PhotoHunt: Clouds

It's Saturday, which means it's PhotoHunt day. I absolutely love this week's theme. Clouds are one of my favourite photographic subjects.

This sunset shot was taken at Swansea Marina. I managed to get a long aircraft trail in the shot, as well as some clouds.


Here's a shot taken looking across Swansea Bay, towards the city itself. I was standing on the promenade at Oystermouth at the time.


All of the following shots were taken at Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula, about 20 miles from where I live. I love the way the clouds cast dark shadows on the ground below them, which move along as the clouds move, like some dark, supernatural entity creeping along the beach. I hate taking landscape shots when there's a perfect blue sky. Clouds add such interest, don't you think?




I just love to see fluffy white clouds against a nice, blue sky. If you look at the wire fence in the foreground, you can see where some sheep rubbed themselves, and left behind little hanks of their fleece.


I remember thinking the sky looked rather ominous at the moment I shot this. I feared it was about to rain.


Shortly afterwards, I noticed the clouds starting to thin a little, as the sky brightened, just over the island of Worm's Head. As beautiful as Rhossili is, these cliffs are not a nice place to be during a rainstorm. As you can imagine, I was relieved when the clouds began to dissipate.

Oh well, that's my PhotoHunt for this week. I've set this blog entry up to auto-post at 6 AM UK time. I'm off to bed now, but I'll be visiting other PhotoHunters sometime during Saturday afternoon, UK time. Have a lovely weekend!

PhotoHunt: Water

Oh no! I'm late for this week's PhotoHunt. Never mind, better late than never!

I'm certainly not stuck for images for this week's water theme. I'm surrounded by the stuff! I live on the coast, and there are rivers and ponds galore in the area. But I'll have to show pics that some of you have seen before - sorry. My laptop died a few weeks ago, and although I saved all my data, I haven't transferred it to my desktop - and I'm too lazy to hunt out my CDs.

The first shot was taken along the banks of the River Tawe (pronounced Ta-weh), close to sunset.


This next shot shows boats moored in the Marina. If you enlarge the pic, you can see the Moon has just risen.


I saw this swan nearby, on the river.


This man was enjoying a sunset jog along Swansea Bay.


Here's Swansea Bay on a hot, sunny afternoon.


This patch of pink thrift was growing above Caswell Bay, on the Gower Peninsula.


Finally, here's one of my favourite places in the whole world, Worm's Head, which sits in Rhossili Bay.


Hope you enjoyed my water pics. Have a lovely weekend!

PhotoHunt: Bad Hair

This week's PhotoHunt theme is bad hair. I have dozens of images of me with bad hair. But you're not going to see any of them! Sorry to spoil your fun :). Instead of making fun of people with bad hair, I thought I'd show you some images of animals having a bad hair day.

First up is this sheep I met, whilst taking a walk along the cliffs at Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula. She was having a seriously bad hair day. I hope she complained to the salon and got her money back!


This pony is having a little hair trouble as well. Maybe she should try some shampoo for flyaway hair. I also met her on Rhossili cliffs, as well as the ponies in the next two shots. This pony, by the way, was a seriously grumpy mare.


This pony seems to be sporting a 1980's style New Romantic hairdo - short at the back, with a big, floppy fringe. She was very friendly, although that may have been due to the fact that I shared some cookies with her.


This windswept creature kind of looks like she belongs in a heavy metal band, with all that long, windswept blonde hair. She was quite shy, but not grumpy like the brown mare.


Oh well. That's my PhotoHunt for this week. Hope you're not having a bad hair day! Have a lovely weekend.

ABC Wednesday - K

Visit ABC Wednesday

K is for ... Kidwelly Castle. This incredibly well preserved Welsh castle is located on the banks of the River Gwendraeth, at Kidwelly. It was first established around 1107, by the Normans. The small Carmarthenshire town of Kidwelly lies roughly half way between Llanelli and Carmarthen, near the coast.

I only had my old digital camera when I took these pics, about five years ago, so was unable to take any wide-angle shots of the castle. This is the main entranceway.



The castle is so well preserved that it's possible to wander around inside many parts of the building. These pictures unfortunately do no justice whatsoever to the sheer enormity of this amazing building.


This next shot may give you some sense of the sheer size of the castle. This is one small part of the whole structure - but look how tiny that person looks on the ramparts, near the centre of the shot. And that's a full grown adult, not a child.


