Snaps on the go

Still not carrying my camera because of my sore shoulder, but there were such beautiful cloud reflections on the way to work on Thursday that I just had to do the best I could with my phone. We're having unseasonably mild Spring-like weather here - normally I expect to be still wearing a hat in April, but not this month.

The last picture is very much on the go. We went down to Cork on the first Saturday in February. It was another bright sunny day and we had a lovely drive - especially as we got near Cashel and started seeing snow on the mountains. I think, looking at the map in the car, that most of it was on the Galtees. It was really beautiful - and all gone by the following week.

Birds and a Birdhouse

I took a few photos of a heron on the way to work the other morning. It was low tide, and the particular place the heron was standing meant that I could take photos where it didn't look as much as if I was in the centre of the city.

And here is my card for this week using images (and paper) from Art Neko.  It's a shaker card, using what I imagine to be a birdhouse from the Flowers and Whimsy sheet, along with butterflies from the same sheet, a vertical birthday sentiment and some ATC collage paper.  The base has some coarse mesh stitched to it, and I added some leaf ribbon trim with lots of Liquid Pearls to suggest flowers. I can't remember what die I was using, but the shaker element was all the little pieces popped out from it, they've been sitting in a little pot on my desk ever since.

Bath Time

I do love watching the gulls bathing, they always seem to enjoy themselves so much. I was working at odd times last week, and unsure of which buses would get me in on time. Erring on the side of caution, I had time to go down to Heuston Station, and since it was low tide, it was prime bathing time.

St Catherine's Park

A few more photos from our walk in the park last Saturday.

This is a type of toothwort - the greenery is all natural vegetation, mostly wood anemones. The tall pink spikes are the flowers of the toothwort which is a subterranean parasite on the roots of trees, as it has no chlorophyll of its own.

This is taken from a high woodland path, looking down onto the river Liffey as it flows below. 

And a card featuring a lovely steampunk feather stamp from Art Neko. I applied ink to the base with a couple of distress ink pads, and then collaged on a few antique timepiece images from a collage sheet from B-Muse, then stamped and coloured the feather.

On the Way to Work

On Monday we both made the journey into work from my aunt's. It was actually a lovely walk down to the train station - the weather was still mild. And I walked out to work from town along the Liffey, which is not my normal route...

Loved the colours in this!

Half a loaf dog is better than none...

Liffey Birds

A sunny morning, a misty morning...

The birds and the bees...

...and that Monday morning feeling! I was yawning all the way in to work this morning. It's not a brilliant photo of the stork yawning, but it's something I've never seen before.

The bee was collapsed on our back doorstep one day last week. He got rather sticky on the honey from the spoon but lapped it up with great gusto, and after two sessions supping away, the next time I went to check, he had gone. I wouldn't normally be comfortable getting quite so up close and personal, but he seemed so exhausted that I didn't think there was any risk of a sting.

After the rain

Some nigella self-seeded into my pots of star-gazer lilies. I spotted how lovely it looked after a night of rain when I went out to put a wash on before work on Monday morning. The heron is also from Monday morning...

Got the Blues ?

Spotted this on the way to work this morning. I loved the look of the burnt texture at the bottom of the door.

Being the end of the year, there's a student exhibition on in the National College of Art and Design, and I'm sure this is part of it. I wish the gallery opened earlier and I could go in before work - I usually just want to head straight home afterwards.

Should have a few more swan photos in a day or two when I edit them. I took this one looking down the river towards the sun, so there wasn't much editing needed.

Tufted Duck

When I have stale bread left over, I usually bring it in to work and feed it to the gulls; better that than landfill, and there are only so many breadcrumbs I can use. Usually all it takes is throwing a couple of bits into the water and a whole flock of gulls appear, seemingly out of nowhere. But there are occasions when this doesn't happen - and this morning was one of those days. So I walked down as far as Heuston Station, and when I looked further up-river I could see some ducks. So I kept walking a bit further - and was delighted to see a tufted duck in among the mallards. Alas, his tuft wasn't really showing, but his beautiful beak was.

On The Way To Work...

I still don't know what these "Three Men in a Boat" were doing - by the time I got as far up the river as I had first seen them messing around, they had pulled back into the centre and were starting to head downstream again.

I don't all that often walk on this particular stretch of pavement - and I think when I do there are usually so many real leaves on the ground that I don't ever remember seeing these sort of "fossils" where leaves had obviously fallen onto the wet concrete before. With the green moss growing on them, they were quite intriguing to look at.

I thought this too looked like  leaf - or maybe more of a ferny frond. The old church on James' Street which used to be a lighting shop and has been empty for at least four years has had a sign up for a while with a planning application to turn it into a micro-distillery. They obviously got approval, because the workman are now in. All I can think is that the green is stained glass and whatever has been covering it up till now has got torn away just there.