Bluebell Walk at Beacon Wood Country Park

Here are some bluebells pictures, taken at Beacon Wood Country Park, Bean, Kent, taken on 22 April 2012. I love bluebells, it just looks so lovely, and once the bluebells are out, you know spring is in full swing.

Here is my friend Claire (also a keen photographer), being ambushed by our dogs Fefe and Bonnie

Alien snowdrop circles and searching for spring

Alien Snowdrop Circles in Kent??????

Chestnuts                                                            The frst snowdrops

The weather was just beautiful today, and I couldn't resist taking the camera out with me and go in search of the first signs of spring.

Others have crop circles... I  have found this strange 'circle' with snowdrops right in a middle of a field ... no idea how it got there in that strange formation right in the middle of a field...made me laugh and I had to take a picture.

High Heels, East Ham and Autumn colours

// Sunday, 27. September 2009 //        

What's new ... another busy weekend. I spend most of Saturday ferrying the children (and mostly Ruby) around here, there and everywhere. Birthday parties, bank appointments, swimming, gym - you name it, i drive there. And most of. the time being stuck in traffic!

Saturday afternoon Nafees and me went to East Ham, Queen's Road market. Queens Road Market is a noisy hotch-potch market of Asian and African food and clothing. Nafees usually buys his Asian spices there, and I just love the Asian sweets, they are really sweet sweets! We took Bonnie with us, so I had to stay in the car with her- she wouldn't be any good with big crowds. After the shopping, we took her to Newham Central Park. We sat on the bench, eating somosas like an old couple ... haven't done that for a while.

Ruby went out shopping with her best friend Natasha, they were hitting all the clothing and asseccorize shops. She bought this pair of high heel sandals. It's been a long time since I've worn anything like that, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to walk very far in them - it's trainer's for me.

Sunday was a lovely Autumn day. It's still extremely dry though, and the colours are all dried up browns/yellows, there is hardly any green. The rosehips are beautiful though, there are my favourite autumn fruit.

Big news - well, for me anyway. I have finally bought my first D-SLR camera. Have been toying with this for the last few months, as I enjoy walking and wildlife/wildflowers more and more and really want to get more serious about photography. So... I have saved up on a deposit and got a Canon Eos 450D. There is sooo much to learn, I've been submerged in the 'Dummy' guide for the past few days and taking my first shots. I love it.

Problem is that this is going to be an expensive hobby. Already I realised that I may have to purchase more lenses with the stuff I want to take pictures off. I got 2 lenses with the camera (as I kit), and I want to get completely comfortable with everything in the first place. I'm still on the 'Automatic' setting for the camera, but hopefully will explore more in the next few weeks and can start experimenting with the manual settings.

Completely neglected cross stitch as a hobby, but will definitely return to it sooner or later - just enjoy taking pictures so much at the mo (and playing with all the new equipment). Here are some of the first pictures I took - completely unedited(haven't yet got the hang of Photoshop - another Dummy-guide I gotta get through LOL - Amazon is making tons of profit with me at the mo.

Every day I walk with Bonnie in the area which is basically right across the street from us. You have to cross a footbridge to reach it, as it runs right past a busy A-road. It's the area from our houses right down to the River Thames. The old Joyce Green Hospital used to stand on this site, but it was pulled down in 2000 (if my information is right, this was before we moved to Dartford in 2003). There is also a Powerstation on the land, and a sewage plant. After the hospital closure the area became a bit of a wasteland and was claimed by groups of teenagers who used it to ride their motorbikes and ..aehm, whatever teenagers do I suppose! (All I know is that in the summer we saw fires ever so often over the site, burning cars etc).

About 2 years ago, developers moved in and the whole site will be re-designed. They will build many residential houses and flats, even a school and a leisure centre and lots of office buildings, they call it a mixed-use site.. It's being advertised as 'sustainable living'. I guess because the developers kind of build around the small lakes which are on the site..I bet they didn't tell prospective homebuyers about the sewage plant LOL .Anyone who is interested can have a look on: http://www.thebridgedartford.co.uk/. It's great that they made pathways which we can walk on now, but unfortunately, mostof the wonderful green space which we have now will of course go... not much point then for me to go walking there, I might as well walk the streets of Dartford.

I absolutely love wildflowers. I love watching them and taking pictures of them, for me wildflowers are much more beautiful than, for example, cultured roses and similar. And I like them best were they belong - in the countryside or where-ever really. For most people, and especially developers, I suppose their are just weeds. And I'm always so disappointed when I go for my walk and find that another row of wildflowers has been ripped out. They usually put lawn, very short and very uniform... Or worse, it gets concreted over. All I can do for the meantime enjoy it while I can. Oh, I just wish I could move to a house where I'm just surrounded by countryside and lots of wildflowers with no-one to 'develop' the area.