Having worked through my Cultivate Power Sheets and found my word for 2017 is Freedom, it was time to embrace the essence of the word with the freedom to just be and enjoy a little me time when #Walk 1000 miles 2017 came floating through the ether and seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I am not saying I won’t walk with hubby, of course I will, but I do so enjoy solitary walking and it is time I gave myself permission and the freedom to enjoy it. 

1000 miles divided by 12 equals 83.33 recurring, I do love the magic of a recurring number, I digress, which means when I look at my mileage so far this month, 36.5, that I have some catching up to do. (I haven’t added the mileage from days where I clearly haven’t got out of bed!, just the ones with a decent amount of activity on them).

As tempting as it is to always walk in the daylight, I am also giving myself permission and the freedom to walk at night, possibly very late at night, this time with hubby.  I am curious as to what wildlife I may discover, I can hear the foxes deep in the night calling to each other and the tawny owls screeching from the direction of the castle, what is to stop me going off for a little explore, apart from my warm and comfy bed. I know from many late night car journeys where the muntjac deer appear in our headlights, a walk along that road late at night would be very promising and early mornings bring about a warren of rabbits on the way up to the allotments, I may even see a hare!

Along with the wildlife I will enjoy seeing the seasons change in much more technicolour than from the comfort of a speeding car.  The seasons change in so many ways, the warmth of the sun, no matter how weak on the skin, the blast of a chill in the air, the smell of the first crocuses or the damp mouldy smell of autumn, I shall enjoy it all.

1000 miles, here I come.

When I married my lovely hubby I knew that out of all the men I had dated, he was like a mighty oak, compared to a bramble patch, that he would never let me down and he would always look after me, and he has. I didn’t really know anything at 22, who does! but I knew that.  We have weathered storms and enjoyed the sunshine and now we are reaping the benefits of a long life together, with deeper understandings of the other and a love that goes to the bottom of my soul.

Happy Anniversary darling xxx

It was time to stretch my legs today after a couple of days of being cooped up.  Oh how I love to breath the fresh Warwickshire air as I  trundle towards what in my opinion is the best spot in the world, new camera lens in hand, ready for the testing. I love that ancient wall so much, it is a wonderful place to rest against, deep in its shadow on the hottest of summer days.

Truliest the happiest of Happy Fields.

I’m a firm believer in share and share alike, so in that spirit may I give to you all, (if you haven’t heard of it before) Google Nik Collection. One thing I have learnt from the photography groups I belong to is that yes, you do have to get the image, that is the main thing above anything else, but then invariably a little tweaking goes on. There are a myriad of tools available to do this, Lightroom and Photoshop to name just two. I use a little bit of Lightroom to tweak, but not that much and well, Photoshop is just so complicated I’m not sure if I’ll ever master it.

So as I was bleating in a Woe is Me fashion at a meeting about my skill set, one of my fellow photographers suggested using Google Nik Collection which is now free and was apparently about £150.00  Okay I thought I’ll give it a go, what is there to lose.  Not much apparently. Teasel photograph, straight from the camera, black line at the top makes it quite unusable, unless your a photoshop guru, which I am not.  Disappointing. Until….A little play with the Google Nik Collection.  It is still not judge acceptable for competitions, but more than does the job for the blog.

Try it, it is a lovely tool.

While I was admiring the ducks waddling on the ice in their bright orange boots, I heard a splash behind me in the brook, as I whirled around I made eye contact with a lovely big Heron which by the time it took me to raise my camera was lifting off.

I make no apologies for the ropeyness of these shots, preferring to revel in the fact that I got them at all. Just such a beautiful fraction of time. Later, at dusk, in the distance, I saw a pair flying regally over Joe’s Overflow, so exciting, I don’t think we have had a breeding pair before.

I love wildlife, I do.  I love to get out into the country or even just a park bench with a pond and sit and immerse myself in the sights, sounds and smells of what ever is going on.  Sometimes its just the smell of autumn and rotting leaves that brings me back to my childhood as memories of the woodsmoke from the bonfires in the allotments opposite our home drift over, depending on the time of day sending Mum into a panic over her washing on the line.  Sometimes its the screech of seagulls soaring overhead.

It must be wonderful to be anything other than a human being, to live in the moment and not have to plan for the future, but plan we must, or perhaps should.

New Year resolutions are about planning, to strive to become something more than we were last year, to better ourselves in some way, to not be quite so human with all of our foibles we try so gallantly to hide.  Last night I trotted off to my nearest slimming group, its okay, its going to be fine, I know myself better now more than any other time in my life and I have the time.  Oh how I would love to be a seagull, soaring high, swallowing fish, not a care in the world, but I’m not and age is creeping, did I tell you I was 50 last year!  So today I will plan and do a little bit of weighing and measuring and plan for my future tomorrows, of which I hope there will be many and that they will be glorious.

Playing with double exposure inside the camera, not photoshopped.  This is an area I want to explore more fully for the next few months.  In the interest of transparency, I set up the camera, used hubby as my test model until I found what I roughly wanted in a very cold park,  hubby shot the shots and I developed them in Lightroom.

We visited Brandon Marsh a couple of days after the last visit as we had enjoyed it so much.  Even though this was a much duller day with very little light, we had a great day and stayed quite happily from ten until nearly four, they have a well priced cafe that cooks fresh food to order, I had the mushroom stroganoff with rice, salad and garlic bread,  it was lovely and perfect for a little carb loading in between long stints in the cold.  The wildlife was wonderful to see and I wish I could show you photographs of the crows paddling around the edge of the lake, it was most amusing, sadly my lenses are just not that powerful to pick this up.  There were ducks landing on ice and waddling off and we saw a kingfisher fishing which was beautiful to behold.  Hooper swans flew over head and well, I just don’t know all the names of the tiny birds I saw.

Just a few more snaps of a lovely moment in time.

I have been wanting to head out to Brandon Marsh for a couple of years now, but never quite getting the chance, but with a UK wildlife photography competition looming that would only take recent work it seemed like a good time to pop along. Brandon Marsh is the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust’s headquarters and it really is very nice indeed. There are some flat pleasant walks  around the lakes that are mostly not too muddy and an abundance of wildlife, 230 species of birds have been recorded as well as Muntjack deer hiding in the largest reed bed in Warwickshire and otters, badgers and bats to name but a few. The light was beautifulas we wandered around, and in parts there were still signs of a hard frost overnight.  The grasses just so beautiful towering above me.  We were lucky enough to meet this friendly robin and carried on with out walk, When we met the friendliest robin I ever did meet. He was very keen, so I said to hubby, put your finger out, see what he does. And this lovely robin would have landed in the palm of his hand had hubby had a mealworm about his person. We had such a good time chatting away to him. And he seemed to enjoy it too.

Unfortunately we were booked up for the afternoon so made plans to come back very soon.