Photo Scavenger Hunt February 2016

Many thanks to Jill, aka Greenthumb from Made with Love for hosting this monthly Scavenger Hunt - it's a great way to reflect on a month passing and to get a peak into the lives of the other participants.   We're finishing this month in Dubai having a few days holiday on the way to Australia and it is such a photogenic city - it can even survive my snaps.. 


Here's February's List

Green

In the still of the day
I simply loved the greens in the mosaic of this fountain during the day 

2

Tom found a new friend - Ava is my 3rd cousin I think (always get confused in the once removed thing ) - her Dad is my first cousins' son - we met her family for the first time and had breakfast together - she just climbed up on Tom's knee and started singing for him.

Cool

The fountain from the first picture at night.

Somewhere you went

Crossing Dubai Creek in an Abra

Up

The Skyline

Frame

A window frame, inside a replica Bedouin house constructed out of cane to allow breezes through

From a low angle

Everything in new Dubai is up - so many high rise buildings

On the shelf

A shelf of spices in the Spice Suq ... with frankincense burning in the foreground

Writing

I love the idea of a language that someone else can totally understand but it means nothing to me... the Arabic calligraphy is so different and very beautiful I think. 

Inside

The ceiling in Dubai Marina Mall

Line

 Bracelets lined up in the Gold Souk - such opulence.

Shape

The Burg Al Arab and the Sail (Emirates Hotel) 

Thanks again Greenthumb for the prompts. 

Scavenger Hunt January 2016

A huge thank you to Greenthumb from Made with Love for hosting this monthly Scavenger Hunt - it's a great way to reflect on a month passing and to get a peak into the lives of the other participants.   This month is a free choice of photos - much easier than trying to link to words, although I love that challenge.  

Here the weather has been really mild for January - we've seen the tail-end of various storms and of course the tail-end of Christmas and the new year parties but as yet nothing really cold.

So here goes.

The New Year's Party in Clare and Matthew's - generations of songs and tunes

I love the shadows thrown by this star
 we brought it home from Germany many years ago
and it's still a favourite Christmas decoration.

Only a smattering of snow yet
but doesn't Finn McCool look magnificent covered in a white blanket?

Flo had a big birthday and one of her friends
brought a long a mad selection of hats for us all to wear.
Here's Flo modelling one of them 

Tom modelling his lol

And I got the silly glasses too

The tailend of the American snow storms last week brought us howling winds
This poor bird was really struggling

Kettles on the Lough
The mountains lie at a strange angle here - like a T -
so an American airman told me once.  As a result,
when there's a wind, it whips up the water - the spray is called a Kettle.
They seem to dance across the water.
This isn't the best photo of one, but the best I could do!

All churned up - loved the light this day

Trying to capture the moon - this one at the end of the month

But finally got a passable shot of the stars and Orion's belt.
The lights of Carlingford across the water are giving that lovely glow. 

How has your month of January been?   Now that we're past Brigid's Day and the start of the Celtic Spring, Imbolc, there feels like there's a new ness in the air.

Scavenger Hunt October 2015

Today is the start of the Celtic New Year - All Soul's Day.  I wish you all the blessings of the season.
It's been a lot harder getting time to blog regularly so this monthly scavenger hunt is a great way of reflecting on the month just passed.  A huge thank you to Greenthumb from Made with Love for hosting it.   If you have time, go on over the link and see some of the fabulous photos that the other participants put up.  It's a fantastic way of getting a peak into lives in different corners of our beautiful planet. 

The first half of October has been spent on the road, finishing up our European tour.  
It was a very enjoyable and successful trip, meeting up with lots of friends old and new, playing in a huge variety of venues - churches, clubs, an aircraft hangar!!, small theatres, and house concerts.

When we eventually made it home on the 19th, the adrenaline hit the bottom and the cold I'd been carrying started to do really well for itself - in fact it's still doing well!   But it has been lovely to be home and get my choirs started back singing again, preparing for the C word..  

So without further ado, here's my contribution for October's list.

Question

Are you looking at me?  We spotted this chap down in Co. Cork when we stopped off for a walk in Baltimore Forest on the day of our last gig of the tour.

Cream

I love my friend Kanne's creamy white decor - this is in Denmark - we did a house concert in the room at the back 

Number

Here in the North of Ireland we have miles but in the south it's Kilometres.  During our trip we drove just over 6000 kms - that's about 4,300 miles I think.  - nearly every day was governed by how far we needed to drive that day or how far to the nearest rest stop or lay-by.  kilometres are great - they go by so much quicker than miles!

