Category Archives: Photography

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Listen To Your Heart

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John and I went out for a coast path walk recently and had an interesting coincidence occur as we were walking back after stopping for lunch in a pub by the sea. I paused a few times like I always do to snap a photo or two and had to hurry to catch up. I was huffing and puffing as I ran up the hill behind him and said, “Hold on a minute, I need to catch my breath!”

I stepped past while turning to face him and taking his hand in mine, I put it over my heart and said,” Feel how fast my heart is beating,” and just as I said it, I looked to the right of where we where standing and saw the little heart you can see on the tree below.

I couldn’t decide whether it was natural or carved by a lover from long ago, but standing in the quiet woods completely alone with the man I love, I thought it was a sweet affirmation of what you can discover if you’re willing to stop and listen to your heart.

Give all to love; obey thy heart.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Trusting What You Know

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I’ve struggled with a couple of decisions lately that might take away from the time and creative energy I give to my writing.

I’ve tried mind-mapping, the Ben Franklin approach, and lots of conversations with people I trust. The decision can only come from me and it’s more complicated than just yes or no.

Normally the first two methods work for me, but if I’m still iffy I like to talk with people who know me well enough to keep me honest. This time I reached out a bit farther offering up a prayer of sorts before I went to sleep a few nights ago.

In the remnants of a dream I remembered this image as I woke. It was so clear I knew it immediately that it was from a photograph I took in 2004. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I had to do a serious search of my external hard drive to share it with you.

Although the spider in the center is ever so slightly soft in its focus, the message is not lost on me. That the focus is off feels like part of the message, and the spider in the photo, it’s known as a writing spider.

I have a few more people I want to talk with, but I think I’ve found the answer.

What do you think?

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Strangles Beach – Part Textile, Part Naturists

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The lovely and unusually warm October weather made me suggest another beach trip yesterday and after a quick bite of lunch we packed a few things and headed for a bit of sand and surf.

Strangles Beach

My only request when John asked where I’d like to go was to suggest somewhere we had not been before. While we had walked alone the path above Strangles Beach before on our way to Crackington Haven, this was our first time to actually visit the beach.

Strangles Beach - Clothing Optional Side At The Far Right

A walk to Strangles Beach is not for the weak of heart as some of the footpath can be slippery littered as it is with broken bits of slate. From a distance it looks a bit brown and rocky and I wasn’t sure I would like it as much as the last few beaches we’ve been on lately, but as we were making our way down, I found a different sort of beauty in the landscape.

It was a fairly steep and long walk down and this couple seemed content to watch the waves from a distance. Only later did I realize they were sitting in a direct line of sight to the nude section of the beach.

Part way down the slope John pointed up along the top of the cliff several hundred feet above us at some wild-looking goats. I wrote about them here and have some great close-ups of them with the previous post. The best I could do yesterday was the photo below from a distance.

Do have a look at my earlier post about them. I had forgotten how clear and close the photos were from that day.

As we were walking to the beach, John mentioned that he thought he remembered that a part of this beach had a spot were you could nude sunbathe if you wanted to feel a sea breeze all over. It turns out he was right. I went exploring while he was having a swim and discovered a unofficial clothing optional beach that you can just make out the photo above.

It’s behind the big rock and is larger than you see here. I didn’t shoot any images of the size of the beach because I didn’t want to seem as if I was shooting more than the landscape.

If you double-click on this image you can get a feel for how high the walls were around us. There are some tiny dots in the center of this photo that are people. You have to do a bit of wading to get to the nude beach and if you’re not careful you can get stuck there when the tide comes in.

There are loads of rocks on this beach making it a bit slow going if you take your shoes off too soon, but the softness of the sand that waits just past them can be seen around the rocks below.

I love the granite stripes in many of the rocks and I was tempted to pocket a few to bring home.

I caught this photo of John after his swim as he moved towards the beach to dry off and sun a bit.

We stayed until the sun began to change and packed up for the climb back up to the coast path and the car.

You can learn more about the nude beaches in Cornwall by clicking here and there’s an interesting video on the Guardian online news site about the naturists lifestyle. People are shown walking and talking in the nude so it might not be okay to view it at work during your coffee break.

