#TheGallery - Hands

I have a 'thing' about hands. When my OH first came into the bookshop where I worked to place an advert in the local rag all I could do was stare at his hands - big, slightly dirty - he worked in his dad's motorbike shop - and I was smitten (his just over 6ft stature and long blond surfer dude hair may have had a little bit to do with it too . . .) My collegue noticed straight away (not that I was flustered or anything), a friend passed on my phone number and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, yeah, hands are very important to me...


When I read this weeks Gallery theme ONE photo immediately sprang to mind.

It's a picture that melts my heart everytime I look at it...

#TheGallery - A Picture Postcard

It's been a while since I have done a Gallery post but this week is special. This week Tara is celebrating the 100th Gallery. As The Gallery was one of the first memes I got involved in when I started blogging in earnest just over a year ago, I thought it would be rude not to join in!


So the theme for the 100th Gallery is  Picture Postcard. we've been lucky enough to visit some beautiful parts of the UK over the past couple of years. Last year we went to Yorkshire, the year before it was North Wales. Not to mention that we live in one of the most picturesque places in the UK - The Forest of Dean.  But the holiday we went on this year (two weeks ago, in fact) was special. We went to Windermere in the Lake District - an area I know and love because my nan (Lancashire born) has spent the last few decades there. We used to visit every couple of years or so when we were little but the last time I made the trip up there I was 21! That's *cough* 17 years ago *cough*.  The weather was pretty atrocious but we had one lovely day on the Lake...

So here is my little postcard from Windermere.

Bet you wish you were here.....


Why not pop along to Tara's blog and see all the other lovely postcards....

#TheGallery - Light

It's been a while since I have taken part in The Gallery linky but when I saw this week's prompt I knew I just had to join in.

Light.

The photographer's best friend.

I love early morning light - the promise of a bright day to come...

I love light through leaves...

I love light on water...

I love explosions of light!

I love snoozes in the afternoon light...

 I love early evening light too - especially on the beach...

But most of all I love the perfect light that lets you see ALL the detail, exactly how it is, and preserve it forever in a snap shot moment...

Now - why not pop along to Tara's blog, Sticky Fingers,  and check out all the other entrants to this weeks Gallery...

#TheGallery - Animals

Two years ago I bought a little fennel plant to add to my small scented herb border. Last year it grew well and provided plentiful 'leaves' to make delicious fennel tea (great for aiding digestion). This year it has taken over the entire border, providing a stunning, 7ft high display of wispy green fronds and strange, almost alien looking flowers. (Not to mention getting tangled up in the washing line and attacking anyone who walks down the garden. It may have to go before next summer...)
It has also been a haven for all things buzzy, literally humming with life!

#TheGallery - Capturing a Moment to Remember.

Friday was World Photography Day

"World Photography Day is all about celebrating photography and remembering how special a photograph can be."

So Tara dedicated this week's Gallery to capturing a moment to treasure, something to look back on in the future that would spark a memory. Unusually, she insisted that this week's picture be taken on World Photography Day itself (or at least over the weekend).

#TheGallery Black and White

Once again Tara has given me a wonderful excuse to share some pictures with you that I fully intended to blog earlier but never quite got around to it...
This weeks theme is Black and White.
I LOVE black and white photographs!
The absence of colour to distract the eye brings details out to the fore and lends itself particularly well to architectural images.
Whilst on holiday in Yorkshire recently, we visited the magnificent ruins of Whitby Abbey. The weather was, well, changeable. Wet and windy when we arrived, clearing to warm sunshine by the time we had made our way back to the entrance and the welcome presence of a vintage land rover based ice-cream van. Of course, the plus side of the dodgy weather was that the exposed abbey was almost deserted when we got there which made getting some atmospheric (ie: not full of tourists!) shots much easier!
So here is a selection from my Whitby Abbey photo album. In black and white.

Hope you enjoyed this selection - there are more black and white and colour photographs from our Whitby trip to see on the Tales from Mount Pleasant Facebook page (including the aforementioned vintage ice-cream van!)
And don't forget to head over to Tara's blog to see all the other Gallery entries this week.

#TheGallery - Vintage

Ahhhhhh 'Vintage' - what springs to mind? Lacy curtains, fifties dresses, delicate china tea sets... Vintage rallies full of impeccably restored old vehicles with their proud owners equally impeccably dressed in period costume. And campers.

Now we are not talking that old cliche the VW here. Oh no!

