On childhood terror and adult bravery.

There is a hidden island of paradise in my town, a strange and empty area forgotten by civilisation, where growing out of abandoned cans and microwaves the ferns and mosses have reclaimed what is rightfully theirs.  

My town used to be a bustling hub with markets, shops and a soul and we used to be connected to the rest of civilisation by a real life railway.  But then life dried-up; the markets stopped, the shops got boarded up and the people moved away.  Eventually the railway was also closed and the metal tracks were taken to the places that deserved them more than we did.  The station was abandoned and the tunnels fell into disrepair.

The plants reclaimed our damage but you have to earn the right to see their work.

As a child these tunnels terrified me.  They are dark and dank and no matter what the weather is like, a cold breeze always seeps out.  On either side of the tunnel there are strange gaps for the people of history to escape the path of the train if there was not enough time to leave the tunnel.  I used to believe I could hear them whispering from within the dark alcoves.

My mother would stride through, holding mine and my brother's damp paws as we pressed into her coat, the dogs following closely behind.  We knew that the forest on the other side was worth the fear of the eyes and ears trapped in the tunnels.

That was the tunnel on the left.  The tunnel on the right we never went in.  We weren't that stupid; twice the length of the left tunnel, it bends in the middle and you can see no light at the far end.  Without any light who could guess what manner of beings inhabit it or predict whether you might ever leave.

But this year we did it.  My mother, James and I (and two cowardly dogs) made it through alive...

...and it was beautiful.  Well done you plants.

My photo-a-day 365 project.

In 2011 I embarked on a photo-a-day project with my shiny new point-and-shoot, the Canon Powershot.  I knew very little about photography aside from the rule of thirds and how to take very unattractive pictures of sweaty friends in clubs, but I had endless enthusiasm (and an ongoing desire to procrastinate from revision).

I loved having a reason to take pictures every day, to appreciate the small things in my house and life.  Some of my pictures were horrendous and some were the first photos I have ever felt proud of.  But most of all I learnt - I learnt about angles and colours, the use of flash, the use of lines and how even the most mundane household object has an interesting angle.  

I am not going to do this project again (a few memories of sitting up in bed in the wee hours thinking oh my gosh I forgot to take a picture promptly followed by desperately trying to make an unwanted cup of tea look artistic keep me certain of this decision) however for furthering my skills, I could not have done anything of more value.

Now I have a posh camera, I have a vague understanding of what is meant by f-stop and I have dabbled in the world of manual settings but nothing has taught me as much as actually forcing myself to take something novel every single day.

Have any of you done a 365 project before?  I'd love it if you could link it to me!

A slightly lazy post.

I have so many things I wanted to share today (including the world's best post-it notes) but sadly it will all have to wait for another day.  See, after hours and hours of work and preparation, my dissertation project proposal has been rejected at the last possible hour.  I am now required to do two months worth of work in a week in order to meet the submission deadline, urgh.  So I can only treat you to a lazy post today instead of the one I had planned; this is one that has been on the back burner for such an occasion.

These are the pictures I took on my Diana Mini camera whilst visiting my Nonna over the summer.  The top picture is in the olive grove that my Nonna and Nonno planted when they first moved to Umbria, now inherited by my Aunt.  Each autumn they hand pick every olive then take them to a local press, resulting in the most incredible, peppery olive oil I have ever tasted.  The rest of the photographs were taken in my Nonna's new town, during our many explorations to drink coffee or beer or eat mountains of gelato.

Getting these back from the chemist was wonderful; that moment of not knowing what the package might hold and then finding memories that weren't present in the clean, crisp photographs of the digital camera.  Somehow these have captured the dream like magic of the summer perfectly.

So folks, thank you for bearing with me on this one and hopefully after this weekend I will have made up for some lost time and can return to normality.  For now though I am going to make myself some strong coffee...hope you all have lovely weekends :)

Plans forgotten.

I had a different post planned for today but instead my wonderful family drove all the way to visit for a single night and all plans were forgotten.  

Thank you wonderful family for a magical weekend.

Taking a walk on the wild side.

I love reading Elise Blaha's photo walk posts so I decided that it would be fun to do one of my very own.  Considering how beautiful Somerset was looking, the theme I chose could not have been anything other than Flora!  I hope you enjoy joining me on my walk...

The imaginary butterfly collector.

When I was little I wanted to have a house that was filled with dusty drawers of butterflies and rare beetles like in the museums.  I wanted to wear all white and to catch them in nets whilst adventuring in dark jungles and write the Latin name underneath them in cool, swirly handwriting.  One year, whilst visiting my Nonna and Nonno in Italy, I captured a scorpion.  It wasn't huge but it was black, shiny and evil looking.  I carefully put him in a petri-dish that I found in one of the jumbled cupboards in my Nonno's study,  I taped it shut and put him deep into my backpack to bring back to England as the first in my collection.  When I got home he remained in his petri-dish tomb, forgotten in a draw filled with the junk of an eleven year old.  Maybe six months or maybe a year later, I don't remember, I dug him out to show a friend.  As I lifted the lid off of the dish and his dagger tail flicked straight up.  It was totally alive!  Thank gosh my mum came up and squished him flat.  

After that I decided against collecting bugs.  

So, imagine dusty drawers if you will, here are the creatures I collected this week.

Adventuring with waterfalls.

This weekend we went on a mini adventure.  You might almost be fooled into thinking we were somewhere jungly, exotic and exciting, not just the Welsh Valleys.  Despite fairly epic collective hangover as a result of the 'Birthday Olympics' (soon to be making an appearance) it was a wonderful walk with wonderful friends.  I actually felt quite romantic about how perfect life could be, until the boys spent an hour climbing trees then the rest of the walk complaining about the mud/moss on their jeans. 

The walk follows the river through a valley and uncovers four waterfalls, the final one you can actually walk behind (although I do not have photographic evidence to prove this as it really is quite wet back there).  Everyone in Britain should make the pilgrimage to the Brecon Beacons.

In the secret garden.

My mother has a near magical ability with plants.

I finally got to visit home for the first time since exams and I felt a bit blown away.  When my family moved home a couple summers ago, both the garden and the house were in a horrendous state.  Whilst the house was rat infested and rotten, the garden had been used by the previous tenants as a junk yard.  What with the scrap metal, broken glass and huge burnt patches nothing but 6 foot nettles seemed to grow!

Now it is filled with Poppies, Foxgloves, Aliums and a crazy amount of bees!  There is even a small patch of lawn.  Of course you can't mention how wonderful it looks without hearing about how much is still left to do...Well, it certainly puts the paltry efforts on my windowsill to shame.  

(Apologies - this is a little picture heavy.  Really you should be pleased I managed to narrow it down from the 200+ pictures I took.  It was tough.)