Ruby Tuesday Rose Hips

This is what's left of those shiny red rose hips after the winter ...
Counting the days till Spring now ...


Find more Ruby Tuesday players here.

Macro Monday Mother Nature's Lace

It looks like I'm not the only one making lace around here ....


Mother Nature added a little frosting ...

to make it look even more enchanting ...


Find more Macro Pictures at Lisa's Chaos.

Things I Want to Do Today ... + UPDATE

There is a promise for a bright sunny day in the sky today.
The kind of day that makes my energy flow.
A day like that makes me yearn for Spring.
I think I might be in the mood for a little bit of Spring cleaning on my patio.
Clean the windows, get rid of dead plants and dry remnants.
I know it's probably much too early, but maybe I could go to the market and see if I can find some flowering plants?
Winter Violets or Hyacinths or something, ... ANYthing!
A little splash of colour to brighten up this depressing view from my kitchen window?
I want Spring!!!
And I want it now!


We'll see ...
Maybe I'll update with a picture later today.
But this is how it looks now, and I've had enough of it!
I'm off to get some work done!

UPDATE!


I know you'll think I have all my priorities wrong. While my Christmas tree is still up inside, I have this urgent need to create a little "welcome-to-Spring" look outside.
It's the end of January, I know, but I could not resist.
I can take my tree down any time next week I guess.
The sun and the crisp fresh air tempted me to get outside and clean up the Winter muck, leaves and dead plants cluttering my patio.
The sunshine did not last, but it lasted long enough to get the job done.
Mind you, it was cold. I had to wear woollen gloves underneath my garden gloves, long john's and a body warmer, but I could not care less.
I'm tired and my back aches but I'm glad I saw it through.
It's clean and tidy again and the Primula's I bought add just enough colour to create an illusion of Spring in January ...

Weekly Winners Snow is Falling

Discover Chris de Burgh!

Click on the button of the radio above to hear the song " Snow is falling" by Chris de Burgh.
The lyrics are from this song written by him, and I picked some pictures from our photo walk from last week to go with it. BUT I think you really need to hear the music as well.
The warmth of Chris's voice and the music completes this, without it this post might look very cold, and that's not what I wanted.

Snow is falling, snow is falling on the ground,
In the forest, in the forest there's no sound;
A shallow grave is where we lie,

The boys and men who died,
And snow is falling on the ground,
And we are calling to be found;

And the seasons, and the seasons come and go,
In the springtime, birds will sing and flowers grow,
At summer's end, the autumn breeze,

Will whisper through the trees,
And leaves are falling on the ground,
And we are calling to be found;

And in our homes, so many tears,
They don't know where we have gone,
And snow is falling on the ground,

And we are calling to be found,
We are calling to be found......

Find more Weekly Winners at Sarcastic Mom's the homeblog of Weekly Winners.

Weekly Winners A Photo Walk in the Snow

It's Sunday again, time to share my favourite pictures of the week.
Today I'm taking you on a tour in the village where I live.

Tuesday was a clear, bright and sunny day.

Blue skies are a real treat in Belgium,

so is snow.
We have not had any real snow in years.

It was a perfect day for a photo walk along the canal.

It was so quiet,

peaceful

and cold...
Even the sea gulls looked cold!

View from the bridge.

The marina

and the boats.

The snow made even boring things look interesting...

Message in a bottle?

Click on the banner or here to see other player's favourite pictures of the week.

Birds of a Feather

It's been a very very cold week this week.
But it has it's advantages.
The bird feeder on my patio seems to attract a lot more visitors lately.
Do you remember the jackdaw that visited me the other day?




I think he has a girlfriend.
He invited her to feast on the suet balls with him.



Aren't they adorable?
They say they're bad luck, but I don't believe that.
That's just because they're black, right? Anyway, they're more than welcome here.
I stocked up on more suet balls and peanut garlands yesterday.
It's great to have birds visiting my patio, and it's good to know that I actually can take pictures through the window. They seem to come out reasonably well.