First up I will admit to slightly cheating here - our camper is not technically 'vintage' in the sense that it is slightly too new to be tax exempt (such a shame!) but we will gloss over that for now. It is still over 30 years old and in 'car' terms that's vintage enough for me. (Although the first person to suggest that anything/one over the age of 30 must, using that logic, be considered 'vintage' gets a slap. OK?)

#TheGallery - One Boy and his Daddy

This Sunday - June 19th - is Father's Day, so what more appropriate theme for The Gallery this week than Dads?

Little Man loves his Daddy and looks forward to every Sunday which has been re-named Daddy-Day as it's the only day the Other Half doesn't leave the house (in fact he stays firmly ensconced upon the sofa, usually with a duvet, but that's the subject for another post...)

It really is quite touching to watch the interaction between father and son, and the older he gets the more Little Man is obviously trying to emulate his Daddy. They play cars together and Lego and sometimes run around outside with a football. It won't be long before he gets a go on his first proper bike (with stabilisers) - Daddy has already found one for him (second-hand) and cleaned it up and got it ready to ride. Daddy's love of motorbikes is clearly being picked up and they will watch the bike racing on TV together (although LM does get a bit bored after a while and starts requesting Peppa Pig instead....) I'm sure in the not-too-distant future they will go and watch live races together (and leave Mummy in peace for a whole day )
As I watch them together, as mummy on the outside, I see the similarities in their expressions and actions, I hear the Little Man using the phrases that he has picked up from his daddy (the cute and the not so cute) and I sense the protectiveness and pride in his lad that radiates from the Other Half - I get a little lump in throat.
My boys....

Now run along to Sticky Fingers and check out all the other lovely 'Dad' posts....

#TheGallery - I'm Grateful For...

There is a lot of talk in the bloggiverse at the moment about the Save the Children campaign to raise awareness of the issue of childhood vaccinations ahead of the Global Vaccination Summit. Millions of children are dying from preventable illnesses every year. Save the Children are asking us - that's me and you - to make a lot of noise, sign the petition and  pass it on  to encourage World Leaders to plug the funding gap. They have even picked three respected bloggers - Christine Mosler, Lindsay Atkin and Tracey Cheetham - to talk about the campaign from the front line. As you read this they are in Mozambique, following the journey of the vaccine from cold-store to rural clinic. You can follow their journey on Facebook .

So this week curator of The Gallery,  Tara Cain over at Sticky Fingers has asked us to think about what we are grateful for.

Well I am grateful for a lot of things. I had a decent start in life, it wasn't easy but I think it prepared me well. I have had many opportunities to try new things, go places, experience life. I have had the chance to study what I wanted to. I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my belly. When I am sick there are people to help me get better and when I am struggling to cope with what life is throwing at me there are friends and family to pick me back up and keep my spirits lifted. I have a partner who loves me and a cat who has stayed by my side for 16 years!

But I am most grateful for having been given the chance to be a mummy to the most amazing little person in the world :)

Now click on the badge below and go and see what everyone else is grateful for...

#TheGallery - Mustachioed

I must admit when I saw Tara's prompt this week I panicked slightly. Mustaches. Hate them! Especially those primped and preened ones that the owners are so obviously proud of. Uughhh!
I have nothing against facial hair per se, indeed a bit stubble can look undeniably sexy and I do rather like Captain Jack Sparrow's goatee ensemble. But the Tom Selleck look really doesn't do it for me...
And whilst I fully appreciated the sentiment behind last years 'Movember' campaign the sight of all those attempted 'mustaches' (facebook was awash with the things) was enough to make me shudder uncontrollably and arm myself with a Gillette or two just in case they turned feral...

So asking the OH to grow a quick 'tache for me to photograph was out of the question and grabbing an eyeliner and decorating the Little Man's face for the sake of my blogging kudos seemed a bit, well, wrong...

But I really couldn't miss the Gallery two weeks in a row! (Technically I DID do a Gallery post last week but thanks in part to my disorganisation and major BLOGGER fail, it didn't get posted til Friday so counted only by the skin of it's teeth...)

And besides there's a competition involved this time. With a prize!!

So here we have our take on 'Mustachioed'. Not hairy, not scary, and the Little Man really enjoyed it :)

If you want to see much, much more facial hair pop along to Sticky Fingers right now. They are taking over the interweb!!!!

