Zoom In Zoom Out #40

I still haven't caught up with Helena's ZIZO schedule ... but here's my week 40 from a recent trip to Italy!  Hubby and I were out walking to clear our heads after a 6am flight to Rome, two hours driving, a quick supermarket shop and some lunch ... the path to the cemetery is steep enough to combat excess pasta ...

... about half way up we spotted that the ground was littered with chestnuts! Far too spiky to handle, but we did come back another day armed with thick gloves to collect a few to roast. Yum!

ZIZO Catch-up #39

Our Indian Summer has meant that the garden is still teeming with weeds and wildlife and there's still plenty to do.  Whilst tidying up some borders I spotted two creatures in our Plumbago bush who were having a late feast on the nectar.

I'm also late with my ZIZO for week #39 - hoping to catch up with Helena's schedule soon.

ZIZO Catching Up #38

We've been a little pre-occupied here recently thanks to the departure of Child No.3 to university and regular blogging has been interrupted.  I hate it when I fail with a regular meme, especially when the photos are sitting there, waiting to be processed!  So today I'm playing catch-up with Helena's ZIZO - with photos from week #38 - when No.2 Son had kindly mowed our mossy lawn:

My apologies if my blog-reading and commenting has also been a bit lax, normal service will resume shortly!

Welcome to ZIZO #37

As Rinda's Scavenger Hunt nears its close I thought I'd better get moving on the final few.  I have driven past a sign like this at least half a dozen times a week all summer, but it's never quite been convenient to stop safely and walk back to take a photo.  However on Friday, I was driving out the other side of the town on my way to a scrappy retreat with my blogging friends when I spotted the sign in my rear-view mirror.  There were no cars behind me and parking on the roadside was allowed so I guessed it was now or never for:

#1 A Sign Welcoming People To A Town Near Me

As I got closer for the photo I was intrigued to realise that the coat of arms thingy, wasn't!  My Zoom In reveals that it is a representation of the town hall!  The town council used to be for Crewe AND its neighbouring town Nantwich which explains the recent date of establishment when they became separate entities!  I'm linking up with Helena's 37th week and am off to look for the final few Scavenger Hunt items before Tuesday 23rd!

Zoom In Zoom Out #36

Another last minute ZIZO from me - just in time to join in with Helena's 36th week.  Hubby and I generally go for a walk around the village on a Sunday - it's a chance to chat quietly, get some fresh air, admire nature and get some exercise. 

Part of our route takes us through a very large field which this year is planted with corn ... of the maize variety!  It's prettier than we see in the greengrocers, with purple outer leaves and yellow tufts.  I think it's for cattle fodder rather than human consumption.

It's interesting to watch the crops grow week by week and always a shock to find that they've been harvested all of a sudden.  This week we picked blackberries from the hedgerows along the way.  I should have taken photos of my stained fingers - maybe next week's ZIZO?

Zooming Towards The End Of Scavenging

Rinda is linking up the Scavengers again as the deadline draws ever closer.  I thought I'd better see how many I have left.

I nabbed this lovely lamppost fairly a while ago in my local town:

#17 A Lamppost

And as I'm still not brave or sneaky enough to get a stranger's tattoo shot, I asked my colleague to share with me:

#8 A Tattoo

I cannot imagine how painful that must have been to do on her side - well done to the tattoo artist for keeping the lines straight!

I already have a rural landscape, so this shot isn't for #7:

#3 Birds On A Wire

Zooming in a little you'll see that it's for those (elusive for many) birds on a wire!  Which allows me to join in with Helena's 35th week of ZIZO too :-D

However I still have SEVEN to go ... #1 A Welcome Sign, #6 An Urban Scene, #11 A Horn, #12 A Mascot, #15 A Juggler, #16 A Foreign Language Sign, #19 A Public Garden ...

Zoom In Zoom Out #34

A quick ZIZO from me - just in time to join in with Helena's 34th week.  Hubby had a Boxed Set of DVDs for his birthday.  Six series worth.  We're watching together; sort of.  I like to watch one episode at a time and think about it.  Although if it ends on a shock cliffhanger the temptation to carry on and watch another is huge.  Occasionally we succumb.  I draw the line at three episodes in a single sitting though, so occasionally I'm left behind if things have been particularly exciting.

It's lucky that a second viewing of an episode is apparently acceptable to Hubby as long as he doesn't have to wait too long.  We're on Season Four now and I cannot believe how much I have engaged with methamphetamine c(r)ooks and junkies.  Anti-heroes doesn't quite do them justice.  No.2 Son & Child No.3 keep telling me "It's not real Mum!" as I sit there urging Jesse not to do it!

Have you watched Breaking Bad?  Can you watch a boxed set slowly, an episode a night or do you binge on it, watching back to back episodes?