While I am disinclined to take my own clothes off in public, I don’t mind other people doing it especially if I’m enjoying a more isolated stretch of beach where it’s more likely to occur. After a discreet look around it seemed as if most of those going bare were either young and fit or older and very comfortable in their skin. I may get bolder as I grow older.

The view as we were making our way out was lovely and I kept pausing to snap photos every few feet. I think John thought we would never make it to the top, but there was so much to see.

A last look back …

Naturist or Textile

I almost forgot … naturists like to refer to people who keep their clothes on as textiles and I’m curious about my readers … are you a naturist, a textile, or a little of both.

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Swimming In Late September Sunshine At Lundy Beach

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Mother nature is having a last bit of fun with us these days when it comes to summer weather and John and I have been outside soaking up as much possible to tide us over through the winter rain and grey days to come.

Flowers and plants that normally bloom in the spring and early summer are a bit confused and we’ve seen color that is usually fading or long gone by now popping back out. I’ve even seen buttercups along the way and you know how I feel about those happy spots of sunshine.

We’ve been so busy going and doing that I’ve neglected to do much writing and even email seems like a bit of effort so if you’re waiting to hear from me, please forgive my tardiness because we have another glorious day waiting to be explored.

We spent one afternoon at an almost empty Lundy beach. Only thirteen miles from our front door, we couldn’t resist a trip to get a bit of the soft sand between our toes.

It didn’t take long before John slipped out of his clothes and into a pair of swim trunks. I thought the water was a bit chilly for swimming, but I did a fair amount of wading and exploring while he was enjoying the water.

There were loads of mussels everywhere making us think of food long before it was time for dinner. I don’t eat mussels, but I have seen John work his way through more than a few bowls. It’s usually when we’re traveling so I always associate it with a sweet memory.

 I think I was saying, ” The beach, the water, I need to go in for a swim … “

This look is about pure joy. I was so happy to be having this experience with John. The day was stunning and we were on a huge stretch of beach with only a couple of other people who were mostly tucked away behind their bit of rock making it feel like a private beach.

I think the look on my face tells you all you need to know about why I didn’t go for a swim too. The water was just a bit chilly for my southern blood. I’m more used to the tepid bathtub temps of Florida and there was no way I was going in without a wetsuit.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t play in the surf a bit though and I caught a wave that drenched my backside a bit before going off to explore a little more of the rocky caves along the beach.

I was trying to show John how wet my shorts were, but they look dryer here than they actually were.

  Here’s a shot of John swimming in the sea. Brave man!

There were two dogs who came a bit later that were darling to play with … they loved the beach and were chasing balls and playing with me before the woman they came with went off to a more secluded area to sunbathe and took them with her.

Here’s a cave sort of place I found with walls that became light green the farther in you went.

You can see a bit of the green wall in this photo.

  John took this of me as I was wading back in for a second look.

The water was deeper in some places and I could have gone farther into the cave had I been willing to get wet.

 This one shows you more of the green walls which John thought were probably slate.

   Mussels!

After we dried off and John changed back into his clothes, we climbed up onto the coast path and finished our afternoon at Lundy with a short walk of about half a mile back to our car.

The reentry views are just as pretty as the beach ones and time spent along the coast path is always worth the trip.

October may be here, but it looks and feels like a spring morning so we’re off in a bit to be good stewards of this lovely day. It would be a shame to waste it on laundry and other chores so things that “need” doing will just have to wait.

Now if I can find my wetsuit …

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Burning Love

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Today is John’s birthday.

It’s the fourth one I’ve been able to share with him and while he doesn’t like to make too much of his own birthdays, he goes out of his way to make mine special. Right about now you may be thinking, “If it’s John’s birthday, why are we looking at a picture of you blowing out candles?”

Let me tell you a story …

Remember when I wrote here about being in Scotland for my birthday? Well, we were there because John had big a reunion nearby with former colleagues from the television station where he’d worked before retiring. A few months before the event, he noticed the date was on my birthday and he kindly asked if I would mind going that evening.

Once he was sure I was fine with sharing the day, he began planning how he might make it memorable for me too. He knows I love a trip to Scotland so it was big part the fun we had on my birthday and our evening finished with a small carrot cake in our hotel that night after the reunion. The cake part presented a little problem though.

I’m a big believer in candle blowing and wish making on birthdays. There’s something hopeful, thankful, and celebratory about the act that feels necessary to me and I can’t imagine a birthday without it.