#TheGallery - Just Chillin'

This week's theme for The Gallery is 'Chilled Out'. Typically my contribution is late. Partly because Blogger broke and partly coz finding time to do anything this week has been a nightmare! I am at the moment feeling anything but 'chilled'...

There are many advantages to running your own business. The final decision is yours, there is no jumped up manager telling you what to do and, in theory, you can work the hours you choose.

In theory.

In practice that often means working all hours under the sun and getting very little time off! This means any days off we do manage to arrange as a family are extremely precious and, as much as I would just love to spend a day in the sun, reading a good book, sipping something long and cool, when you have an over-active toddler with a zest for life it's just not possible. Mores the pity.

Last Wednesday was Little Man's third birthday. I arranged for cover at the shop so Daddy could have the day off and we decided to celebrate in style with a trip to the seaside. It wasn't the most relaxing day out ever - first we missed the turn off the motorway and when we did get there the tide was so far out we couldn't actually see the sea! (This is a recurring theme at Weston super Mare).  But we had fun - just Mummy, Daddy and Little Man. And a day of fun, forgetting for a few hours the stress and worries of day to day life, just enjoying each other's company and going with the flow is about as chilled out as we get these days :)

Of course if you really want to chill out properly you need to take a lesson from the Master of Chill...

...and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it is done :)

#TheGallery - April

Having a bit of a photo blog week this week. Partly because I am too busy to sit down and write my usual essays and partly because I have taken sooooo many lovely pics in the last few weeks.

This weeks prompt for The Gallery is simply APRIL. It's been a fabulous month, the weather has been amazing and the cold, grey winter seems a distant memory. My garden is flourishing ( a little too vigorously for me to keep up with it, if truth be known!) and so are the fields, footpaths and hedgerows around the Forest. So to celebrate all this wild abundance I am blogging weeds...ahem...wild flowers in all their glory :)

I can't do a post about flowers in April without adding two very beautiful but poignant pictures.
A couple of weeks ago we said goodbye to Owen's Nan, Mrs Trudie Sheppard. An amazing woman, disabled from birth but with a tenacious character and a zest for life that carried her through 90 years. She did not let her disability hold her back in any way and spent her retirement campaigning and fundraising to provide a dial-a-ride service and day centre facilities for elderly frail and disabled people which culminated in the building of Sheppard House in Newent and earned her an M.B.E.

She will be sadly missed.

#TheGallery - Green is the colour of my true love's eyes..

 Before my Other Half, before the Little Man, before debt, mortgage, business worries, responsibilities... Before all of this there was Saffy, my beautiful tortie cat.

 I got her, flea-ridden at 7 weeks old, and spent a good hour every day for a month, going through her fur with a fine comb to get rid of the little buggers! She has been with me for 16 years, through the good times and the rough times. We've moved house 5 times, she's said hello (and goodbye) to a number of boyfriends (no, I am not going into any more detail!!). She has allowed me to witness the birth of seven gorgeous kittens and for the last couple of years she has put up with almost constant attention from Riley...

I cannot imagine life without her.

Her eyes are the most stunning shade of jade green - no photograph I have taken does them justice but this one comes close - and when  look into her eyes I know that she 'knows'. No words are necessary.

For more shades of Green visit The Gallery

#TheGallery My Blog

Well thanks Tara for giving us another toughie...

When I first set up my blog almost 2 years ago, I didn't really have any 'plan'. It was just a collection of random ramblings - you can read one of my first posts here. Over the next few months I grew more confident using digital photography and the Picasa editing programme and included more pictures to illustrate my stories. Linking up with other bloggers and actually gaining some followers (you are all fab btw) has spurred me on to blog more consistently and Twitter has proved to be a brilliant way to share my ramblings with the rest of cyber space!

To be fair I could probably wax lyrical about my blog for several well padded paragraphs but trying to pin down just exactly what it is all about and then translating that into a photograph...well...that's a little more tricky.

Not quite as hard as trying to get any blog posts written during the day with an inquisitive nearly-three year old wanting to type alphabet on 'mummy's little puter' but that's another story...

So here is my little man with my lovely camera. My blog would not exist without either of them.

The camera is an 8.2 MP super slimline pocket digi camera by a little known but long established Japanese company Yashica - my dad's old SLR (which I still have somewhere but could not find to photograph for this post) that he bought back in the 60's was a Yashica. I bought this one from my brother for £25 and it is quite possibly the best camera I have ever had! It has some great functions - probably more than I will ever use but I can't wait to try out the 'fireworks' setting :). The macro setting is fabulous, as you can see here.