Lattice

Driving in to Luxembourg, we passed this town hall, salle de fëte - a communal hall that can be rented for a small amount for family gatherings right through to big functions.  

I love the lattice work on these kind of buildings.

Familiar

Back in Ireland again - I loved the shades of Autumn here in Galtymore Forest.  In fact Autumn was beautiful everywhere we drove.

Ring

On the ferry over from mainland Germany to Hallig Hooge.   The cabin is below the water line and it felt like looking in to a washing machine as we left the port. 

Today

on the ferry home

Down

In the Mournes in Co. Down

Writing

There's lots of graffiti along the sides of the German motorways - mostly on bridges.   They fascinate me ... I was driving at this point and I kept wakening Tom up to get some snaps for me and this one popped up just at the right time.  If you look to the left of the word Muse, it's written on the other side of the fence - It beats me how they manage to do that. 

Many

Some of the Bonn folk club audience in the middle of the caravans and other Bed and Breakfast spots at Camp Base - easily the weirdest place we've ever played - read more about it here. 

Broken

German motorways under constant construction... I loved the registration of the car in front of us - don't scream, don't rant, don't get annoyed at sitting so long behind me?

Whatever you want

At the Nature reserve in Storkow Germany ... I loved the colours of this wee fella and the water around him.

Here's the list for November's Scavenger Hunt if you fancy joining in.

November's List

A Stranger
Looking Down
PopCulture
The Weather
Big
Sign
Bottle
Out and About
Hat
Hole
One
Whatever you want

September Scavenger Hunt

I love this Scavenger Hunt challenge - thank you to Jill (Greenthumb) at Made with Love for setting it up.   It's a lovely way to reflect on a period of time just  past.  

September is always a hectic month, and looking back through my photos here it's also been a long month for us.   All regular activities start up again with the start of the school term.   So my singing group began again, tour planning for later in the year kicked in full time and then we headed off on the road.   So we've been through France, starting the tour with a house concert just outside Paris, and then in to Germany where we're now into our second week and this month's photos are reflecting that.    We head up into Denmark for a day then back through Germany to finish the tour in Luxembourg before taking the ferry back from France to Ireland. 

It's very hard on tour to get time to just play with journals and blogs and photos.  We've been staying with friends, old and new, and the constant being in company, although it's wonderful at the time, is exhausting when there's no time to be on your own.  

So I'm grabbing a quick half hour here and there to get these photos lined up and linked up.  Right now I'm sitting in a cafe on Hallig Hooge - a little island off the coast of Germany.

So without further ado, here are my pics for the September prompts list. 

August Scavenger Hunt

I've been finding it hard focussing this past while - always too many things catching my attention - my brain is getting more like a magpie as I get older - 'Oh look!  Shiny thing!"
So I thought it'd be fun to join the Scavenger Hunt for August for some photo prompts that might actually make me focus on one thing.   (If I can ever can find the hash key on this laptop.)  Got it.

Thanks to Jill (Greenthumb) at Made with Love who puts these together! Please pay a visit to the links to see more.

And thanks to Kezzie for introducing me to this.  Kezzie, I don't where you get your energy from :)  But thank you :)

August's List

Most of these photos were taken during our recent trip to the North Coast  - in and around the Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Walk

The grand causeway at the Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland

Horizontal

I love the way the spit forms parallel lines at low tide  - Carlingford Lough

Square

The stones at the Giant's Causeway are 4, 7 or 8 sided

I always thought they were all hexagons!

Diversity

These beech trees were planted 250 years ago and form a hedge across the road ... 

The patterns they make speak diversity to me - all shapes and sizes.

Rough

These caves under the cliff along the Antrim Coast Road had people living in them at one time and during Penal times they were used as hedge schools.

Bow

This idea of a window box is fabulous

A bow made out of a car tyre - fabulous

Joy

A new cafe I found in Enniskillen - great coffee, veggie food, and this sign up in the loo!

Forgotten

A step back in time

I remember the pump in the village where I grew up

It was a communal meeting place 

Crowd

(waiting til the cows come home!)

We were just getting out of the car one evening when I spotted this herd of cattle heading home for the milking.  It was hard to capture them all - they came along three paths, all in single file.   The procession seemed to go on for ages.   Really made me smile.

Colourless

Back to the Giant's Causeway - and the volcanic stones

It's like a mystical landscape

Friendly

All the males at my friends 60th party ... and there were twice as many females.  

A great night's fun.

Whatever you want

This little boat looked so peaceful all tied up and floating on its own.

This was a real challenge - I'd love to take part in more of them, but I'd need to get my organised head on straight.  This might actually help!! Thanks Jill.