A New Dog on The Block

Just over two years ago Elodie was born in Maumulon, France.  Two months later she found a new home further south near Duras with Viv.  The freedom of 40 acres of plum trees and vines and acres of paddock and gardens.   The freedom to roam and exercise of which most non-working dogs can only dream.  

And what a lovely lady she has turned into.  Now she is a well-travelled lady with her own pet-passport and a more miles under her belt than many humans achieve in two years.  

Yesterday on Bosta beach on Lewis she had a great time:

Thankful Thursday

I've been taking photos since before ever so long ago.  Obviously in The Olden Days I took them in black and white (for you youngsters that's 'without colours').  Sometimes I used B&W even after colour had become my norm.  Some people like Andrea use no colour most of all the time.  Strange but true.  She has a Bronica ("bow, bow ye lower middle classes...").  I never did but this one still turned out to be square so I obviously had some camera or other which took square photos.  We may never know which one it was.  This was my Mum holding a couple of sparklers.  I've always been rather secretly pleased with it.  Today I am coming out and turning secret into no longer secret.

Today I am thankful for Dad who encouraged me to take photographs from a very early age and who helped me enormously in every way.

Liverpool One Water Feature

When CJ and I went to Liverpool in August Cj showed me Liverpool One: a 42 acre (170,000 m²) redevelopment of underutilised land in Liverpool city centre. It is a retail led development, anchored by department stores Debenhams and John Lewis, with additional elements including leisure facilities (anchored by a 14-screen Odeon cinema and 36-hole adventure golf centre), apartments, offices, public open space and transport improvements. The completion of Liverpool ONE has significantly boosted the local economy as well as lifted Liverpool into the top five most popular retail destinations in the UK.  Liverpool ONE is the largest open air shopping centre in the United Kingdom and the 10th largest overall.  Despite all this I wasn't overly impressed with the fact that much of the retail sector was open to the elements.  Like them or loathe them covered malls are much more comfortable places to spend a day without having to go from freezing wind-swept open air wearing winter clothes to hot shop wearing those same clothes.

However there were some lovely open spaces including this charming water feature:

Morning

I know that some of my Blogland pals - including my bruv, CJ aka Scriptor Senex - are often up and about in the very early hours of the morning.   In the UK summer here in the Hebrides the sun is often well over the horizon by 4am and I tend to get up very early (ok, not at 4am because I'm not usually in bed until well after midnight) but as the winter draws near and the sun is still below the horizon at 7am I tend to get more reluctant to be up at the crack of dawn.  This morning, though, around 5am I was up and re-loading the dishwasher after last night's dinner party.

So as I write this the dishwasher and the washing machine are gently thrumming away in their respective rooms and I'm in Blogland.

The mornings are presenting different and very varies views around dawn:

As the day progresses the sky is not so good for photography: there's not a cloud anywhere to be seen