My little man is a 2008 vintage. Didn't come with a manual so I am learning new functions everyday! Can be a bit temperamental (can't we all?) but nothing a big hug can't sort out. He is priceless.

Everyday he gives me a reason to get out and discover new things and find joy in the most mundane occurrences. You should have seen his face when I told him we would be going on the bus the other day! He takes an interest in everything I do and wants to be a part of it all and, yes, it can be a bit wearing at times but I recognise his insatiable need to 'know' things (well he must have got from one of us...). He has shown me that it's the little things that are important. And he has shown me that, invariably, a cardboard box has far more potential for imaginative play than whatever was inside it...

He is a constant source of inspiration :)

Now why not hop along to Sticky Fingers and discover a whole load of blogs and their inspiration.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the pictures for this post were actually taken on my phone (as someone else had the camera, obviously) which has a respectable 5MP camera and is perfect for those 'Oh I wish I had my camera' moments...

#TheGallery - Tomorrow

After last week's emotional tale I was hoping to give you something a bit lighter this week. But, well, you'll see...

This is a picture of my Grandad, taken at the party we had to celebrate his (and Grandma's obviously) Ruby Wedding Anniversary, about 24 years ago. The whole family gathered at our place including all 10 grandchildren. It's how I remember him best - laughing with us kids...

My Grandad was a real gentleman - the type who opened doors for people, stood on the bus to allow others to sit, always wore a hat when he went out. He adored kids and they adored him (and not just because he always had a bag of mint imperials in his pocket...) and he adored my Grandma, who was as scatty as they come and called everyone 'duckie'. He worked hard all his life - on the trains and buses and various other jobs. Even once he had 'retired' he did door-to-door sales for home ware companies, building up a loyal and supportive customer base thanks to his charm and open honesty. 
We all lived fairly close together so if we missed him one day it would be 'Don't worry, you'll see him tomorrow!' I used to stay for weekends fairly regularly and he would always treat me to Salt'n'Shake crisps when the ice-cream van stopped opposite the house of a summer evening. He would pick us up from school once or twice a week so mum didn't have to get the little ones loaded up into the pram and in the summer holidays he would take us down to London on the train for the day.

He was the best Grandad ever.

Which makes me feel even worse when I think about how I let him down...

We moved away not long after that picture was taken - to the other side of the country (felt like the other side of the world at the time) and our Grandad time became less and less... day trips every couple of months were all we could manage. I was growing up, turning into a stroppy and headstrong teen who didn't necessarily want to 'hang out with the family' when I had my own mates to hang out with. I left home, got a life, saw the Grandparents maybe once or twice a year and barely noticed how old they were getting, how frail they had become...

'We are going over to see them next week ' my mum would say, 'Do you want to come too?'  But there would be an excuse, a reason I couldn't make it. 'I'll come along next time..'

Then, suddenly it seemed, his health started to deteriorate. He was in and out of hospital, then in more than out... I finally managed to sort out some time off work to go over with my parents. It had been a good six months or so, maybe more since I had last hugged him and talked to him. I knew he was ill but I was really looking forward to talking with him again.

It didn't happen... he died 2 days before our visit. It seems we had run out of tomorrows. Over ten years on and I still beat myself up over it occasionally. I have few regrets but this is definitely one of them...

If there is anyone in your life you really want to see - don't wait till tomorrow to tell them you care, to show them you love them. Do it today...right now...coz one of the few certainties in life is that we all run out of tomorrows eventually...



ps - sorry for doing such a 'sad' post. I will try and be a bit more cheery next time, promise x

The Gallery - Mother Love

What does the phrase 'Mother Love' mean to you?
The special bond you have with your own mum, the woman who brought you into this world, who nurtured you and cared for you when you were unable to look after yourself. She who, if you are as blessed as I am, is there with a comforting hug when you need it. With whom, sometimes, no words are necessary...

When I saw this prompt I knew instantly what it meant to me.

Mother Love - the bond a mother has to her child - is like no other. Yes, I love my partner (despite everything ;) ) and my family and a fair few of my friends with all my heart. But my son, my little man - I would walk through fire for him. He has only been a part of my life for a short while but I simply cannot imagine what life would be like without him...
It will be his third birthday very soon but I still remember the first time we gazed into each other's eyes and the bond was cemented. He was 10 days past his due date when my blood pressure suddenly soared and I was rushed into hospital with suspected pre-eclampsia and told that I would have to be induced (bang went the relaxing music in the birthing pool I had been planning the past 9 months...)
After a long and exhausting labour he got into difficulties and had to be 'helped' out. When he finally arrived he wasn't breathing. For five minutes (that seemed like a lifetime) I had absolutely no idea what was happening. Was our baby ok? I didn't even know if we had a boy or a girl. Finally he was wrapped in blankets and I was allowed to hold him briefly before he was whisked away to intensive care...

