Early last week, I spent an afternoon with my uncle and aunt. for part of the time, I took my uncle for a walk, which he always enjoys. And in my beloved Wollaton Park, we found the camellia house was OPEN! This picture is of one of these lovely flowers that we found. There were plenty of white and pink ones, too.
I noticed this young swan in Wollaton Park today. I love the effect of broken reflections such as those in this shot. If you enlarge the picture, you’ll find interesting patterns in the swan’s feathers, too. You can even see a drop a water, falling from its beak – I couldn’t have captured that if I’d tried!
Last week was a very busy one for me, but finally, yesterday, I made time to get some fresh air for a few moments. And once again, I found the joy of just noticing.
This shot is not of a craggy cliff, nor is it an aerial view of a pond (or of anything else.) It’s a close-up view of the bark of a young oak tree. Nature never fails, eh?
Although I’ve already seen a good few daffodils about, these are the first fully open tete-a-tete ones in my garden. Maybe spring is nearly here!
Just a day or two back, a morning frost occurred in the area where I live. This, in itself, isn’t particularly remarkable: it’s winter, after all. But what is more special is that the cooling must have happened quite slowly, because the crystals were much larger an usual, even though the frost was not particularly severe. The result is this effect where the grass looks like candied angelica – rather pretty, I think.
It always seems fitting, to me, at any rate, that the various parts of different species of ivy, mostly quite poisonous, have such strange shapes, patterns, and/or colouring. I happened to spot a large clump, covered in berries like these. Oddly attractive, but they seem to send a warning, as well!
I captured this image only today, and when I first viewed it, I thought I’d try a black-and-white conversion (it was almost entirely green and white, anyway) so as to emphasise shape and line. See what you think…
The continuing mild weather just keeps plant life sprouting and growing. Viewing this in detail never loses its fascination, somehow! Sights that are ‘nothing special’ turn special when you notice them properly. Oh, how easy it is to walk around blind!
Just two days ago (22 January) I found snowdrops had already put in an appearance in my father’s garden. I never seem to get tired of looking at flowers, somehow…!
No, that isn’t sugar. At last, a ground frost made this little artistic creation in my back garden. The cooling through freezing point must have been quite slow, to give quite large ice crystals like this. They were just melting as I took this shot.
