A Friday Photo and the Bournemouth Balloon

Today's Friday photo was taken in March 2013 in Bournemouth. I took this as I was walking along the path away from the beach and through the park to the city center. This balloon is tethered, but it can take riders up high for a great view of the city and the beach. I've never gone up in it, but perhaps I will one day soon. I'm afraid of heights, so we shall see  :)

Bournemouth is a lovely seaside town with a wide and spacious beach. It takes a couple of hours to get there from where I live, but it's a nice drive. We pass through Salisbury on the way so I love getting a view of the cathedral spire as we pass through.

We didn't get a chance to get to Bournemouth this year. The last time that we went was the summer of 2014. I'm looking forward to getting back down there in 2016 and when I do I'll share pictures here.

Happy weekend! I hope that you have a wonderful weekend wherever you are! :)

Christmas at Salisbury Cathedral

Hello everyone! :) I just wanted to share some pics from Thursday night. Brit Boy and I went down to Salisbury to attend the Carol Service at Salisbury Cathedral. We have gone before, but we missed the last time due to bad weather. However, this year we were able to be there and it was just as beautiful as I remember. I'll tell you, hearing those young voices echoing around the cathedral is something to experience at least once in your life :) Sitting there and taking in all of the beauty of the singing and the cathedral is just an extraordinary experience! I hope that you enjoy looking at a few of the pics that I took. I wanted to share some of what I saw with anyone who takes the time to come and visit me at my blog. I truly appreciate it! So these pictures are for you...my wonderful readers!

Below: These first two pictures are of the Old George Mall, all decked out for Christmas





Below: The next three are street scenes in Salisbury





Below: This is the Guildhall in Salisbury



Below: Another street scene in Salisbury



Below: The High Street Gate leading to Salisbury Cathedral



Below: The next two pictures are of the inside of Salisbury Cathedral right before the service




Below: The next three are pictures of the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral





Below: And finally, this is a picture that I snapped of the cathedral from afar.



Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate!

Packing and Some Pictures From Salisbury

Happy Friday everyone! :-) I'm still making my lists for my trip. I have started a series of stacks of clothes to take and I keep adding and subtracting from those stacks. I'm going to be back home for nearly three weeks, but I won't take that many outfits...lifting a suitcase like that would surely break my back ;-) So in order to spare my back I'm thinking strategically with the packing. Never fear. I'm pulling it all together :-)

Anyway, yesterday I took a break from thinking about my trip. Brit Boy and I went to Salisbury to do some errands and things. While we were there, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and wandered down to Salisbury Cathedral. It was wonderful. People were scattered around the lawn surrounding the cathedral, soaking up the sun and enjoying themselves. It was one of those perfectly sunny days that we don't get around here very much :-)

I snapped a few photos to let you all see the beautiful view from the cloisters, near the entrance to the cathedral. I love looking out through the lovely carvings up towards the spire. I hope you enjoy these photos!







Have a great weekend everyone! In my next post, I'll show you the chaos that is my packing ;-)

Some Moody Photos

On Tuesday, Brit Boy and I traveled to Salisbury once again and along the way, I took some photos as we rode along. It was a cloudy day with bits of sun here and there, so the light was very interesting. I love the way that the trees look with no leaves as they reach for the sky. I was in the mood to take some black and white photos. It sort of suited the day. Some are blurry, but I thought I'd share them anyway. I love how photographs catch a moment in time, so this is a series of photos of our time that day. It's mostly a photo essay of our path to Salisbury. I hope you enjoy it :-) This photo above is really blurry, but I thought it was interesting that the raindrops stood out.

Mini Cam Moments in Salisbury

Last Tuesday I went along with Brit Boy for an appointment he had in Salisbury. I’ve been meaning to share a bit about it, but I’ve been doing school work for the last few days and am now just getting caught up.

A few days before, I was looking around some stored things and found my mini video camera that I’ve had for years and never use anymore. The camera is very tiny and old school and makes funny little pixelated, jumpy movies. (smile) It gives the movies a zany quality that I like. We have a new video camera, but now that I’ve found this one again, I’m going to use it and make my funny little movies. (smile) So here’s my first video in my series. I’m calling my series “My Mini Cam Moments”. I’ll be doing them periodically and sharing them here. This video is a test of sorts that I did to see if it’s still working.

This is a short video of us driving into Salisbury with a view of lovely Salisbury Cathedral in the distance with a few groups of trees along the way. (laugh) Enjoy!



Also, I took a couple of photos of the flowers on display along the way here and there. The first one was taken along the road in Salisbury where I recorded the video.



This second photo is in a village along the way back home. I just thought that both flower displays were beautiful and so summery. I hope you enjoy seeing what I see when we’re out. (smile)



Well, that’s all for now. We won’t be going to Salisbury this week, but if we go anywhere good, I’ll certainly share it here. Happy August!

