First strawberries of the season. Nothing more required. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Advertisements
Silent Sunday
spring
The Changing Seasons: October, 2017
Nature’s kaleidoscope. Thyme flowers, seen from above. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
October felt like a month in which I’ve been merely a visitor.
True, I made trips to my dad’s in Whanganui and to Melbourne with the Big T. But even at home in my garden, I’ve watched nature get on with the job of regenerating after winter, while I’ve simply observed.
New growth on the Kowhai tree. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
The first fruit. Plums forming after the blossom has fallen. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
New leaves on the grapevine. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
New leaves on the grapevine, take 2. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Orange fruit forming inside the flower. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Somewhere under the clouds; Mt Ruapehu. From the Desert Road. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
The Waikato River at Huka Falls, Taupo. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
River in flood. The Waikato River at Huka Falls, Taupo. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Mt Ngaruahoe, from the Desert Road. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Who doesn’t love alpacas? Seen near Taihape, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Sunset, St Kilda Beach, Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
A little bit of outback, Diggers Rest, Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Luna Park entrance. St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Jetty at Barwon, Victoria, Australia. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Detail, Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial (sculptor, Peter Corlett),, Gasworks Park, Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Lemnos Gallipoli Memorial (sculptor, Peter Corlett), Gasworks Park, Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Bar with a view, Koru Club Lounge, Auckland Airport. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
A city as the sun goes down. Melbourne’s South Bank from Seafarers Bridge. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
The Changing Seasons is a blogging challenge hosted by Cardinal Guzman with two versions: the original (V1) which is purely photographic and the new version (V2) where you can allow yourself to be more artistic and post a painting, a recipe, a digital manipulation, or simply just one photo that you think represents the month.
These are the rules, but they’re not written in stone – you can always improvise, mix & match to suit your own liking:
The Changing Seasons V1:
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery.
Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
The Changing Seasons V2:
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month, post one photo (recipe, painting, drawing, whatever) that represents your interpretation of the month.
Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
Regular random: five minutes with some lavender, a bee and the hope of new beginnings
Lavender lunch. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Lavender lunch. Image: Su Leslie
Coming in to land. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Lavender lunch. Image: Su Leslie
Lavender lunch. Image: Su Leslie
Lavender lunch. Image: Su Leslie
The images for this week’s Five Minutes of Random (the #RegularRandom challenge) were all shot at Savage Memorial Park on Bastion Point in Auckland.
Savage Memorial is the burial place and monument to Michael Joseph Savage, New Zealand’s first Labour Prime Minister — and one of the country’s best loved leaders. He died in office in 1940, having led the government that established our country’s welfare state — now largely dismantled by successive neo-liberal governments.
Tomorrow there will be a general election in New Zealand. Growing inequality, increasing poverty, declining child health and the highest youth suicide rate in the developed world are all issues that have come to the fore in this campaign, and there is real hope that by tomorrow evening we may have a new government. One committed to the values of compassion and justice that informed Savage’s Labour government in the 1930s.
Spring is, after all, the season of hope.
Five Minutes of Random (the #RegularRandom challenge) is hosted by Desley Jane at Musings of a Frequently Flying Scientist.
If you’d like to join in:
- choose a subject or a scene
- spend five minutes photographing it – no more!
- try to see it from many angles, look through something at it, change the light that’s hitting it
- tag your post #regularrandom and ping back to Desley’s post
- have fun!
Wordless Wednesday
Sign of spring; first leaves and buds on fig tree. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Silent Sunday
Viburnum. Seen at Auckland Botanic Gardens. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Wordless Wednesday
The first blossom. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Signs of spring. The first flowers on our plum tree this season. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Signs of spring, take 2. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
The Changing Seasons, October 2016
Perched on a rock above the Tasman Sea, one of the colony of gannets currently nesting at Muriwai, New Zealand. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Perhaps it’s the improving weather, but October has definitely been a more active month than I’ve had recently — dodgy knee notwithstanding.
Early morning, Greenhithe Wharf. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Although there has been plenty of rain, it has seemed less relentless and the lowering cloud formations have often been photo-worthy.
A quiet afternoon at Otarawao Bay, Mahurangi Regional Park, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Under the gathering clouds. Mt Ruapehu from the Desert Road, Central North Island, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
I’ve managed to escape the city a few times this month; for a couple of afternoons exploring local(ish) beaches, and a road-trip to Whanganui to visit my dad and do a glass-art workshop.
Mahuia Rapids, with Mt Ruapehu in the background. Tongariro National Park, North Island, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
There are plenty of signs that spring is truly here; baby ducklings seen at Otarawao Bay, and nesting gannets at the Muriwai gannet colony.
Family outing, Otarawao Bay, Mahurangi Regional Park, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Nesting gannets, Muriwai gannet colony, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
I love glass as an art-form and have long wanted to try my hand at some sort of creative glass-based activity.
Whanganui-based artist David Traub runs one day workshops in glass slumping and fusing — both techniques within the capabilities of beginners.
Over the course of the day, we made two brooches/pendants, two slumped bowls and a glass tile.
Before. Making a fused glass tile was a total pitch in the dark. We laid coloured glass pieces into a mould lined with kiln paper, having no real idea how it would look when the glass rods and shards melted in the kiln. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
After. Quietly pleased with the result. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Decorated glass disk ready for the kiln. This will slump over the mould and become a very handy little bowl. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
The pendants aren’t quite finished — I have to glue on the bails, but the bowls have already been put to use. One of the advantages of the improving weather being that the Big T and I can enjoy a beer outdoors while bemoaning the size of the lawn we have to mow (ok, he generally does it), and planning our escape from wrong-sized living.
Perfect for holding pre-dinner snacks. Slumped glass bowls, decorated with glass powders. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
This post is my contribution to The Changing Seasons, a monthly challenge hosted by Cardinal Guzman. Please visit to see the Cardinal’s month, and find links to other participants.
There are two versions of the challenge:
Version 1 (The Changing Seasons V1):
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery.
Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
Version 2 (The Changing Seasons V2):
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month, post one photo (recipe, painting, drawing, whatever) that represents your interpretation of the month.
Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
