miss marie's miscellany

1st

I thought an advent calendar of posts would be good;  a mixture of favourite older photos and new ones, and some festive thoughts too in the run-up to Christmas.

So I'll start with some sunshine. This is a view across the park near where I live, taken on a winter's afternoon as the sun was setting.

 

Yucky weather

We have been experiencing some turbulence here at the moment; gale force winds and torrential rain. I'm commuting to Edinburgh at the moment and the driving conditions have been horrible, pretty scary. But today, although it's still breezy, for the first time in ages there are blue skies and sunshine

 

It's such a lift to the spirits.

 As is this,

 

spotted in the garden today. What a treat to find something growing when winter is so close. 

A short post today, but I just thought I'd pop in and say hello!

 
 

Pleasing things

Leaves on the grass. Next door's cherry tree is shedding its red-brown leaves, and I will rake them up and bag them to make leaf mould, a treat for the garden soil next year.

 

Breakfast berries; my favourites, blackberries and blueberries.

The sun shining in through the window, and the shadows cast by the wisteria outside.

And a TV pleasure! Tonight I'll be watching the final of Masterchef: The Professionals. I'm a Masterchef addict, I love it  in all its guises, be it professional cook, ordinary bloke or celebrity; I really enjoy seeing the good (and bad) food made by the contestants, and I love the colourful, flavoursome and sometimes over-the-top comments from the judges. I don't have a favourite to be the winner, I'm just going to settle down and enjoy whatever happens!

September Sun

A lovely day in the garden.

I love this hydrangea which looks at its very best at this time of year.

There are still touches of colour, flowers, leaves, berries topped off with a blue,blue sky

These sunny days are getting few and far between now, so I try to cherish them, so I can store up that sunshine feeling for when winter comes.

Enjoy your sunny moments this week!

View from the castle window

Blue sky Sunday at Linlithgow Palace.

July collages

It's been a lovely month, holidays, flowers galore in the garden, happy times spent with people dear to me. So many photos too; I counted them up, 650 photos, phew! So after much deliberation, here's the best of my July.

The ever-changing weather

The weather has me and everyone else guessing every day at the moment. This was the view from the window yesterday;

Definitely a stay at home day.....and this is today;

Definitelyl a get out in the sun while it lasts kind of day. 

Sunset and stained glass

Another beautiful late evening sky. I took this on Wednesday night at 11pm when the temperature was still an amazing 23 degrees. 

The weather has been so good, hot, hot, hot! Let's hope it carries on for a good summer, unlike last year's washout. 

I'm writing this post at my dad's house in Liverpool. There is some beautiful stained glass in his house,

where I and my siblings grew up, so we tend to not look at it as 

appreciatively as we might; 

it's just part of the fabric of the house 

But it is lovely, catching the light and filling the house with colour.

 

We are travelling to the Yorkshire Dales today for a week's holiday, can't wait! I hope I'll still be online and able to post, as we have lots of lovely outings and treats planned; but just in case I disappear for a bit, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has visited my blog and left kind and encouraging comments. I really appreciate you stopping by and your kind words, and I'm glad you're enjoying my photos and thoughts. 

Bright and beautiful

Lovely summer colours today. The weather has been wonderful this week, perfect summer climes....let's cross fingers that it will continue like this for a while. I like feeling the sun warming my bones!  It's doing the garden too

Red anemone.......I planted a pot of these so I hope for more red and blue ones soon

This wildflower is such a vivid shade of orange, like  glowing embers

This lovely delphinium is coming into its own this week

I wish you could bottle that sunshine feeling!

Sunset

It was a gorgeous hot day here in Glasgow on Tuesday (and yesterday too!).  And after such a day, what better ending than a glorious sunset.