Showing posts with label stratford upon avon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stratford upon avon. Show all posts

Saturday, 2 March 2013

Out and About - again...

We made the most of the sunshine today and headed for Stratford upon Avon, as we walked along the River Avon an obliging swan swam over to have his photo taken.  I thought he was going to have a go at my wide-angle lens but he just growled at it!

I've downloaded the free trial version of LightRoom 4 and am enjoying playing with it at the moment - I never thought I'd desert my old version of LR, but I'm loving being able to do curve adjustments for different colour channels, plus LR4 has an amazing ability to rescue blown highlights (not that I ever GET blown highlights of course :O)), so I think I may be swayed.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Swanning around Stratford...

Settings: 1/320, f7.1, ISO100, 10mm

Holy Trinity Churchyard - Stratford upon Avon

Settings: 1/100, f7.1, ISO100, 10mm

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

ABC Wednesday - and WW...

S is for...

Stratford upon Avon...

Holy Trinity Stratford
Holy Trinity Church...

Path infra
Path alongside the Avon
in the RSC Gardens...

theatre interior
Inside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre...
That poster is for a production
of 'As You Like It'.
(I know as I saw it :O))

Police
Policeman...
This kind policeman
volunteered to walk in slow-motion for me
so that I could take his picture!
What a star :O)

Lamp and path
Path and lamp
in the RSC Gardens...

Goose on path
Goose on the loose...
Hanging around outside the 
theatre... 
I find something pleasingly
weird about this shot.


Linking to ABC Wednesday... and


Wednesday, 14 November 2012

ABC Wednesday - R is for...

Rivers...

Gulls and boats
Boats and gulls on the River Avon...

River 2
River Avon with Holy Trinity Church in the background...

Landing
Gull landing on the river in Bradgate Park...

Another gull, this one
is soaking up the autumn sunshine...

A river runs through it...
Bradgate Park today.

Also linking to 




 

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Season of mists (and food festivals)...

Batsford
Autumn Glory...

I love autumn... the mists, the colours, the food... sigh.  Talking of food, Saturday saw Cath, Helen and myself at the Stratford upon Avon Food Festival.  We had such a great day; went to a cupcake decorating demonstration, saw mountains of olives, listened to a band, got a goodie bag from Waitrose which has a superb recipe booklet in it, and generally had a wonderful time in the September sunshine. I didn't actually take that many photos (I was distracted by the food), but here are a few.


Cookery demo
Victim from the audience doing something dangerous with melted sugar 
during a cookery demo...

Cake
Rachael (from Rachael's Cupcakes) flaunting her skills...


Helen
Helen tucking in to a free sample of god knows what...


Helen and Hamlet
...before empathising with depressed Danish aristocrat.


Cath portrait
Cath keeping an eye open for more freebies...


Cath and Helen
before collapsing with cheese-fatigue...


Cath and Helen 2
...a good day was had by all :O)

Monday, 4 June 2012

Not the Sunday Scavenger Hunt pictures...

In case it had slipped the attention of anyone - the UK has been up to its ears in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend.  Like a lot of other people I didn't do anything Jubilee-connected (I went to take some photos in the rain instead).

Sound advice for Bank Holidays...

Have to say there's a distinct lack of imagination
on the brolly front here...

Empty rides at the fair...

Carousel in patriotic mood...

... and again with the RSC in the background

Swan and cygnets
and finally...
some cygnets looking disgustingly cute...

Cygnets
... Who needs the River Avon when you have your very own puddle?

Monday, 7 May 2012

Cats on Tuesday...


Aha! Who do we have here lying in wait
for unsuspecting tourists
in Stratford upon Avon?

Yes it's Ginger...
Sitting outside a jeweller's... hmmm!

He posed very nicely 
(obviously used to the international attention his
status as the cat who
hangs around Shakespeare's Birthplace brings him...)

David tentatively tested the waters to see
whether Ginger would allow him to pet him...

The ears went back a bit,
but after an initial grab at David's hand Ginger decided
the strange man was harmless enough
and wasn't about to arrest him...





For more infamous kitties visit Gattina's Cats on Tuesday.

Sunday, 22 April 2012

David has a clone...

One of the tutorials on the Swan Dive course this week was cloning. I found that the trick is to make sure the camera doesn't move at all between shots.  After getting the images I opened them in Elements, placed one as a layer on top of the other and erased the top layer where David was to let him appear.  Would like to have a go at cloning cats next! 

Thank you to David who lurked obligingly outside the RSC for to help me with this experiment.

Send in the clones... 
(I know, I know...)

Monday, 9 April 2012

Monday, Monday.... (la la, la la la la....)