It was weird standing up here, in this ancient structure, whilst seeing modern military aircraft flying overhead, and hearing them dropping bombs on the military practice range at Pendine, just the other side of Carmarthen Bay. Just think - the occupants of Kidwelly Castle, in its heyday, would have fought their battles with bows, arrows, swords and shields, maybe even catapults and crossbows. How times have changed. Or have they?



K is also for ... Kennixton Farmhouse. This old farmhouse was built in the early 1700's, near Llangennith, on the Gower Peninsula. In 1961, it was carefully dismantled, and transported to the St. Fagan's National History Museum, on the outskirts of Cardiff, the Welsh capital. The farmhouse was then completely rebuilt, and furnished in an authentic eighteenth century style. I took these shots of the farmhouse during a recent visit, with my cousin, Wayne.



I'm afraid I didn't get any shots of the interior of the building. For some reason, every time I've walked into this building, I've been severely creeped out. The last time was no different, and I bade a hasty retreat. Apparently, a number of people have had a similar reaction to the place. The fact that it is painted with a traditional old paint, made from limewash coloured with ox blood, doesn't help my discomfort. Old buildings were traditionally daubed with limewash, to both keep out evil spirits, and drive out any already in the building. Ugh!



Anyway, that's my ABC for this week. I hadn't planned on having a historical theme. It just kind of happened, as these were the only K pics I could find. Happy Wednesday!

PhotoHunt: High

I haven't participated in PhotoHunt for the last few weeks. No particular reason - I've just not felt like blogging as much as I normally do. I'm late, but as the old saying goes, better late than never.

For the first couple of images, I've dug up some old pics from a CD, which were taken on my first ever digital camera. It had a resolution of just 2.2 MP, so the pics aren't of the best quality. The first one shows the high clock tower at Swansea's Guildhall. The Guildhall houses several departments of the local council, as well as a concert hall known as the Brangwyn Hall, and some courtrooms.



This immense, high hill is called Constitution Hill. I call it Constipation Hill, because it's a pain in the butt to climb! You will need to click the image to see the full-sized version, to realize just how high this hill is. I live at the top of this hill, but you can't see my house in the pic, as it is a fair walk away from the area shown.



These next images were all taken on my current camera. They show a high tide at Swansea Bay, caused by a storm surge. I didn't use fancy effects in this shot - the colours you see were caused by the stormy weather.



The following pics are a little blurred, because my lens kept getting splashed with salty sea spray.







I had to abandon my walk at this point, as the waves were so high, they kept coming over the barriers and soaking the promenade.



Anyway, those are my pics for this week's PhotoHunt. I'm now going to snuggle up in front of the fire, because there's a high wind screeching outside, not to mention the heavy rain. Have a great weekend!

Sky Watch Friday

Before anyone asks - no, this is not me! I have neither the physical health nor the nerve to do this. These pics were taken about a year and a half ago at Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea (south-west Wales).





I'll be back to make my visits later - I have a mountain of laundry, cleaning, etc, to do.





Happy sky-watching - and keep an eye out for passing alien scout-ships :).

Click the link for more Sky Watch Friday.

ABC Wednesday - G

GREETINGS, GUYS n' GALS! I have a lot of G pics for you today. I even started my post with a G!

First up, are my cats, Liberty, who is GREY and white, and Leo, the GREY, naughty one, both relaxing on my GREY, GENUINE faux-fur throw.


Here's GREY and white Liberty again, sitting next to some hardy GERANIUMS in my GRAVEL GARDEN.



Here are the GERANIUMS by themselves.


We head 120 miles or so north, from Swansea to Shrewsbury, for these next pics. The first shows the lovely GARDEN on the way into the GROUNDS of Shrewsbury Castle.


I took this shot as I peeped through a GATEWAY into the main castle GROUNDS


Just before passing through the main GATEWAY, I spotted this very old-looking GATE set into the wall.


On the way back out of the GROUNDS, in the pretty GARDEN I showed you above, I found these old GUNS. The castle itself houses a military museum.




There is also a house in the castle GROUNDS, next to the pretty GARDEN. I assumed these two characters, the GINGER cat and the GREY and white tabby cat, lived in the house.






Oh well, I could go on forever, as I seem to have vast amounts of G pics. But I'll GO away now! GOODBYE!