John is not that bothered by it on his own birthday but he knows how important it is to me. We took the cake with us on our outing thinking we might have it during our day out in Scotland, but stayed in motion so much that we decided to save it for after the reunion. When we rushed in to shower and change for the evening, we realized that we didn’t have a way to light the candles for the cake.

He went out to buy some matches or a lighter and was gone so long I was beginning to worry. I didn’t know that since we were in a hotel in the center of Carlisle and it was evening that the shops would be closed.

Poor John searched everywhere for an open shop to get what we needed and finally ended up a good distance away in a pub that he was familiar with from his days of living there. They didn’t sell matches, but the guy behind the bar gave him a box they had for the pub’s use.

After hearing about his search, I asked him how far he’d had to go before finding them and was really touched when he said, ” About a mile. “

Life with him is like that. A million little sweet gifts of service that say love. I am a fortunate woman to have found this gentle man and I am so happy to be able to celebrate another birthday with him today.

Of course I had to save the matches … I’ll use one later to light a candle or two for John and hope to post a picture here later today of him making a wish.

Here’s a photo to save the spot for now. I think of this look as his determined face. I’ve seen it before although it does look a bit different with the beard and all.

I imagine this was the expression he was wearing all around Carlisle a few weeks ago and it makes me smile just thinking about it.

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Unedited E – Getting Silly On The Path To Kynance Cove

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Elizabeth, John, & Lisa on the path to Kynance Cove (Photo by Patrice)

This post is going to be a bit funny as we move through it so stay with me until the end if you want a laugh. In the background of this shot you can see me doing what I do most of the time when we’re out on the coast path.

I was taking this photograph while Patrice was snapping the first photo above.

After she handed the camera off to John, I heard him say something about me being in the picture he was trying to take so I decided to get really silly. Now, I don’t usually show you the silly stuff and I need to tell you why. Most of the time you see me smiling and posed in photographs. I’ve always been that way. My mother once said that even as a small child I would always strike a pose when the camera was aimed in my direction. Rarely were these silly poses and I think I was particular even then about how I thought I should look in a photograph.

People that know me will tell you that I am particular about what photos of me are allowed on the internet. Yesterday, I showed you a hair-raising shot of me that I would normally keep private because I knew the ones below were worse. John would say I’m pulling faces. There’s rarely record of me doing this kind of thing, but I’m working on laughing more at myself and letting you have a chuckle too.

Here’s where John indicated I was messing up the shot. That sounded like a challenge to me so …

You can see what happened next and just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse … what kind of look is that on my face in the photo below? You can double-click on it for the full effect.

 So there you are … an unedited and slightly out of control version of me.

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Sundays On St Michael’s Mount

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Last Sunday found us fighting the wind to cross the water to get to church. Patrice and Lisa were finishing a three-week, three country, tour and we were happy to have a chance to share our part of the world with them before they went home. When I knew they were arriving on a Saturday, I insisted we plan a trip to St Michael’s Mount for Sunday services. I been a few times on Sunday morning and I’m always aware of its age and how people have worshiped there for over 700 years.

We spent a few minutes watching as the windsurfers left the beach and we had to run to catch the boat that would carry us to the island.

Speaking of running … here comes Patrice with Lisa right behind her snapping photos.

The boat filled before we got there so we had to wait for the next. I was worried we would be late for the service because having climbed the steps before, I knew that it might be slow going for Patrice who had knee surgery a few months ago. I used Lisa’s camera to get a windblown shot on the boat. It only takes a few minutes to get across, but it was long enough for the sky to clear.

We still had a long way to go once we got off the boat.
I was a bit pushy, nicely so, but still pushy. I found out later that Patrice told Lisa that she and I had run a marathon together and she’d had to listen me being encouragingly pushy most of the way.

Almost there …

We made it with a few minutes to spare. Lisa snapped a quick photo before the service began.  

  It was Harvest Sunday and the chapel was decorated with things from the garden.

There was a special card with a prayer not in the book. I thought it was interesting that it was Prayer E as E is what Patrice calls me and I recently wrote about my struggles with prayer in this post.

I took this picture of Patrice while Lisa, who you see behind her was taking the photo below.  

