MUGS

Ah!  Mugs - plain, patterned, rude, decorative, there is no end to the variety you can find!   But what really matters is what you put in them!

Personally I favour either a good strong black coffee, or, being British, a nice cup of tea.   And ordinary tea, not Earl Grey, which I am afraid I absolutely loathe!


However, over at Thematic Photography at writteninc. Carmi likes Earl Grey tea!   And has a great photograph to prove it.   See what others put around their drinks, and maybe add your own collection.

Round at ours, you always have a choice of mugs!

Actually, we have loads more - can feed and water up to 20 people, I think, which is just as well, as my Creative Writing group meets at my house and if all come there are about 15 avid writers drinking coffee and tea squashed into our sitting room.

Anyone for coffee?

SIGNAGE

Signs are all round us - every day we unconsciously follow signs.   Sometimes they are easy, simple signposts with words on - Exit, this way, Town Centre.   Sometimes just initials - ENT, X-Ray, PO, and sometimes just icons, logos, pictures or whatever you want to call them.

This week's Thematic Photographic subject is SIGNAGE.   Go to the link to see what others have come up with in the way of signs!

This is actually a fridge magnet (and an excellent one!) that I brought back from Svalbard in Norway (Spitzbergen, if you want the old name) when we visited a few years ago.   It is a very common sign on the roads in that part of North Norway - running into a large reindeer would not be recommended!

This label, complete with all the little logos, was slapped onto everyone's recycling bins the other week.   Just to make sure we didn't put anything in the wrong bin!

Motorists coming from Buxton down one of our steep hills are faced with so many signs and sign posts.    Hopefully those that are not local and know all this can take it in while they wait at the traffic lights!

Do go to the link above to see other signs, and leave a sign for me if you visit - I love to know if anyone has come!!

PARALLEL

This week's thematic Photographic subject is PARALLEL.  As Carmi says, most parallels are man made (though I daresay someone will come up with entirely natural parallels).   There is such a scope for photographing interesting parallels, so have a look at the link above, and shoot your own, and post them over at the link above.

A bridge in France, somewhere between Le Havre and Rouen - taken from inside a bus

A boulevard in Alicante, Spain.   And yes, those stripes are parallel, and the surface is quite flat.   Quite made me seasick walking down there!

The steps down to a very posh ladies' loo at a nice restaurant in Nerja, Spain.

The long, long corridor facing you on board a cruise ship as you come back tired after an outing, and find you are boarding at the opposite end to your cabin!

A Greater Spotted woodpecker on our nut basket.   The outside 'cage' (which, of course, has parallels) is to prevent squirrels helping themselves to the nuts!

Hope you enjoyed these, do leave a comment if you visit, I like to know you've been!

ROADSIDE

Can't imagine how I managed to miss last week's "Celebration" theme, but somehow my links didn't work.   So I hastily got out my camera phone while I was in town, and took a couple of roadside pics.   Not too sure about this camera yet, and the weather was distinctly unphotogenic, but here they are.

Looking down on a back road and the exit from a car park.   Yes, those are setts in the road, and I judder over them every time!

Not much side of the road to be seen here.   Workers in the town park in these little streets, and then walk into town to where they work.   So the cars stay here all day.   And anyone driving down here has difficulty should they meet an oncoming car/van/lorry.    The cars drive away at the end of the working day and are replaced by the cars of the people who live in the houses on the right.   They open directly onto the street, and have no parking space.   Roadsides are very valuable round these ways!

Go to this link to see what bedecks the roadsides of other towns.    And post some of your own.