February colours

Here are my 'Colors of the Month'. This challenge can be found at Life Looms Large . This picture was taken near where I work. It was a cold, slightly frosty morning with the mist still visible in the valley. The best sort of February day.

This was taken on one of my dog walks. The rusty old farm trailer which is gradually becoming overgrown and forgotten in the corner of a field appealed to me as quite a good composition.

This is a typical February scene, devoid of colour and just waiting for something to start growing. February seems to be one of those miserable months when it just rains and rains, on and on. But just when I was beginning to despair of any colour in my life...


...it arrives! The camellia is always the first thing to bloom - usually about the same time as the snowdrops. By now it's usually in flower but the unusually cold recent weeks seem to have stopped it short at the bud stage. I hope it'll be OK when it warms up a bit. It's in a corner of the house outside my kitchen window and it's always a joy to look out and see its cheerful pinkness when all around it is dull and brown.

Misty, my Irish Wolfhound

This is Misty, my beloved Irish Wolfhound. She's just over 7 years old and still acts like a kid at times although you wouldn't think so from this picture. She is a true gentle giant with the most beautiful, kind nature and she puts up with me regardless of what sort of mood I'm in.

Very little fazes her although she regards squirrels as having been put on this earth solely in order to goad her, which means she spends a lot of time at the bottom of trees looking up into the branches.

This is Misty's haiku:

Low sun stroking fur
Shades of grey and gold mingle
Deep and peaceful breaths

Colours of January

These are the colours of January around my local lake. Silvers, greys, whites and the palest of pale blues. It's unusual for us to have such a hard and prolonged snowy period here so it was imperative that I got out there with my camera to record it.


Another view - this time of part of the lake that hadn't yet frozen, seen through a stand of delicate winter stems wearing their snowy gloves.

I posted these after visiting Life Looms Large and My Life is Just a Tapestry both of whom are also posting their colours of the month. If you want to do the same, go to Life Looms Large and join in! I intend posting photos of 'my' lake through all the months of the year because it's the place where the changing seasons impress me most as I walk round it at least once a day with Misty the Irish Wolfhound. I love to stop and note what's new - who's had ducklings, where the heron's fishing today or whether the old swan has found himself a new mate (I do hope he does or I'll miss the annual arrival of those beautiful cygnets).

COLOUR

"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most" John Ruskin (1819-1900)


Why am I blogging about colour? Because it's all around us right now during the most colourful season of all. The trees, although they're losing their leaves fast with the rain and wind in recent days, have been glorious. From green, through lime, yellow, gold, orange and red to brown. From south-west right round to north-east on the colour wheel. A designer's rainbow.

And it's not just the leaves. The sky just a minute ago, straight after a rain storm, was a washed out palette of blues and pinks so delicate you could almost smell them. Now there's a thought; does colour have a smell?

Close your eyes and think about this. What comes to mind when you think of a colour? Does red smell of earth, does yellow smell of hot skin, warmed by the sun? Does blue smell of ozone and green of grass?

It's interesting to mix up the senses when thinking of descriptions. Such as sharp grey, allegro lemon, loud edges, a sour building, cool birdsong. Gives a whole new perspective on things doesn't it?

Ice

Shards of glittering sharpness. Cold, pointed, smooth. Ice cubes for my gin and tonic. Crushed ice for keeping fish counters cold. Icebergs and the Titanic – fatal. Icebergs and polar bears - essential. Ice floes and glaciers. Snappy, short, crisp sounds. Ice picks for chipping blocks and for murdering people. Miss Blue in the refrigerator with the ice pick for Cluedo.

An icy character – withdrawn, unfriendly, unsympathetic. Blue eyes and sharp features. No smile; no frown. Clearly drawn angles and high cheekbones. Icy cold demeanour. The bad guy; no-one’s friend. The assassin – cold as ice and completely focussed.

Icy lake for winter skaters. Blades that cut through the ice keeping the skater upright. Pirouettes and jumps and whirls.

Crackling like ice – breaking up, falling through into the icy blackness. Black ice causing accidents and multi-car pile ups.

Lemons

So I gotta write something long and reasonably put-together about lemons. The thing that, naturally, immediately sprang to mind when someone mentioned this challenge was gin and tonic.

So I had a G&T. While I thought about lemons. Yellow, sort of spherical shaped, shiny and uneven, like a pock marked face. Yes, a jaundiced pock marked face. That's it exactly.

So I had another G&T. While I thought about lemons some more. Make you suck your cheeks in. Your pock marked cheeks that is. Ahah - cheeks. Baby's bums with dimples in them. Hmm - don't know much about that - no kids.

So I had another G&T. God. Why didn't I ever have kids? What have I missed in life? I'm gonna cry. I am crying. Tears the shape of lemons. I need another G&T.

I'm in the hospital. I got up to pour another G&T and slipped on the lemon and twisted my bloody ankle. The ambulance men were nice though - they had lemon coloured jackets...

The House

The sky sunk like a hot, wet blanket, smothering the day into darkness; the fields, trees and the hills beyond merged into one another like paint running on a wet canvas; but still it didn’t rain.

I was about half a mile from the house, fascinated as I always am at the changes wrought by the weather on the landscape. My T-shirt stuck to my back in the humidity and I felt sweat trickling under my hairline as I gazed towards the shadowy horizon, trying to make out the shapes of the low hills that populated it.

I leaned back against the stone wall, trying to soak up some coolness from the rough surface, but even the stones themselves seemed to radiate warmth as if in attempt to keep any coolness they contained to themselves.

It had been four days now. Four days of unremitting clammy heat. The whole of nature seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to be released in one great, gasping gush of cool air.

I pushed myself away from the wall with an effort and turned towards the gate to walk up the slight incline that led back to the lane. The lane ended at the house that had been my temporary home now for two months and I approached it, as always, with care, making sure everything was as it had been when I’d come out three hours ago.

But this time something was different. I moved to the hedge line and stopped, trying to work out what it was that had alerted me. The gate was shut as it should be. There was no sign of any car. The house rested in the turgid air, silent and watchful. But something was wrong. I took a couple of steps forward, still keeping close to the hedge, gaining some cover from the drooping branches. And there it was; movement caught briefly where there should have been none; and from inside the house.