Whitewash!

Following the red sky in the morning, it turns out it WAS a shepherd's warning!! The snow has been falling thick and fast across much of the UK overnight and today - and there's more to come. Still, it makes for a pretty picture AND (if you don't have to drive or work in it) it's fun, fun, fun!!

Emily's First Snowman
More Snow

Snow Fight!

ABC Wednesday - F is for...

Feathers!!

Fluffy and Fearsome.

It being the school holidays, and the weather being so foul we have struggled to find suitable places to take Emily. She is of an age where discovery is everything and counts a lot towards education and personal development. She seems to have an endless capacity for soaking up facts - if the weather's bad (which it seems to have been constantly) these facts will be absorbed from indoor activities or the television - I have caught her using advertising slogans in the past, she'll come out with "Every little helps!" (Tesco) or start singing "Let it shine!" (Morrisons.)

So, in order to cram her brain with as much non-TV knowledge as possible we try to take her out to places of interest. One such place is Kirkleatham Owl Centre near Redcar. Emily loved it. (I'll keep my thoughts about it to a later post.)

Snowy

The centre houses all manner of birds in addition to owls - as you can see from the first picture Vultures are there too as well as a pair of Ravens who absolutely refused to stand still long enough for me to photo them (they knew what I was up to and danced around, singing and 'laughing!!' - at me?)

Emily had a great time and came away with a fluffy feathered friend of her own (to add to the four million fluffy friends at home!!) So the day was a success for her and she learnt a lot. Afterwards we paid a visit to the Kirkleatham Hall Museum - subject of a future post.

For more fantastic 'F's' visit the ABC Wednesday Blog and sign in on Mr Linky or to view an anthology of all of the posts visit The ABC Wednesday Anthology.

A Gift From Denise.

Just a quick post tonight to thank the wonderfully generous Mrs Nesbitt - who we met up with today in a less than clement Guisborough, I say less than clement, when what I actually mean is torrential downpour -  for her to hand over a  box of craft materials for Emily. I have never known so much material be crammed into an 18 inch box:

- cards, stickers, glitters, paper, cloth, stampers, stencils, crayons, felt-tip pens, feathers, shells - you name it, it was there -

Emily could barely contain her anticipation at the prospect of rummaging through the box of goodies: 

A veritable feast of craft materials was discovered within.

Of course, Emily just had to make use of the colourful cloth inside and transform herself into an Indian Princess for the rest of the day:-

So a great big thank you to Denise for providing hours of fun today, and for every other rainy day for many months to come - Emily really appreciated it and will work to create one of her "special creations" just for you in the next few days.

Thanks very much - Gary, Lesley and especially Emily. xx

More Macros

Click each picture for a closer look.

A rose in the sun....
Another rose - but I didn't see the black-spot on the leaf 'til now!!
A bee having a pollen bath on our Mallow - this was as close as I dared go!!

Discovery

I've had my camera for just over a year now - It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-W50 - I don't think the model is still in production. I bought it for it's neat compact appearance and the fact that it suited my budget at the time. I'm not a professional photographer, never have been, never want to be and therefore never will be, but I was fiddling about with all of the little dials and buttons on the camera and found that one of them switched on a 'macro' feature. I just had to give it a go and merrily danced - well "happily meandered" would be a better phrase perhaps - around our place yesterday morning snapping images as closely as I could without ruining them. I was quite pleased with the results. See what you think.

A close up of our apples (they may, or may not, be Discovery!)

Our kitchen taps from about two inches..

Some tiny (alyssum(?)) flowers on my knee... And finally, for Mrs Nesbitt, (no, not the Gin!!) our duck measuring spoons!!
I'm off to fiddle with the dials and buttons some more - wish I could find the Instruction Manual for the camera - I might have just sparked up an amateur hobby!!