LARGE STRUCTURES

 Carmi, over at writteninc. is calling for photographs of LARGE STRUCTURES.   There are some great photographs over there, do follow the link to see them.

Cruise ships seem to be getting bigger every year.   Ours from a couple of years ago is by no means the biggest now!    This is the ship at Stavanger, Norway, completely dwarfing the surrounding houses.   Bizarre, really!

The next one is a "giant's sofa" at Tittesworth Reservoir and surroundings in Staffordshire - looks comfortable enough!!

A Monument in Anglesey, Wales.   That is Mr.G right at the top!

A replica ship at the Nautical Museum in Barcelona, Spain.   It is a new museum, only just open.  But it was cool and shaded - just what we needed!

It occurs to me that you might have seen all these photographs before.   If so, sorry!   But I'm not much of a photographer of large things!!!

TREASURED

There are so many things we treasure in our lives.   Sometimes we try to hang on to everything!   Carmi this week, over in writteninc. has called for photographs of what we treasure.

There are, inevitably, pets.

This is my beloved Wags (OK, our daughter named her!)   She came as a puppy about 40 years ago and stayed with us for 11 years.   She designated herself as my dog, protected me and made sure I was in sight most of the time!   A Springer Spaniel/Border Collie cross,  when out on a walk she was never quite sure whether to round us up or retrieve us!   I cried for a week when she got a tumour and had to be put to sleep.

This photo, which is a copy of a scanned copy, and not particularly photographically good, is a very treasured picture.   It shows my parents, and my much-loved mother-in-law, plus my daughter and my parents' other two grandchildren.   The photo was taken in 1970, and sadly only the two girls are still alive.   Oh yes, and mine is the one with her mouth open!!

SADNESS

This week, Carmi challenged us to photograph SADNESSES. This was a rather difficult challenge for me.   I don't go into town very often, and we don't have many sad drunks, like Carmi found, or druggies or whatever around when I do!     And if I'm not there I can't find other sadnesses!

So I took my camera into the Park today when I took the dog out and came up with these two photos.

This makes me very sad.   Behind this fence is a bank, and then the edge of the lake.   When we first came here, it was kept mown, and the weeds were taken out, or didn't appear, and the ducks would sit on the bank in the sun.   Now our Council, Cheshire East, doesn't have the money to pay for all that to be done, and so the nettles, hogweed and other weeds have taken over.   The brushes are only trimmed  as they encroach on the path, the lake-side of them are quite untidy.

And this makes me even sadder in a way.   Obviously some money was found for a bit of new planting, in fact several small trees have appeared over the Golf Course area, but this Pieris was planted just as a particularly dry spell started, and the poor thing has died.   The Robinia next to it luckily has survived, but its a shame when plants like this die.   And that area used to be grass - but feet, both human and canine have worn it away, just because its there, I suppose.  There is a perfectly good path!

I sound like a crotchety old woman!!

Follow the link above to see other sadnesses.