I came out first and the wind attacked me making it seem as it I’d had a hair-raising experience in church. Even the Vicar turned to look from the doorway. 

You can see part of the church behind Lisa as she’s walking towards us. It’s the building over her left shoulder not the one to the right. The one on the right was the Lady Chapel before it was converted to a sitting room.   

Lisa snapped this photo of me with John. It was pretty chilly that day, but not as cold as we look.

You can see the tide going out in this photo and people beginning to walk across the causeway instead of talking the boat.

Here it’s fully revealed and Patrice and Lisa are right behind me. John went on ahead to get the car.
 There they are!

I think I was saying, ” Hurry, we’ve got a lot to see today!”

I thought this was a blot on my image until I enlarged it and saw it was a bird. It may be time to get reading glasses soon.

The last photograph below shows the wind blowing sand across us. I turned my back to snap this and curled around my camera to protect it from the sand. It was pretty to see it skipping along the shore looking almost like smoke.

I’ve got more from our travels coming up. We took loads of pictures and while I won’t share them all, I think you might be interested in a few more.

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How Can She Be 24

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It hardly seems possible that 24 years have passed since I heard multiple voices saying the words 8:03 and after calling time of birth, they formally introduced my daughter with the words, “It’s a girl! ” Not having had an ultrasound I knew intuitively I was a carrying a girl in the first few weeks of my pregnancy and their confirmation made me smile.

With so much geographic space separating us, I tend to look for ways to feel connected. One thing that helps is keeping the clock on my computer set to the same time my daughter sees in America. It’s silly, but it makes me feel a bit closer to her in a way and makes the distance between feel us smaller than the ocean between our two countries. A few hours ago I watched as her local time rolled over to 8:03 making her well and truly, 24.

I hate not being there to celebrate with her. We saw each other for an iChat this morning and I did a little singing, but I wish I could give her a big hug. This makes the fourth year I’ve had to write about missing Miranda and it doesn’t get any easier. I have three previously written birthday posts complete with photos which can be found here and here. They’re kind of mushy so be prepared.

 

 

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Birthday Travels & Scary Castles

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Double Click On The Image To Step Into The English Countryside

John and I went north last week to attend a reunion with some people he used to work with in Carlisle. Since my birthday fell during that time, we added a few days to make the long drive more fun. I’ve got about 700 photographs from the area where Beatrix Potter used to write about her friends on the farm, and I’d love to show you a few, but you’ll have wait until tomorrow when I’ve had time to sort some out for you.

We skipped over the border of England into Scotland on the 10th for my birthday and came across an 800 year-old castle that too scary to me to even go into. John wouldn’t have minded, but I had an odd feeling and was content to snap my photos from a distance. I’ll tell you what I discovered later when I researched the castle online. Here’s a photo or two so you can see what I mean about spooky.

 

I’m usually quite fearless when it comes to poking around ancient monuments, but some places feel less inviting than others. Although John never seems to feel this way, I’d be willing to bet that some of my readers know what I’m talking about.

 

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9/11 Ten Years Later

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NYC - September 21, 2001

Like many people, I have a story about where I was ten years ago today. There’s nothing very different about mine and the details of my morning don’t really matter, but I do have something to say.

Ten days after September 11, 2001 I took my daughter to New York. I’d planned the trip for months hoping to make some special memories while celebrating her fourteenth birthday.

Within days of the destruction, we debated whether to carry on with our plans or cancel and stay home. Air travel became scarier in those days right after 9/11 and flying into New York so soon after was a challenge for me.

Every corner seemed to have an impromptu memorial or a flyer for a loved one who didn’t come home and the familiar landscape I’d visited many times before looked unrecognizable in places. It was a city cloaked in sorrow.

I haven’t written about my memories of that time on my blog before. I’ve blogged my way past three 9/11 dates with nary a shared story. I just couldn’t do it.

Every year as the anniversary approached I would go through my photos trying to decide which to use and what I might want to say, but most of my images seemed too personal to share so I didn’t.

Ten years later my story still doesn’t matter, but I do wish I knew more about the owner of the car above. I took the photo early during our trip and out of all my images this one affects me the most.

To say I find it haunting sounds melodramatic, but I can’t forget it and often think about why it was still there ten days after 9/11. I can’t imagine too many answers that have a happy ending, not after what we all saw, not after that terrible day.