Back to work.

I have no comment to make.

Marking the Way

 I have written before about how The Curate and I like to buy art and craft work that we both feel has some connection with our lives. When we moved to this parish  we could not find anything that spoke to us about the moor so we ended up buying Shirley the Sheep for our garden. She has graced the bottom of our garden and turned many a visitor's head when they spot her there.
Yesterday The Curate and I stopped at a craft workshop in a remote part of the moor and came across the work of  Richard Glass. His work is usually brightly coloured but he has also made a range of glassware to reflect Dartmoor. We were both taken by this particular bowl and so we bought it. It will remind us of our time here in this parish and how much we have enjoyed living so close to Dartmoor.
It marks the point at which we can look back to when we moved here and begin to look forward to where we might be going. By coming here, both The Curate and I have learned a lot about ourselves and about what being an Anglican vicar can involve. I hope to write more about this in a later blog but for now, we will enjoy our new bowl and take each day as it comes.

When photography becomes art at the flick of a switch!

 Oh Wow! I have just discovered that my camera is an artist! 
I can take a photograph like this one: -

then I can change the setting and take the same view and it turns into a multicoloured sunny day!

A bleak day on Dartmoor

As the light on Dartmoor often makes my photos rather dark, I'm going to have fun with this setting. I wonder what the sheep will look like?! Watch this space.

Photographs - precious memories

Recently I have read a couple of blogs about photographs and photography. In This life wrote about the world's worst photographs and I have posted one of my unintentional worst photos here- My Toes! A reminder of summer. I had thought my camera was damaged and so I was trying a few shots while lying on the beach. The damage was as I thought, it was focusing close up and not at  distance. I just happened to have my toes in the way! I have lots of other photos which I have taken by accident and have no idea what they are,

like this one:-                      

and this:-
I also seem to have a lot of animal bottoms - sheep , horses and dogs, who turn and walk away just as I am lining up my shot. I decided they did not need posting here! The joy of digital photography means that these photographs are usually deleted. 
My son returned from Nepal with lovely photographs a few years back. There is a series of blurred photographs that I am glad he did not delete because of the story they tell. 

Can you see who is up a tree?

Can you see why they are all up trees?

The Other Me blog writes about the demise of Kodak. We all grew up with rolls of film and simple cameras that recorded our lives. Now digital photography means that we never have to keep a bad photograph. Many of my early photographs are fading. I expect this is due to the cheap developing that I used to send away for. This holiday The Curate and I are busy scanning old photos to preserve them, as some have got damaged in our house moves. He has also given me a small photo printer so that I can reprint the images and put them on my notice board. So in effect, things are going full circle!

Precious memories from the past.

I'm the baby!

Changing skies

 

Hail and wintry winds blow across the open moorland. Between the heavy dark clouds, shafts of sunlight cut through the air and causing the slithers of quartz in the rough granite to glisten. The darkening skies are hostile and threatening until a rainbow arcs the gloom. 

This cycle continues - dark to light - light to dark. Underneath these changing skies, life on the moor continues as resilient as ever. 

The farms nestle in valleys away from the exposed moorlands.

 

The sheep continue with their grazing uninterrupted.

And camouflaged amongst the tan and grizzled grasses, the fox hounds run to and fro, seeking the earlier laid trail.

Reminiscent, perhaps, of a George Stubbs painting.

What will 2012 hold for The Curate and I? Will it be more of the same or changing horizons? By the summer, The curate will have finished year 6 of training and he will be beginning to think about applying for jobs in year 7. We have already been discussing this next move and it unsettles me although I know that the next move should be easier. We do not have a ' wish list' and so remain open to go where ever God calls us. (But having no well planned route seems a little scary to me right at this moment.) 

New Year Celebrations cause Collie Wobbles!

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR !                                            New Year's Eve was certainly celebrated with a bang in our area. We had fireworks going off intermittently  from around  6.o'clock. The Curate and I intended having a quiet night together as he had landed the early service plus rural morning service the next day. Now I know - 'quiet' wasn't going to be very likely and the fireworks  do seem to have got louder and louder every year.  In previous years we have put the dogs in the back of the car and driven around until the fireworks were over.                        I had prepared The Collie for the evening by giving him a good walk and we had pheromones wafting around the room from a room defuser from early on in the evening. These are suppose to calm and relax your dog. (Shame they don't work on humans!) Both The Lakeland and The Collie were suitably laid back until the first random bang. The Collie started panting and scratching the floor. He tried to hide under the settee or any tight corner he can get into. Squirts of pheromone spray into the air didn't live up to its claim of being 'the secret to a happy dog'! Eventually a very unhappy dog climbed up onto an equally unhappyThe Curate but still he didn't really settle.

Now The Lakeland slept through all this - she is either deaf or too old and experienced to be bothered by a bit of a bang. Only when she noticed that The Collie was being allowed to climb onto the settee, did she decide that she ought to be included. So I ended up squashed by a couple of dogs - a very cosy New year's Eve!

It surprises me that the dogs sat and watched the London fireworks, The Edinburgh fireworks, The Moscow  Fireworks and all the others featured on the midnight news, without flinching. We settled them down after this and headed for bed - only for someone, somewhere, to remember they had fireworks too and at 12.50, they set them off and set off our dog all over again.....It seemed a very long night and a very tired Curate for the early service!  

Do you have the solution to firework fearing dogs? We would appreciate any advice!

The Collie (who looks bolder than he is).

A short walk to the top of Little Staple Tor on a windy day.

 We managed a short walk after Christmas - before the awful wind and rain that we have now, set in. Staple Tor is a favourite, as it is close to home and it is a very short, easy walk. It takes you up to 420 metres above sea level and you can see the coast from the top.

The view from the top is always worth the walk.

 The ponies were already tucked into the rocks at the top, sheltering from the cold winds. It was as if they had been stabled there.

The Lakeland has a quick chat with the ponies.

A bad hair day!

On a clear day, there is a view to be enjoyed everywhere you look.

And The Curate probably forgot to look because he was playing with his new Christmas present - a GPS.

Where am I?