A window in the weather

 

Somehow we found a window in the stormy and wet weather and managed a dog walk in the sun!

Yellow Dahlia

 

Sunshine

 

Blue Sky

“I always believe that the sky is the beginning of the limit”(M C Hammer)

Weird and wonderful fungi

The wonderful sky on the way home!

Sky

Our latest prompt for #artfuladventures #strollthroughthehood is: sky

My picture was taken in the Penicuik Estate

You can read more about the project here

http://nathaliesstudio.com/learn/online-workshops/artful-adventures-stroll-challenge/

Early Morning

Morning Walk

A curtain of light

Migrating Geese

Golden Glow

It was a morning full of contrast. In the east the sun was rising with a golden glow while in the west dark rain clouds were gathering. It looks like we will get a mix of weather today!

Yesterday was taken up with a fun Christmas party and more shopping (also fun, for once!) and this blog will remain mainly picture and few words during the festivities. I have been posting daily for the duration of 2015 and I'm going to see how things pan out in 2016 but there will be more pictures without words and maybe even days without a blog post. As you can imagine posting daily is a time consuming business even though I love doing it. Writing helps me to sort out my own thoughts so it is very helpful in that respect.

But you may also have noticed this blog is still advert free and I don't even use commercial links to places like Amazon so it doesn't provide any revenue. That too has become a matter for consideration!

Big Sky

 

Posted with Blogsy

Big Skies

En route to visiting a friend I drove through the little lanes here in the Scottish Borders and enjoyed seeing the big skies today, filled with huge white clouds against that beautiful blue. Fortunately I had given myself plenty of time so I took the opportunity to stop at various lay-bys and take pictures.

It's sometimes easy to get blasé  about the beautiful surroundings we live in but I try to never take them for granted and this little lane is one of my favourites. Even the tree felling doesn't distract from it's loveliness.

It was great to have a chat with a like-minded artist and I came away with some of her glorious hand-dyed fabrics. Sadly no dying any more here at home with our septic tank but what a great excuse to indulge! And I did so with abandon. You can too as she sells these beautiful fabrics online in her Etsy shop. You can find it here. 

Visiting the donkeys

Meet Ant and Dec although I have no idea who is who. That's okay, I have the same problems with their human namesakes. I could pretend we went to Pentland Plants for a specific purpose but the truth is that I wanted to go and say hello to the donkeys. They are always there the week before Christmas and come from the Borders Donkey Sanctuary near Melrose where by chance I was a few weeks ago visiting a friend.

Ant and Dec were very happily munching away only occasionally glancing up to provide a photo opportunity.

On the way home I spotted another vapour trail (definitely developing an obsession) which seemed to go straight up. Of course that was an optical illusion but together with the very pale sun behind the clouds it provided an interesting picture.

It's a strange day without the Blipfoto site. It is down to be moved to new servers and hopefully by 8pm tonight it will be back bigger and better. Fingers crossed though! Such technical stuff has a huge potential to go wrong so we will have to wait and see. I will blip one of these three pictures although I haven't decided which one yet.

Beautiful Skies

It was a bright although very cold day with a fluttering of snow added overnight. The skies over the last few days have been just fabulous and no excuses for trying to capture them every time I see such beauty. Most of the beauty is produced by nature but the human made vapour trails add to it.

 The Pentland Hills were looking their very best in the sunshine and look, more vapour trails.

 And here are a few more, heading straight into the sun.

When we got to the crossroads where we drive into our lane I requested a quick stop to capture this rural idyll. I don't mind the cold when the day looms so bright and full of light. All shopping has been done and cards mailed (I'm feeling super virtuous!) so now I can concentrate on stitching on some beads.

Glorious Sky

The skies in our little lane today were stunning. Visiting our friends nearby gave me a different view and I could not resist clicking away. These were the best results, taken in the direction of West Linton.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday Sky

During the last part of 2013 my very good friend Lenna Andrews was running a challenge every Sunday on the Blipfoto site which was to celebrate the sky by taking a picture that had to contain at least 50% of that heavenly body. That challenge has now come to an end but it taught me to study the sky with even more focus, and not just on a Sunday.

This morning I couldn't help but notice that the sky about 20 minutes after sunrise was looking particularly delightful so I have decided that I'm carrying on if and when,  with the SundaySkies challenge and will try and capture a sky on Sundays. It's not guaranteed to happen every week. Sometimes the skies here are just too grey to bother and sometimes there will be other pictures taking precedent.

In fact you can expect (and I think you might have noticed already) more pictures of the sky.

The Difference a Day makes

Today was the first time since before Christmas that I went anywhere apart from to the village. On the way the wind got up and the rain started but the sky also began to take on a drama of it's own.

These first two pictures were taken through a wet and not very clean car window (I wasn't driving!) and I rather like the spooky atmosphere it produced.

But for good photography purposes I eventually opened my window only to be blasted by rain so I had to retreat as far back as possible to save the lens from getting wet. The other challenge was to avoid including passing cars and lamp posts. But eventually I managed to time my shots better and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Specially this one!

Sky drama and snow

This morning saw the first snow of the season after a very wild night. It was only half an inch or so but it had frozen and was very deceptive to the unsuspecting dog walker! It didn't hang around for very long and it was only in our little lane that the snow had been laying. When we drove to West Linton the main roads were clear and all the drame took place in the sky as you can see above. 

 It became even more impressive when the sun made an attempt to escape from the cloud cover.

The above picture really is a photographic no no with all that flare but I liked it best, so it will become my blip for today. Very Armageddon-like.

Morning has broken

Enjoy!

Sky Fire

It's always a delight to be greeted by wonderful skies on the morning dog walk. And at the moment it's even more wonderful when such miracles happen on Sunday as that enables me to participate in my good friend Lenna's Sundayskies challenge on the Blipfoto site

And the show this morning was nothing short of spectacular. It looked like a fire had been lit on the far horizon, just behind the hills.

 As the dogs and I walked on the fire was extinguished slowly and blue sky took over tinged with gold.

And then as if on demand a plane appeared in the clear sky! 

What a fabulous way to begin a new day.