Yay the last self portrait!

Okay so that wasn't my self portrait yesterday, no one even blinked! Here's the real one, it's the last one as I've now done my month's worth - I can relax and blob out once more!

Day at the Zoo

Yes I know I have my shirt on back to front but I like it that way! And no I don't think I'll look at Nana and say cheese today, she's so boring she's always saying that!

March Self Portrait - Day 13

It was Auckland Zoo's Active Movement Day for Children today and I was delighted to go with Harry & DiL (truly I was Kelly, truly). Another beautiful hot day and I wore jeans & sneakers - whatever was I thinking! I'm pooped so will post photos later, in the meantime here's my self portrait for today.

March Self Portrait - Day 12

All dressed up and nowhere to go!

March Self Portrait - Day 11

What! Me doing housework - never!!

New Blog

I've decided to split this blog into two, this one will stay as the PhotoWalking/Photography one and the new one will be dedicated to my digital scrapbooking/preserving yesterday's photographs for future generations. You can see it here - Yesteryear Memories.

Why I'm doing this is because I really wanted to post larger pictures of the layouts and you have to do that via a link to PhotoBucket (or similar) so this one stays with the normal size photos.

March Self Portrait - Day 10

Coffee time! Poem is by Drew K, found on the web.

Vintage Memories

I love this kit of Irene's, not so much the awful photo of me though!
Credits: Altered Melody by Irene Alexeeva, http://tinyurl.com/3xclro

Blog365 - Day 66

A few more photos from yesterday.

DH and the usual grin I get when I say smile.

Quite a pretty setting really, shame about the colour of the water though!

Okay so it's not the most beautiful beach in the world or even Auckland but the locals enjoy it.

The beach is surrounded by beautiful bush & these tall trees. The Indian community were having an enjoyable sounding picnic on this grass area earlier, it really was the most glorious day weatherwise.

Blog365 - Day 65

Just a couple of photos now with more later, I'm pooped. These are a couple I took at Titirangi beach today where we had a picnic lunch and sat and enjoyed the fading summer. Kids playing cricket with their parents, having fun in kayaks and there were even a few swimming!

Self Portrait - Day 9

March Self Portrait - Day 8

Okay, last one for the day. My self portrait, you can just see my finger - cooking an easy quick curried sausages for dinner. Don't ask me for a recipe, as you can see most of it came out of a packet with some pre-cooked chicken sausages, an onion, apple and a handful of sultanas! Gee who gets time to cook from scratch these days, not me, well at least not in the weekends LOL.

Darn it!

It seems I've resized all the photos in the previous post too small and they don't show up much larger than normal when you click on them! Sorry, but I'm not doing them again, it took me all evening.

Okay, I've redone the bird, let's see if this is any better.

And since my last post I've found out that my blog only holds 500 posts, that's the first I knew of this! I wonder why I thought they would just keep on going forever, how stupid! But I am disappointed that I never printed out any of the earlier pages for posterity, well you never know I could be famous one day.....

Trip to the Lighthouse last December

Here we are as promised, some photos of one of our photowalking trips. We drove to the south side of the Manukau Heads on 2 December and spent a lovely day looking at the old lighthouse with lots of stops on the way. I think I might have already posted photos from the Patumahoe Water Gardens we stopped at but if not will do those next time. If you have ever used Google Earth then go to it and type in 'manukau heads lighthouse', you'll be able to see what the country is like down there, very rugged! They don't seem to have done the very up close shots yet of that part of the country but if you look at 'patumahoe', which is on the way there, you can get quite close up. When you zoom out from the lighthouse, have a look for 'Waitakere' (or zoom in closer for 'New Lynn Railway Station', that's closer) that's where I live and you can see the round about way it took us to get there when it's only a short distance if you go by boat, that's if they had a service which I'm not aware of if they do! Okay, hope you can understand all that, I'm starting to babble so on with the photos.

As we walked up the hill towards the lighthouse this pretty little finch followed chattering all the way, well actually he was ahead of us so I think he was telling us which way to go! I couldn't get any closer than this though but as before if you click on any photo you'll get a closer look.
You can read a little bit more about it here.

This is a large plaque showing the different spots on the north side of the heads looking over to where we live, the arrow is pointing to more or less where our house is!

