This morning we had thick frost-so thick that I was almost late for work, scraping and waiting for it to melt. Then, as I drove down the last hill before work, there was thick fog, where before, at the top, there had been bright sunshine. Then, in the garden, we found iced leaves in the lid of the unused compost bin. (we have a big compost heap so the bin is not needed really)

I know these mosaics will come out tiny on the page, but you can click if you want to see detail. Not that there is much in fog! The frost on the other hand, brought out all the tiny leaves and blades of grass perfectly.

For once I didn't alter anything in photoshop-apart from cropping them a bit. The day was really this colourful!
I am doing a page in my journal everyday-or at least part of a page, after having a long break from doing anything. The first part of today was, as you can see, beautiful. The final part, with even more demands for even more paper work, and some intense discussions resulting from this, was not. It was difficult and not that pleasant. Consequently, I wrote down my negative feelings on the page before this, then drew some circles on this page. There is something about drawing circles that makes me feel relaxed. I love the feeling of it. Big or small, I don't care! The circles reminded me of the rusty section of bed spring-I think from the Thames-that is hanging on the back of the box room door-hence the picture!

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?! Hopefully the chance to finish my 3 billy goats gruff display which I love! The drawings a couple of the children did of the characters are so good.

Morning Glory

7.45 brings beautiful light to the autumn tree in Forest School.
7.50 brings me a fallen rose.

10.45 brings the sun back out from behind the tower to warm up the playground again.

Thanks for the lovely birthday wishes. They made me smile.

Magic Lanterns

The bottom photo is more or less unaltered. The other three are quite altered! I am seriously addicted to textures and blending modes! I think it is a harmless addiction-even though I can end up losing time, at other times results are surprisingly quick. I seem to go through phases with photo shop, doing one thing exhaustively and then finding another. I am like that with all my interests I think-am I fickle? Maybe. I do come back to things. At the moment felting has been abandoned in favour of photos-mainly because of time and work. I did try to start something the other night and my heart was not in it. Ah well!

These lanterns are from last year-around this time. They stayed orange for a long time, until I hung them outside, when they rapidly faded. A few fell to the ground and I have been watching them over the last few weeks as they become skeletons. I finally picked them up tonight to take a few pictures. I have put a few more in the same spot to see if they change too. The ones hanging up have not done this. I think damp must have had something to do with it in a corner on the ground.

I am missing time to visit blogs and am intending to have a catch up on Saturday. See you then if not before!

Monday

It really feels like autumn today, despite the warm sun this afternoon.

The brown beads and tree in the park are tonight's autumnal efforts.
Thanks for lovely comments yesterday. I got a lot done today, and am wishing the week away until the weekend! We are going away in the half term holiday, so I am going to pack and sort things out this weekend so the following week goes smoothly. I can't wait!

Pinch Punch...

...First day of the month. These lines always come into my head on the first day of every month. I think someone I was at school with used to follow this with her friends-not friendly at all I know. The sunflowers are beautifully dying. They can stay up as long as they will last and then drop their seeds for next year's crop.

Humpty Dumpty wishes you a happy Fall! As you can see by his face. I like the rhyme of Humpty Dumpty and looked it up on Wikipedia to see where it came from. One of the meanings is short clumsy person. It is not stated that the character is an egg, but it is thought that the rhyme was a riddle and you had to guess that he was an egg. He also could have been Richard the Third the 'hunchbacked egg' (from Shakespeare) Have you heard this version?

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,

Eating green bananas.

Where do you think he put the skins?

Down the King's pajama's

I have lit the fire for the first time this autumn. I did it for Tiger really-she loves the fire! Our old cat Boris used to lie in front of the old gas fire in the flat we lived in, and give it the look of love. The only other thing (person) that got the look of love was my Mum, who I think used to really spoil her when she went to stay!

It is only gas but it looks so real! It is one of the things that made us buy this flat.

When I started my little photo shoot tonight, Humpty was intact, apart from the already broken arm he had. This is what happened:-

Humpty Dumpty sat on the step,

To have his photo taken.

The step got moved and he fell off.

Now he is all broken.

By me-a tall clumsy person! Poor Humpty, I will have to get the superglue out later!