Zoom In Zoom Out #33

Another weekend away ZIZO from me today.  In fact I have two for you.  We met up with friends from Holland holidaying on the South Coast of England.  We split the distance between our house and their campsite by meeting up at Stonehenge!  It's probably 40 years since Hubby and I last visited and things have changed (several times).  There is a newly opened English Heritage Visitor Centre which explains some of the timelines, artefacts and theories around the stones and has models with "Please Do Touch" signs!

It's a nice detail, especially as you cannot feel the real thing, nor even walk amongst the stones (except by paying extra and booking ahead or joining in with the solstice celebrations).  Instead, regular tourists are driven (or can walk) up to the ancient henge and can then walk around the stones at their own pace, listening to hand-held multi-lingual audio guides.  With millions visiting every year it's important to manage the tourist flow and allow everyone a clear view to take their "selfies" proving that they were there!  I even saw a pair of girls take turns with a selfie-stick ... and wondered why they couldn't just ask each other to take the photo?!?

I'm glad we had free entry with National Trust membership as the price is pretty steep otherwise.  We took our friends over to Avebury after lunch so that they could get up close and personal with sarsen stones erected around the same time as Stonehenge ... for free!

See that large rock nearest the foot of the path ...

... that's us in front of it!  It was quite mind boggling to realise that we were touching a rock of that size that was put there 5000 years ago with nothing but primitive tools and manpower!

I wonder what other spectacles people have zoomed in on with Helena ... check out week #33 here.

Zoom In Zoom Out #32

A friend invited me to accompany her on a 7 mile ramble through the countryside.  That's twice as far as I normally walk for pleasure or exercise, but I decided to accept the challenge.  Had it been weather like we've had this weekend i.e. torrential rain, I might not have managed it.  However we were exceptionally lucky and not only did the rain hold off, but the sun shone.  The other Ramblers were welcoming and the pace was more like an amble so I had no trouble keeping up.  Indeed, it was slow enough for me to take a snap or two too:

I have no idea whether the corn is close to harvesting but the farmer had been kind to us, leaving a footpath free for us to walk down:

Happily joining in with Helena's 32nd Zoom In Zoom Out, why not ramble over there to see what golden items others have spotted.

Zoom In Zoom Out #31

I'm just in time to join in with Helena's 31st week of ZIZO and another Summertime Scavenger Hunt "find":

#2 A Garden Gnome

Though as you see when I zoom out ... he was in a garden centre along with several others!  Does a garden centre gnome count I wonder?

How Did We Find Derby?

"Would you like me to bring my satnav?" I asked my good friend, and fellow scrappy blogger, Lesley when she arrived to collect me for our jaunt to Derby, via Castleton and Eyam.
"No thanks, I've got one" she replied, "and anyway I've printed out the directions!"

Unfortunately a list of Google maps directions from A to B only work if you actually start at A ... and if the list includes place names on the way as well as road numbers ... and if you have a compass ... and perhaps a map ...

"Erm, do you have a map? I'm struggling to work out where we are on this list!"
"No.  There are bound to be signs"

Only the signs seemed few and far between, almost as if the locals didn't want any tourists!

"I'm sure we've been past those cows before"
"Perhaps we should have turned left back there after all ..."
"Do you want to turn around or shall we just see what happens?"
"Let's just see ..."

We did see Castleton (along with a lot more Derbyshire countryside than we'd anticipated) and what's more, we were still smiling when we got there:

On the hunt for lunch we snapped a few fellow tourists ...

#4 A Group Of Tourists

#9 A Bakery

... and I zoomed in (for the 30th time) to add a bakery to my scavenger hunt finds.  The tourist information centre had postcards too:

#5 A Rack Of Postcards

It might have been prudent to pick up a map while we were there, because travelling from B to C didn't get any easier with the next list of directions!  So we stopped off to check the satnav in Lesley's smartphone and admire Ashford-in-the-Water  ...

#9 A Rural Landscape

... before finally finding Eyam, still smiling:

After that, we knew what to expect on the final leg of the journey from C to D ... but by now I'd almost got the hang of Lesley's smartphone and we only got lost twice or three times!  Our hotel happened to tick off another Scavenger Hunt item by being close to:

#9 A Parade

The next day we explored the centre of Derby and found something quite unexpected:

#18 A Waterfall

After lunch, we managed to locate Kedleston Hall reasonably well, but only the grounds were open on Fridays (beginning to see a jaunty lack of coherent planning from either of us?) so we took photos of the sheep ...

...one of whom was very interested in Lesley's camera:

#10 A Bride & Groom Bombing My Curious Sheep Photo

We topped off our Derby diversions by needing THREE attempts to find the ruins of Duffield Castle which was barely signposted (I'm sure the locals didn't want it found) ...

