Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #305 | Two Rectangles
Category: Photo Challenge
Challenges from the Wordpress Community
#303 Connections
It’s been a while since I joined in with the Lens-Artists photo challenge, but the number 303 leapt out at me this week as I have just come back from a holiday based close to the A303 in Wiltshire so I thought it would be interesting to find connections between the sites we visited in and around that area.
Family Connections
The A303 is one of the main routes from London to the Southwest and a route I have travelled many, many times to visit my youngest son who is based in Wiltshire (military) and my daughter who lives in Surrey. It’s also famous for passing by the World Heritage site of Stonehenge, the world’s most famous prehistoric monument.
History
Stonehenge (2500 BC) is not the largest henge though, that title goes to Avebury and together they form the heart of a World Heritage Site which also includes Silbury Hill. We didn’t visit Stonehenge as we have done so not long ago, but we drove past it a few times this week so had a few sneaky glances! Instead we opted for a visit to Avebury.
Avebury (2850 – 2200 BC): the henge survives as a huge circular bank and ditch, encircling an area that includes part of Avebury village. Within the henge is the largest stone circle in Britain – originally of about 100 stones – which in turn encloses two smaller stone circles.
A double avenue of stones leads away from the southern entrance towards the Sanctuary stone circles on Overton Hill, about a mile to the south-east. Unlike Stonehenge, this site is free to visit though you will have to pay for parking unless you are a National Trust or English Heritage member.
More recent history can be found at Old Sarum, an iron age hill fort dating back to 400 BC. Later occupied by the Romans during their conquest of Britain in AD 43, where perhaps a military fort was set up. It was during William the Conqueror’s reign that the strategic advantage of this place was recognised and a motte and bailey castle built.
Later, stone buildings were erected and in 1078-99 a cathedral was built after the 1075 Council of London decreed that the see should be moved from Sherborne to Old Sarum. Dissatisfaction with the site and poor relations with the garrison in the castle caused the cathedral to be moved to its present site in Salisbury (New Sarum) in 1220 and much of the stone from the old cathedral was used to build the new one.
Postcards from Around the World
If you do visit Montreux, Switzerland then don’t spend all your time along the lakeside, beautiful though it is. A ten minute climb up above the lake you will find the Old Town with cobbled streets, beautiful buildings and panoramic views (even better when the fog isn’t hiding the Alps) and plenty of bistros for a coffee or glass of wine.
Don’t forget to look out for the many fountains fed by natural spring water, often with beautiful floral displays.
The streets and buildings boast steep winding lanes and pastel-painted houses. Stop at Montreux Museum for insight into town history.
Rue du Pont
Rue du Pont
Rue du Pont
Continue above the Old Town along Rue du Petit Chêne and you will find yourself among grape vines.
Grape Vines
From here you can walk to the St. Vincent temple where the views are also magnificent with Chillon Castle along the lakeside and yet more vineyards on the steep slopes.
St Vincent in the distance
Vineyards
Castle Chillon in the fog
The Old City is also the departure of beautiful walks. The trail to the wild Gorges du Chauderon leads along the Baye de Montreux River to Glion or Les Avants.
And since this was actually a walk I will link to Jo’s Monday Walks
Primary Colours: RYB
Sofia’s challenge for us this week is all about colour. Specifically primary colours: red, yellow and blue. BUT like many things in the world, the issue of what are primary colours has become more complex. Most of us would have learned when painting at school that RYB (Red, Yellow and Blue) are THE primary colours, but now we have to take into consideration the way light blends colour for instance the RGB colour model, which has red, green, and blue as your primary colours, and is used with things like television screens and computer images. Then there is the CMYK model which includes cyan, magenta, yellow, as well as black, and is mainly utilised for printing.
“I found I could say things with colour and shapes
that I couldn’t say any other way;
things I had no words for.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe
Since the main colours for paint pigments are red, yellow and blue and cannot be created by mixing other pigments I’ve stuck to photos in these colours for the challenge.
Fishing boats
Positive Form
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #264 | Primary Colours
Nature Photo Challenge: edibles
Once upon a time (2016) I ran a challenge on my Earth Laughs in Flowers blog with different topics for each month. During July it was edibles. So I have picked out a few of my favourites from that month for Denzil’s challenge this week.
As summer comes to an end you see the fruits appearing in the orchards all over the country. Kent is known as the ‘Garden of England’ and where better to show you fat, juicy, purple plums
and fresh crisp pears.
Known as zucchini in the USA, Germany and Australia from the Italian word zucchina or simply squash or baby marrows in other parts of the world. The word courgette comes from France. Although considered a vegetable in the culinary sense, botanically it is actually a fruit.
Herb gardens and potagers are favourites of mine. And herbs are really the only edibles that I have been successful in growing.
A potager is really a combination of a traditional English kitchen garden (which always used to be consigned to the back of the garden) and the style and elegance of a French garden. Plants are chosen for their edible and ornamental nature and put together in such a way to look beautiful whilst providing food for the table.
A potager can be any design, from traditional knot gardens to informal cottage garden style.
Sunflower seeds or kernels are commonly eaten as a snack food. Often used in bread making and baking, added to muesli and other cereals, mixed with peanut butter or even made in to sunflower butter as well as being sold as food for wild birds.
Finally my daughter’s allotment. With a growing family and a full-time job as a child minder as well as studying for a degree she no longer had time for it so had to give it up, but for several years she managed a plot a few hundred yards from her home where she learned how to grow her own produce for the table. Beans, carrots, onions, squash, courgettes, sweetcorn, garlic, peas, radishes, beetroot, strawberries, rhubarb and even Cape gooseberries.
An allotment is a lot of hard work – preparing the soil, digging in lots of compost and manure (where she lives it is all clay), weeding, sowing, watering, keeping bugs at bay – but the rewards are immense.
Not only the flavours of freshly picked produce, but also the ability to grow unusual varieties not found in the supermarket, the knowledge that no air miles are involved, the sense of achievement in growing your own and the enjoyment of sheer hard work keeping you fit and healthy and outdoors.
Denzil’s Nature Photo Challenge #24 | Edibles
TRAVEL WORDS 