While writing this, I got visits from the robin and the blackbird as well.
More pictures to come! Yoohoo!! I love it!

Ruby Tuesday More Pictures from Bruges

I saved a couple of pictures from Bruges for this Ruby Tuesday post.
Remember the tiny street where my bike got stolen?
I posted it in my Weekly Winners on Sunday.
If you want to see more pictures of Bruges, this link will take you to this post.

This house is across the street from the small alley where I used to park my bike every day.
I used to look at this house from inside the shop I where I worked when I was eighteen.
I don't remember that it was painted ruby back then.
It most probably wasn't, I like it better how it is now.

No rubies here? Oh yes there are, look at the garlands on the left. See?


I love how the red reflects in the water of the canal.
Those people are waiting for the next boat to arrive to take a boat trip along the canals.

The minute I saw this, I knew this was a Ruby Tuesday picture.
I'm still having so much fun looking for Rubies each week!

If you want to see more Ruby Tuesday posts,
visit Mary the teach at Work of the Poet.

And this is my Photo of the Day 2009.
If you live in Canada or Alaska it's probably not a big deal, but here in Belgium we're not used to getting much snow. If we do get some, it's usually gone by the end of the day.
But not today. It's very very cold here, and it looks like the snow will be here a little while longer. It's the coldest winter in years.

I'm not sure if I got the white balance right on this one.
Up until now I used to shoot most of my pictures in auto mode.
But now I'm challenging myself to switch to manual settings in order to get to know my camera a little better every day. That's why I joined this challenge, by the way.
But I tend to forget to change the settings every once in a while ...

Home for Christmas

Christmas is family ...
Well ... not for us, not this year anyway. Christmas was just the two of us this year.
We will be celebrating and exchange gifts in January when my family gets together at my daughter's house. I'm looking forward to this, I am.

Up until now, I have never had the chance to enjoy a relaxed Christmas.
The previous years when I still had my own shop - or later when I worked in one - the last couple of days before Christmas were always extremely busy.
By the time I finished working and got home, I was exhausted.
Too tired to bother about spending much time shopping for food, let alone cook it.
This year, for the first time in many, I was not part of the rat race, uh-uh!
I observed the folly from my kitchen window.
The congested parking lot and crowded shops full of nervous people trying to finish their last minute shopping ...
This time around, I was merely a spectator and I loved every minute of it!
By doing my grocery shopping early Tuesday morning I got first pick and I was out of there before the crowds arrived. No shopping list for me, I love to just stroll around the supermarket and choose my ingredients, inventing recipes and making up the menu as I go along.


Going through the same department three times if I have to, just to find the right things.
I take pleasure in shopping that way. It drives my husband crazy, so I went alone and took my time. No stress at all. In fact, this is real bliss for a foodie like me!


Once I got home, I put the goodies on the kitchen counter, took a note pad and sat down to write some recipes and ideas that had crossed my mind when I was doing my shopping.


Stuffing the fridge with all these delicacies gave me the most comforting feeling.
Everything I would need to survive the next three days was there. Wonderful...

And then I locked myself in the kitchen for the next two days making up all kinds of little dishes with the ingredients I had bought. How I love to do that! I think it's fun to use the same ingredient in a different way the next day. And I absolutely adore making pretty presentations on the plate.
I had fun. Can you tell?

Sepia Scenes

This picture was taken last Sunday.
It is a view at "Kasteel van Zwijnaarde"
the restaurant where he had a delicious brunch.

I used PhotoScape to add sepia to this picture.


Click here to see more Sepia Scenes pictures.

Weekly Winners, Inside and Out ...

Most of this week's pictures have to do with my project in lace I spent quite a lot of time on.
My kitchen is my workspace...

 

But before I could get started I had to sort out my tools and  my materials...

I got some roses too ...
I keep them there so I can look a them ...

While I was busy inside ...
I noticed that some of the flowering plants on my patio still had not given up on me ...

Is it Spring yet?

 

Click on the banner to visit the other Weekly Winners players of this week.