.. before ending our jaunt by meeting up for a meal with our scrappy friend Nat:

P.S. I found a handy place to store those Google maps directions before heading home and we didn't get lost once!!

Holiday Scavenging - Last Thing In Scotland

Where did we get to with my first installment with Scottish scavenging ... oh yes, the lack of garden gnomes!  There were quite a few items I struggled with, but more because I was in "holiday" mode rather than "spotting-obscure-items-along-the-way" mode - I kept forgetting to look for birds on a wire (#3) and there was NO way I was getting up early enough to photograph a sunrise (#13)!

Another item I was struggling to find was a mascot ... I did wonder if

a Scots Piper was emblematic of Scotland and would count ... or perhaps a cute Scottish bear, cuddly Nessie or furry long-horned sheep might fit the bill?  Perhaps this photo including someone else's hand could tick off Mascot, Horn *and* Photo-Bomber?

#10 Handy Photo Bomber

OK maybe not - but there were real horn handled knives in the next window along!

#11 Horn

One sunny evening we climbed the steep stepped hillside to enjoy the view on Calton Hill, including a sunset over the city sights.

As the lights went on we descended again and passed several stunning lampposts:

#17 Lamppost(s)

We enjoyed a great trip out to Leith Docks to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia (no garden gnomes there either funnily enough ... not much garden either!)

#12 A Mascot

But there was a Rolls Royce on board ... with the Rolls Royce mascot "Spirit Of Ecstasy" :-D
The lift doors in the adjacent shopping mall also gave me a chance to capture a juggler (sorely lacking amongst the street entertainers we'd seen)!

#15 A Juggler

On our final day in Edinburgh we ascended the tower containing the Camera Obscura, getting some fun photos along the way:

As well as a bird's eye view of a painted bus ...

#20 A Painted Bus

#21 A Photo Of Me With Something Representing The Season

... and Mum took a photo of me (with Hubby & Child No.3) wearing seasonal sunglasses!

After lunch we popped around the corner from our rented town-house to take a look at the gloriously weird new Scottish Parliament building ...

#16 (again) Signs in a language other than English

... where I spotted (lots) more Gaelic and was able to Zoom In (for the 29th time with Helena) on some very fancy letters for the blind!

#16 (again) English, Gaelic, Braille & Moon

Well how did my holiday scavenging do?

Part 1 scored: 8/21 (1,4,5,6,8,9,16,19) and one substitution (B for 2)
Part 2 scored: 7/21 (10,11,12,15,17,20,21)
Plus our journey home (ZIZO #26) added two more (7,18)

Total score: 17/21 + B (Missing #2 Gnome, #3 Birds On A Wire, #13 Sunrise, #14 Parade)

Not toooo shabby for such a short trip; now it's back to normal hunting for the rest of the summer - are you scavenging with Rinda too?

Holiday Scavenging - First Trip To Scotland

Last year I did succeed in completing Rinda's 2013 Scavenger Hunt entirely during on our Scandinavian road trip.  Which was just as well, because my scavenging outside the holiday didn't manage to tick all the boxes.
This year, I thought it would be a taller order to complete the 2014 Summertime Scavenger Hunt in a week's break in Durham and Edinburgh ... and so it has proved :-(
Let's see what I managed:

First there was another visit to No.1 Son and his lovely girlfriend in their new house ...

and I knew where to Zoom In (for the 28th time) ... to find a tattoo on a person:

#8 A tattoo on a person

Please don't ask me what the chemical symbols are ... trust me, you don't want to know!!
After a couple of days visiting with them, we drove on to Scotland where we were thrice welcomed:

#1 Welcome to Scotland (in Gaelic too)

#1 Welcome to Edinburgh

#16 A multi-lingual sign outside a pub

We stayed four nights in a lovely 3 bedroom town-house near the Royal Mile and our walk to the city's attractions would either take us past a bakery ...

#9 A bakery

#6 An urban street scene

... or some amazing graffitti.  Our first stop was the Tourist Information Centre, where we spotted (you guessed it!) tourists ...

#4 A group of tourists

#5 A rack of postcards

... and postcards!  Having picked up a map or two we made our way past the Princes Street Gardens and spotted Edinburgh Castle in the distance:

#19 Public Gardens

Substitute B A birdhouse

What an amazing ornamental clock ... plus a bird house instead of a garden gnome!  I could not spot a gnome anywhere ... the Scots must have too much taste!

Score so far: 8/21 (1,4,5,6,8,9,16,19) and one substitution (B for 2) plus ZIZO #28
Part 2 of my Holiday Scavenging coming soon!