Almost at the end of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend... I always find it a bit of a strange holiday - my Mum died six years ago on Easter Monday so I have odd memories of it, plus add to that the variable weather and TOTALLY PATHETIC TV SCHEDULING and I usually just want to hibernate through it.  In my ideal world we would do away with bank holidays and just have days added to the annual holiday allowance.  I could then take the days off when I wanted so that I didn't have to fight my way through hordes of other people going to the same place I want to be.  Ah well, I can dream...  As David went out for the day yesterday I did absolutely nothing except read and slob about - not in itself unenjoyable.  Today we did actually venture out in the rain to Stratford (which was even more packed than usual) where I had a truly disgusting cup of coffee, and more importantly I BOUGHT A DRESS - an event so unusual as to warrant a moment's silence.

Not much in the way of photos except two swans not in the slightest bit bothered by either the rain or myself.  Plus a photo of an onion that I took yesterday when re-runs of Top Gear became too much for me!


Onion

Monday, 20 December 2010

Snow in Stratford...

Still smarting from the lack of George Clooney on Saturday night, I asked David if he'd like to go to Stratford upon Avon with me yesterday.  They had a lot more snow than we did and considering it's less than a week until Christmas the place was amazingly quiet.  We took the opportunity to have coffee in the theatre then went up to the top of the new tower, it has wonderful views made all the more stunning because of the snow.

Ice on the trees...

Two swans not swimming...

Decorations outside The Dirty Duck pub...
(when David Tennant played Hamlet he had to jump over 
the back wall of the pub to get in and avoid the mob of fans!)

Berries in the snow...

Snow tree...

Looking down from the tower...

The Avon and surrounding countryside from the tower...

Inside the theatre...

For more Stratford Upon Avon images see my post S is for...

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Went the weekend well?

First a quick plug for my wonderful hairdressers Scott Bailye where I went for my monthly trim on Friday.  The brilliant Hailey does my hair and she is just the funniest, loveliest person.  She can boost your morale and make you laugh more than anyone else I know.  Scott's salon does a lot for local young people, taking on apprentices and going to the local college to teach, they also always do well in the hairdressing competitions, and are generally the nicest, friendliest salon in the area.  So after that...

I popped into a local garden centre whilst waiting for D to have his hair shorn (he would want me to add that he doesn't go to my hairdressers, he goes to see Ron the Barber!), and got three free plants that they were giving away to good homes as they were all on the point of death.  I always feel so sorry for unwanted things like that so brought home a Chocolate Cosmos, a Hellebore, and a Cranberry.

Plants on the verge....

The Cosmos does have a couple of flowers on it (that do smell like chocolate!), so I took the opportunity of taking a couple of close-ups of them.

This first one was actually out of focus but I played around with it and now really like it as it reminds me of a water-colour painting.

This one was a better shot technically but I think I now prefer the 'faulty' one!

I also got around to taking a photo of some of the large squares I've crocheted for my latest project which is a throw for the sofa in the living room.  What I find really strange about this image is the colour of the bottom squares which look blue, when they are in fact khaki green.  Don't know what my camera or my image-processing software was thinking here!


Saturday morning Cath and I were off to Stratford (D was doing a photo shoot in Coventry), with a discount voucher for Lakeland in our hot little hands.  Oooh, what to say about the lovely stuff in Lakeland?  There are so many things in there that you never knew you needed or wanted, in fact you didn't know existed.  We saw Grumpy Old Women Live do a sketch about Lakeland which was so funny and so accurate we cried with laughing.  It also made me go and buy Cath a banana-guard from there and wrap it in an extremely large box for Christmas that year... Anyway, I digress.  Here is a picture of Cath before we went into the shop, with nose against glass coveting all the lovely things...



Amongst the many things I saw and fell in love with in there were these Santa Tealight Holders.  I just love them!


And this Knitted Heart Decoration.  If I don't have a go at making one of my own then I'm a banana.


As well as these Scandinavian type heart decorations

After much browsing, debating and mathematical calculations I decided to add to my meagre collection of a cakestand and single-serving teapot and cup from the Henrietta  kitchen range.  It was buy two get a third item free, plus £5 off.  So I ended up with this haul: a large teapot, three mugs, four small plates and four bowls.  They are far too nice to be kept in a cupboard and will be going on display in the kitchen.


After that excitement (I can't even remember what Cath bought except I seem to think it involved a monster tattoo kit for your hand...), I had to pick up our tickets from the RSC (and don't even get me started on how bad their customer service in the Box Office is!!!) for December.  D and I are going to a preview evening for the opening of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in December, as well as a one man show with Roger Rees later the same month, (for West Wing fans that's Lord John Marbury!).  Then Cath went mad in Alexon and bought three tops, and I bought a hoard of bits from a shop that was much, much cheaper.


.


We also saw a band called Captain Dangerous performing in the street.


And after collecting D, we got home just in time for me to get a photo on my phone of Charlie pulling a really bizarre face.


As Cath and I aren't walking this morning, D and I may have that joyous experience of going to a DIY store - sometimes it just has to be done...  And I am desperately trying to finish the book I've been reading a couple of pages of before falling asleep every night.  Plus there are those hearts to be started on...

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...