Christmas Countdown Continues

Our countdown to Christmas continues… We ended up not going to Salisbury Cathedral for the carol service this year. We had planned on going, but in the past few days we have been having plumbing problems and we were waiting around for the plumber to let us know when he was coming. It was kind of up in the air. Also, Brit Boy was finishing up his studying, and that was most important for him to finish, so it was a nice weekend around home.

Our shower has been working and then not working. We get scalded one moment and then we freeze the next and it is just all messed up. Sometimes it decides to be merely a trickle, so it's time they finally authorized a repair. We have had a leak also. It’s been really fun ;-) Thankfully the plumber is going to pay us a visit today. Woo Hoo!!!!! That’s our Christmas present for sure :-)

Since we couldn’t venture too far away, we ended up just chilling out around home. Periodically, Brit Boy took breaks from his studying and we watched Christmas movies or watched music videos on television while we danced around. We enjoyed those study breaks! We love to do our freestyle dancing and then we dance together all elegant…it’s funny. Then I do my Beyonce dance :-)

Later in the afternoon on Monday, Brit Boy finished his final paper and turned it in. And as a bonus, we got our call from the plumber soon after so the day turned out good in the end. We were free to head out. We went into town to pick up some ingredients for my baking and for our Christmas Eve nibbles. We fully expected the crowd that met us, but it was wild in there!!!! :-) We bought my baking ingredients, and some cheese and dips and veggies for our Christmas Eve hanging out. Then I saw them and I was in love ……







These cute little journals/notebooks are my new favorite thing. Usually I always take a detour to the stationery aisles wherever I am. I love pens and journals and notebooks…gotta do the writing thing :-) But I haven’t hit pay dirt like this in a long time. These lovely little books are made of recycled materials, so that’s very good. I just love that the outside and inside are very organic-looking with a bit of flower power on the outside :-) The lady at the checkout was oohing and ahhing over them too, so I wasn’t alone in my love. The best part is that they were on sale. I got two of these mid-size books for £1.75!!!! So a deal on top of everything . Yay!!!! Okay, enough of this notebook swooning! :)

When we got home, I figured that I should go ahead and do the baking so I wouldn’t be rushed. But mostly though, we were just greedy and ready to eat. LOL. I decided to bake us a batch of red velvet cupcakes like I did back in the spring, but with these I sprinkled them a bit to add a festive flair.





We stuffed our faces with a couple after they cooled off and I iced them :-) And then today, we have had one…they seem to get better, like most things after they get a chance to sit. So we are happy people right now with cake in the house :-)

Oh, an update on our shower problems. The plumbers arrived as I was writing this. They just left and they said that we need a new shower. They patched up the leak, so that’s good. I guess that after Christmas when they get the order in, we will get fixed up. So it’s very dodgy showers for a bit longer :-) It's all good though. No sense in sweating it. Hopefully Santa will bring us a new shower for after Christmas.

Anyway, we plan to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve tomorrow with a few drinks, some finger foods, and cake…what could be better! :-) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Snow in the Countryside

I wanted to share some photos that I took on Thursday on the way to Salisbury. Brit Boy and I were heading down there for a meeting. As I wrote about on Wednesday, we have been having some very frosty mornings. So when we headed out on Thursday morning, it was icy again. As we drove further out into the countryside towards Salisbury, we saw that it had snowed a tiny bit. We had heard on the radio that some areas got snow, but we didn’t. So it was a wonderful sight to see the dusting of snow across the fields. I just love being out where I can see the land and enjoy the beauty of nature.

All of these photos were taken from the car, so they have a cool blurry quality. I like to see how they will come out, so I just snap away as Brit Boy drives along. I love having a chance to share some of them with you all.

The first one is of a lone black bird sitting in the middle of the snowy field. I love the contrast :-)




This next one is the view across a field. On either side of the road, there’s a wonderful panoramic view.



I love this spot. You drive down the hill and off to the left there’s a drop off into a valley.




Here’s a view of Salisbury Cathedral’s spire in the distance as we drove into Salisbury. This spire is the tallest one in the United Kingdom. It is a beautiful building and is a beautiful sanctuary.



On our way back from Salisbury, I took a couple of more photos of the surroundings. By then, the thin layer of snow had melted. We came back through Avebury. Here is a line of some of the huge stones. It is reminiscent of Stonehenge, but these at Avebury are more spread out.



This last photo is of one of the larger stones that is placed very close to the road. It almost looks as if we are headed right for it, but we weren’t. It just came out weird like that. I saw the stone coming and I turned around in my seat a bit and just kind of snapped it as we passed by. I didn't know if I would get it or not.




It was a fun ride! :-)