This is looking back to the settlement of Huia, you can just see the houses nestled in the bay top right. That's where we went on one of our trips last September. DH recognised it as being the place where they filmed a UK drama we had watched on TV a few weeks before called 'The Man Who Lost His Head' starring Martin Clunes.
You know, I think some of my blog is missing, I remember quite well posting photos of the trip that day but they just aren't there anymore, there seems to be about a week's worth of blogging just disappeared, I can't understand it - has anyone else ever had that problem?

From the lighthouse it's just a short walk to the Signal Station Platform.




View from the platform around the lighthouse.

And another one.

And again looking back to Huia.

Mmmm I wonder which way the wind blows in this neck of the woods!

I had to laugh at these two, they just stood there like sentinels guarding something but I couldn't see what it was!

DH caught me unawares having afternoon tea! BTW the word art is my idea of a joke just in case you thought it was a graffiti attack! That's all for today, more later.

Scatterday V - 8 Mar 2008

Trying something different this week, sorry I didn't get one done last week, just ran out of time. I couldn't make up my mind which one to use for the 'BIG' category so you get them both but I think the 'View' wins out hands down as being the biggest! I had to take a side on view because the full back view wouldn't fit into the view finder!!!

Fabulous Orchid

I saw this beautiful orchid in the flower shop yesterday and just couldn't resist getting it. To get a decent photo of it I had to hold it up as it is so top heavy and I don't have a large enough vase for it to stand up in properly.
Credits: Romantic Season QP2 by Verena Karolyi, http://tinyurl.com/2gbcjr
Digital Dates, Clean Cut by Meryl Bartho, http://tinyurl.com/ytfnr9
Font: MA Sexy

Blog365 - Day 62

I know you're probably sick of seeing photos of me so here's a few odd ones I've taken over the last week or so that might be of interest.

This is the flower and fruit of the Banana Passionfruit plant, found it growing in the bush by our creek! It had lots of fruit so I'm waiting for them to ripen to their usual yellow colour before I go down there with the rake. Why a rake you might say - well this plant is a pest in NZ and takes over the bush canopy if left to it's own devices, it's up very high & hard to reach. See that little curly tendril, it latches on to anything it can get hold of and gradually makes its way around the earth! The fruit is to die for but unfortunately it's not grown commercially so this is the only way you can get it.

This is the last rose I used the other day in my self portrait photos after it opened, it has the most gorgeous scent.

This is just the common Thrush and I think they are so pretty but darn hard to get a photo of as they don't stay still for very long and only take one or two stabs for the worms before looking up and around and hopping off again! I took this one through the net curtain at my kitchen window and managed to fix it somewhat in PSE6. In the next one I managed to move the curtain when he wasn't looking but by then he had his back to me.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
- Thomas Hardy

March Self Portrait - Day 6

If nothing else does this will convince you that I've finally lost the plot! It was a very pleasant day weatherwise & I thought I'd finish reading my library book, which was due back today, in one of our little local gardens. I took along the camera for today's shot and took a few but later on while I was shopping for a top to go with an autumn skirt I bought last week a brainwave hit me! I set up the camera in the small very small fitting room and took shots of each top as I tried them on! Not the most flattering angle but at least the lighting was good and I didn't need to use a flash - and then wouldn't you guess, the batteries starting running out so they were all taken rather hurriedly! Have a guess at which one I finally decided on.

Credits: Tainted Love QP by Pam Bumbaca & Melissa Bennett, http://tinyurl.com/2fhxto

Beautiful Plopper

How's this for the most gorgeous layout of DGD Becky. Plopper designed by Beth Nixon and most generously made available free on her blog a few weeks ago (sorry it's no longer available).

Credits: Hope Times Four Plopper by Beth Nixon http://tinyurl.com/2kgntt

Blog365 - Day 61 & Self Portrait Day 5

Mmmm thought it was about time to update to the day I'm up to in Blog365 even though I've missed some days!
For today's self portrait I took the tripod down to our creek in the bush and played around down there, unfortunately I couldn't seem to get the light right, it was either too dark or too bright!
The word art obviously is the wrong season for down here but that's what happens when you buy American stuff!

Credits: Be Mine QP by Kara Swanson & Melissa Bennett, http://tinyurl.com/ytvs7n
Nature Word Art CD from DSP Designers, http://tinyurl.com/245lrm

Scatterday O - 1 Mar 2008

Sorry if anyone was checking for my Scatterday photos on the 1st, I just didn't get time to do any last week, not sure about this week either but we'll see.