Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgic
Simpler Times
I don’t remember these photos being taken as such, I was too young (I’m the one on the left in both photos). The other chap is my little brother. I remember the setting on the right – outside our old house in Carnon Downs, Cornwall, where I spent the first 5 years of my life. These were taken in the early 1970s.
The little wooden fort below was made for us by our Dad – in the 70s you didn’t just nip out to the shops for new toys. Your dad would disappear into the garage or shed and emerge a couple of days later with a cool new fort! The drawbridge even went up and down (counterbalanced by a cotton reel my mum had finished with). We got years of use out of this fort. Again, I’m on the left, my brother is on the right.
Don’t I look smart in the photo on the right, ready to start “big” school aged 12?
This was posted in response to the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge – nostalgic.
The Beast of Drali Moor
Prompts for the Promptless – Cryptozoology is the search for legendary animals, usually in an attempt to evaluate or confirm the possibility of existence. This includes looking for living examples of animals that are considered extinct, such as dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical evidence but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and Chupacabra; and wild animals dramatically outside their normal geographic ranges, such as phantom cats. The animals cryptozoologists study are often referred to as cryptids, a term coined by John Wall in 1983.
Drali Moor. A wide expanse of moorland, marshes and woodland stretching from the centre of the land across to the small coastal village of Drali-On-Sea. An area of outstanding natural beauty (if you like that sort of thing), it is home to a scattering of farmers, sheep and, some say, the “Beast of Drali Moor”.
Few have caught a glimpse of the beast; no pictures exist. However, those who claim to have seen it swear it is real.
Artist’s impression of the Beast.
It looked way scarier in my head.
Nature, No Question
Daily Prompt: The Natural World – Describe your first memorable experience exploring and spending time in nature. Were you in awe? Or were you not impressed? Would you rather spend time in the forest or the city?
Photographers, artists, and poets: show us NATURE.
I’m the type of chap who prefers being at least reasonably close to nature. That’s fairly easy since I live in Cornwall, in the far South West of England.
Perranporth, Cornwall
I often visit Godrevy when I fancy a nice quiet walk – beaches, cliffs and moorland. It’s only a few miles from my house.
Godrevy, Cornwall
I spent many, many holidays in the North of Scotland.
Somewhere in the North of Scotland
I lived in Cork, Ireland for four years.
This little lake is either in County Cork or County Kerry – I was never sure where the border was
I’ve lived in Cork city, Guildford and Stuttgart – all cities, but I prefer nature, and it was never too far away!
I guess I’ve been pretty lucky.
Until the End of Time
Daily Prompt: No Longer a Mere Mortal – You’ve imbibed a special potion that makes you immortal. Now that you’ve got forever, what changes will you make in your life? How will you live life differently, knowing you’ll always be around to be accountable for your actions?
June 2013
A potion of eternal youth! Can this be true? I drank it, but don’t feel any different. Time will tell.
February 2014
Slipped down the stairs today, felt my neck crack. My body went numb. Seconds later I felt a tingling – my neck has healed. The potion was real! I can’t die.
I can’t die!
I must make plans.
Wales Holiday – The Final Chapter
After my trip to Dolwyddelan Castle and Bodnant Garden, I decided to try some walking. I’m quite keen on forests and whatnot so I headed off to Coed y Brenin, a forest park owned by the Welsh division of the Forestry Commission.
It wasn’t far, though it took a while by the time I’d made my way through the roadworks. At breakfast (bacon and tomato omelette) I’d joked with the waiter that I’d brought three coats with me just in case, but I hadn’t needed my wet weather one. Obviously that put the jinx on the weather and down came the rain. Fortunately, it settled down to a light drizzle as the day progressed.
Anyway, on with the pictures!
I noticed as I walked round that the landscape is very similar to parts of the Highlands in Scotland, even down to the thistle!
My Wales Holiday Part 2 – Bodnant Garden
Welcome back to my little Wales mini-break! In the first part I visited Dolwyddelan Castle. That was actually an unscheduled stop – I saw a sign marked “Castle”, hit the brakes and swung into the car park (rather too fast considering the cattle grid just inside the entrance).
I then continued northwards to my planned destination – a National Trust property called Bodnant Garden. A bit pricey, but since I’m a National Trust member, I got in for free!
It was a lovely day and the place was packed – I was in the overflow overflow car park I think.
I had trouble picking just a few pictures, so there are quite a few here!
Two Days in Wales
I don’t usually prattle on about my largely uninteresting life, but since I just had a holiday (my first in five years!) in Wales I thought I’d share some pictures.
Well, I say a holiday. Two full days is more of a mini-break, I guess, but I lost two days on the road (it’s a six and a half hour drive).
Here’s where I went:
Map courtesy of Google Maps
The area to the north of the arrow is Snowdonia – mountains, forests and whatnot.
The trip up was fine apart from some panic around Birmingham. So many motorways branching off. Why is it that when you’re desperately looking for a turn off, all the road signs are obscured by lorries? Still, I didn’t get lost even once, and when you’re on your own with no navigator, and especially if you’re me, that’s quite a feat!
