To Work by the Back Door

I walked along the back of Christchurch today, which I don't normally do.
And I really liked the contrast of the graffiti compared with the old church door.

And while I'm at it, I may as well add some photos I took on the same walk to work out of town last week, on a much brighter and sunnier day. It was much warmer last week too - back to hats, mittens and scarves this week!

 I've always loved the glass porch over the Olympia theatre - it makes me think of gingerbread houses somehow. I'd have to look at a map to figure out what building the dome is part of. And the cherry tree is at the front of Christchurch.

Des res in bird-land

One day last week I forgot my work ID. Thankfully (because it is a HUGE hassle not to have it), I remembered while I was only a couple of stops away from home, and with light Easter holiday traffic, I knew I could get off, walk home, get my card, get maybe even the next bus and still be in on time. Two quick snaps - des res nest in a lovely leafy tree, and one more bleak "high-rise" one. Both, I think, magpie nests.

From the files...

I was privileged to be on the Splitcoast "Dirty Dozen" design team from last August thru' January. Projects created for that have to be kept exclusive for 6 months, so I was always having to be careful not to include any in my recap of monthly favourites. Here, then, are my favourites from the first three months! There was also a Christmas project in that time frame - a Jacob's Ladder min-album, but I don't usually add any Christmas stuff this early in the year.

St. Catherine's Park part two

This catkin looked so like a caterpillar! There was a lot of diseased, but very photogenic, ivy (photo #4), and the last one is young, fresh nettles.

And then as we got to the watermeadow, we saw these delightful Highland cattle. They've been there for a couple of years now, it seems - but they certainly weren't the last time we were there. Isn't it funny how they have different horns? They looked quite small, too, compared with "regular" cattle.

St. Catherine's Park part one

I love this view over the river from the upper path through the woodlands...

This weeping tree was at the end of the wood, as far as we could walk.

We came across this plant I had never seen before. I looked it up when we got home, it's called Toothwort, and it's a parasite that grows on the roots of trees. I know you can see leaves around it - they're actually wild garlic. The Toothwort has no leaves of its own, so it can't carry out photosynthesis.

And some weird and wonderful fungi. In the second picture, it made me think a little of Audrey 2 in Little Shop of Horrors, it'as almost as if it was alive with tentacles, reaching up over the log.

In the frame: canoeists. I hoped they were going to down the (small) rapids, and having seen them walk along the bank parallel to us, on the opposite side, we waited to see them launch their canoes - but then they all started paddling up-stream.

The wren...

...the wren, the king of all birds.

We took a walk this morning in St. Catherine'sPark. 
More photos to follow...

Happy Easter

May Spring Sunshine and flowers be yours.

This month's header is from our trip to Giverny last year, and I really do hope soon to pull out some of the best photos, since I slacked off before I got that far last year. I know it was a couple of weeks later, but it was over Easter that we were in Paris last year!

Ivy

...and favourite cards from March. Evidently, since it was hard not to pick more, the longer days as we moved into March were a boost to creativity. I snapped the ivy yesterday, when I was standing at the level crossing waiting for a train to leave the station. I'll be glad to see the trees in leaf again, everything is still so bare. Sadly the high winds of the last couple of days seem to have brought a lot of leaf buds down, though.

We were required to use only one colour of cardstock, and NO stamps, inks or embellishments. 

Off and on...

...the needles.
This first project was actually completed before the Spring Wreath, but until it had safely arrived I couldn't share it here. It was great fun to make, and a perfect project for work. This is the only way I could think of to photograph it that would show it all - and it was quite a windy day, so it wasn't an easy task.

And, with a few supplementary colours (and a pair of carbon-fibre knitting needles that are proving to be very pleasant to knit with, and which I am hoping will not bow and warp the way wooden ones do), most of the leftovers are being knitted into a sweater for C. I started out with regular stripes but didn't like it, and after about 50 rows I decided to rip it back before I passed the point of no return. I'm now knitting it in totally random colours, just cutting long lengths of each colour and knitting it in loose blocks of colour. I've used a temporary cast on for two reasons - I need to see what colours are left at the end to knit a two-colour rib, and also he seems to be really hard on the ribs of his sweaters. They always need repairs - and for a while I have been thinking that it would be much easier to repair them if they ended with a cast-off edge. We shall see. This will be to replace a sweater I knitted about 26 years ago, which partly used the same zigzag pattern. It's getting beyond the point of repair!