An hour later we were allowed to go and see him.
'He's doing fine,' said the nurse. 'He's a proper little fighter that one' and she grinned. And I knew that everything was gonna be ok.

And here it is - taken on my mobile by his daddy - the very first moment we looked at each other.

My little soldier...

The Gallery - Hair! (Oh Yeah Baby!)

Hair - one thing I know a fair amount about, having been blessed (cursed?) with a abundance of thick, strong, uber fast growing locks. With a total will of their own...

My hair has been long, short, curly, poker straight, crimped, backcombed, dyed, henna-ed, plaited, wrapped and in one extreme experiment of sustainable 'natural' living, unwashed for the best part of three years! Ok, stop shuddering at the back there, it really wasn't as bad as it sounds!

I can't remember where the idea originated but I was about 18, I had just finished my YTS (yikes showing my age there just a tad...) placement at a solictors office and had decided that I'd had enough of being 'normal' and wanted to break free...
Enlisting the help of a good friend, several reels of different coloured cottons, lots of good vibes and a couple of bottles of cheap plonk we set about weaving my long hair into teeny tiny plaits, sewing the ends with different colours. It took a whole day and most of the evening, and probably a couple more trips to the offy but once it was done I was thrilled! I was also unable to properly wash my hair till I took the plaits out again about 3 months later.
Ok, so it itched like mad after about a week and I did rinse it in warm water with patchouli oil (well, this was my hippy phase after all...) to stop it smelling too bad. But no chemicals came anywhere near it and when I took the plaits out, despite looking like Crystal Tips, it felt fantastic!

The plaits were a recurring theme for the next year or so, as was the 'no shampoo' rule, before I got a bit lazy (or just more hardcore) and they became fabulous funky dreds complete with wool wrapped bits, bright red hair extensions from Camden Market woven in together with beads, gradually matting together in one glorious mass... When I was shaking my thang I had a clear 2 foot circle around me, no-one dared get close in case they lost an eye when I flicked my head :)

Then I got a job. In a chippy. The dreds had to go (darn health and safety). I cried a bit before having the whole lot chopped off to a 2 inch crop then quite enjoyed having friends I'd known for years walk straight past me coz they didn't recognise me...
Sadly, after all the years of mad hair experimentaton there are only a tiny handful of photos, mainly coz I was the one behind the camera most of the time, rather than in front of it. This one is cropped from a promotional shot from my band days and the only real pictorial evidence I have that the dreds ever existed...

'I have never let schooling interfere with my education...'

Here's a little something I have just discovered - a fabulous blog Sticky Fingers and an even more fabulous idea - The Gallery . The originator of this idea, curator of the Gallery if you like, is Tara Cain and her aim is to encourage and inspire fellow bloggers to take a fresh look at their photos and share them in the virtual Gallery. Every week she provides a prompt - a word or phrase - for inspiration. It's then up to us to either blog an old photo or take a new one and add our post to the ever growing blog roll (last week's Gallery blog roll featured 142 entries!).

This is such a wonderful idea and I have really enjoyed checking out some of the amazing pictures and the stories behind them, I found myself itching to join in so here is my first gallery entry on the subject of 'Education' 



Just starting out...

 I am a firm believer that education begins at home. Right from the start we read stories to Riley and as soon as he was old enough to sit up and reach for his toys books were clearly his favourite thing. I hope he grows to love reading as much as his daddy and I do. He is nearly three now and has recently learned his alphabet. He loves stopping at street signs and pointing out the letters or parked cars to read out the registration plates!

But educating a child is about more than knowing your 'ABC'. It's about giving them a wealth of experiences to learn from - walks in the park to feed the ducks, baking cookies together, making music with saucepans and wooden spoons, getting messy in the garden - all these things are part of his learning process as he explores the world in which he lives and finds his own way through life...

Yes, formal education of some kind is important but we learn so much more by jumping in with both feet and just being!

The quote I have used as the title is Mark Twain, by the way. Just in case you were wondering... :)