After arriving in a lovely little Bar/Grill/Restaurant/Hotel (six rooms!) I booked a table for dinner. Quality food! Grilled brie in breadcrumbs for starter followed by a massive home-made burger with onion rings, a mushroom so big it should have had some sort of faerie creature sitting on it and home-made chips (with the skins on!). For my US friends, that’s chips as in “French fries”, or is it “Freedom fries”? In the UK, the term “French fries” is reserved for those rubbish chips you get in fast-food places like MacDonald’s.
So, enough rambling, on with the pictures! I don’t want this post to get too long, so today I’ll show you some pictures I took at Dolwyddelan Castle.
Set on a hilltop (as many good/effective castles are!) it commands a dominant position over the surrounding countryside.
It was manned by Welsh soldiers – at that time Wales consisted of several kingdoms and there was also the threat of Norman/Anglo-Saxon invasion from England.
After visiting the castle, I continued to Bodnant Gardens, a National Trust property to the north. I’ll post some of those pictures later!
Fool on a Bike
Daily Prompt: Trains, Planes, and Automobiles – You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, or car? (Or something else entirely — bike? Hot air balloon?)
Chad was a dreamer. A dreamer and a fool. Everyone knew it. Chad knew everyone knew it. And he didn’t care.
He’d had ideas for this, ideas for that. He thought they’d make him famous. Some great invention, or a feat of daring. Nothing ever came of any of them. In fact, his biggest claim to fame was that he failed at absolutely everything. People often wondered how that could be – out of all of his thousands of hair-brained schemes, surely he would have accidentally succeeded at least once? Read more…
I’ll Have Them Both, Thanks!
A few days ago Khana over at Khana’s web nominated me to receive the WordPress Family award. Then a couple of days later Nanuschka nominated me for both the WordPress Family award and the Sunshine Award!
I’m touched – I feel as if my WordPress buddies are part of my extended family and I’ve wanted this award for ages! I love reading about the experiences and views of people from far-flung places like the USA, South Africa and so on as well as posts from closer to home. I feel like I almost know some of you people.
The Sunshine Award – now, I’m not really a “Sunshine” kind of guy. Maybe my overwhelming pessimism doesn’t come out in my posts? But I’ll accept this one as well – maybe it will inspire me to positivity!
Here come the logos!
Here are the rules for the WordPress Family award:
1. Display the award logo on your blog. See above
2. Link back to the person who nominated you. Check and check
3. Nominate 10 others you see as having an impact on your WordPress experience and family. That’s 10 combined for both awards, right?
4. Let your 10 Family members know you have awarded them. Fine, I shall do this but it seems like a lot of hard work.
5. That is it. Just please pick 10 people who have taken you as a friend, and spread the love. Yay love!
The rules for the Sunshine Award are similar, but there are also some questions, which I shall attempt to answer below. I hope no-one minds, but I’ve added multiple instances of the letter “u” to the questions below because I’m a Brit.
- Favourite colour – blue, and most shades thereof, moving into purple (but not pink). Sorry, just one colour you say? Okay, blue.
- Favourite animal – cat, because they’re cute and fluffy and above all, independent. They’ll be there for you – on their terms.
- Favourite number – why would I have a favourite number? I hate numbers. They get all mixed around in my head. You need an answer? Okay, I’ll take a leaf out of “Bill and Ted‘s” book then – “Sixty-nine, dude!”
- Favourite non-alcoholic drink – “Tesco no added sugar cloudy lemonade.” I jut checked round the corner and I currently have 14 litres in the house, sitting next to my stockpile of Diet Coke cans (currently numbering 38).
Mmmm. Nearly no calories of tasty refreshment.
- Prefer FaceBook or Twitter – I really only use them to publicise my blog, though I read what my friends are up to via Facebook every few days, so Facebook I guess.
- My passion/s – I don’t really have any. I’d love to have some. Reading maybe.
- Prefer getting or giving presents – Giving.
- Favourite pattern – what does this mean, favourite pattern? Like, plaid or something? I’m not keen on patterns as such. I don’t like anything which regularly repeats itself.
- Favourite days of the week – Saturday. Yay for Saturday!
- Favourite flower – What? What? I can identify roses, daisies and dandelions. My favourite is none of them. See below for what my favourite flower might be.
Some of these might be my favourite flowers (taken at Bodnant Gardens, North Wales)
These flowers are shades of blue and purple, so that fits with “favourite colour”.
And so to the moment you’ve all been waiting for (or dreading) – the nominations! I know that some of these people either don’t really do awards or already have these awards. That’s cool. Feel free to take one or both of these awards if you like, but this list is really just to thank you for being a part of my little WordPress family and bringing a little sunshine into my life. I love to read what you’ve written, comment on your posts and read your replies.
So this is a list of just a few members of my treasured WordPress family (in no particular order), and I hope you’ll check out their blogs if you haven’t already!
Kate Stull
Knocked Over By A Feather
Morrighan’s Muse
The Rambling Diaries
Serendipity
Hope* The Happy Hugger
Rarasaur
Purnimodo
Fish of Gold
Gilraensblog
And finally, last time I showed you a view from inside the awards ceremony, so here’s me arriving for this ceremony, complete with imaginary girlfriend! Do you like my tux? Pretty sweet, huh? And the limo – fully stocked with Tesco No Added Sugar Cloudy Lemonade and cans of Diet Coke. Please be aware that this picture contains some flash photography.
“Red Carpet” by DraliDoodles (TM)
Click for a random post!
Woohoo!
I totally didn't win!
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