A Colourful Monday

My aunt and uncle were in town and we had decided to meet up this morning and go for a walk to look at some of the street art. The clear blue sky was an unexpected bonus - more cloudy weather had been predicted! Nature itself is displaying an absolutely gorgeous palette of colours just now.

All of you who follow this blog regularly already know that I love water reflections…

Sculpture ‘Bodhi’ by Fredrik Wretman

‘Under-the-bridge’ art by Joe Iurato

Mural by Curiot

Mural by Inti

Caroli Church

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Through My Lens

Our World Tuesday

Blue Roses

These roses on a grave in the cemetery made me stop and look twice. Surely there is no such thing as a blue rose? …

Quite right: On closer inspection, they turned out to be artificial – dewdrops and all.

The question kept nagging me: Why?

Of course I’ll never know for sure what the person was thinking who put them there…

But when I googled “blue rose”, this is what I found:

Due to the absence in nature of blue roses they have come to symbolise mystery and longing to attain the impossible, with some cultures going so far as to say that the holder of a blue rose will have his wishes granted. (Wikipedia)

And then this poem by Rudyard Kipling, which totally convinced me that the choice of grave decoration must have been very deliberate, rather than just “odd”:

Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies--
Bade me gather her blue roses.
Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew.
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.
Home I came at wintertide,
But my silly love had died
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.
It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest--
Roses white and red are best!

Reflections of Light and Dark

“Art is in the Eye of the Beholder”…

Did you know?

… that the person credited with coining the saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, an Irish novelist whose light romantic fiction was popular throughout the English-speaking world in the late 19th century. The line occurs in Molly Bawn (1878). (More famous authors before her expressed much the same thought in other words, though…)

(Sources: The Phrase Finder & Wikipedia)

See more reflection photograpy at:
Weekend Reflections

Books, Films, TV & Nature

Besides manuals for the new TV and other appliances I did not read a whole lot in the month of September…

The novels I did read, were in the form of audio books.
Earlier in the summer (I’m not sure if I mentioned it before) I read Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by Lady Fiona Carnarvon of Highclere Castle  (=the setting for the TV series "Downton Abbey"). In September, I also listened to the sequel, Lady Catherine and the Real Downton Abbey. If you like Downton Abbey, there’s a good chance you’ll be just as fascinated by the real life stories – or even more so!

I also listened to two books by Alexander McCall Smith. One was Bertie plays the blues, which is the 7th in the 44 Scotland Street series. I’m not sure I’ve read all the previous ones, but I doubt that matters much. They’re rather like a TV soap opera in the sense that if you miss an episode (or a season), it’s not all that hard to catch up, as things are repeated a lot… 

On the whole, I think I enjoy his No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (set in Botswana) more – even if those tend to be a bit repetitive as well by now. The Handsome Man’s De Lux Café, which I listened to last, is the 15th(!) in that series.

On TV, I’m following Poldark, a “new old” British drama broadcasted here this autumn (on Saturday nights). I missed the first episodes but was able to catch up on my new “smart” TV (once I’d got the internet etc sorted…) Breathtaking background scenery from Cornwall in HD.

I’m also looking forward to re-watching some of my favourite DVD’s on the new TV. Started with the Harry Potter films… Last night The Goblet of Fire (=No. 4).

Meanwhile, Nature is putting up quite a show of its own outdoors though, this time of year – so I can’t spend all the time watching TV!

Early Autumn Colours

Butterflies: Small Tortoiseshell, Common Brimstone and Red Admiral.

Rowan berries turning red.

The first leaves dropping to the ground.

That special light.

Autumn market in town (last weekend in September).

Through My Lens #9

Outdoor Wednesday

Friday My Town – Sights of Autumn