7 photos 7 days Challenge: Day 3

“Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day”. I was challenged by Rebel Guy.  This is not as easy as it seems. Photos that tell of your life without people is not as easy as it sounds. For those that know me let me know if you think the photo tells of me for those that don’t know me so well let me know what you think I am trying to pass on about my life.

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© irene waters 2017

If anybody would like to take up the challenge please let me know and I will link to you.

Posted in 5 photos 5 days, Memoir, photography | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Water: Tuesdays of Texture

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© irene waters 2017

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© irene waters 2017

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© irene waters 2017

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© irene waters 2017

Rain falls,  rivers rise

Water lies, grass greens, mozzies pounce

Life’s texture: bliss

Posted in haiku, Noosa, photography | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Flash Fiction Rodeo #6

Up for a challenge. This one sounds a doozy – get your spurs out and join in.

Posted in photography | 3 Comments

7 photos 7 days Challenge: Day 2

“Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day”. I was challenged by Rebel Guy.  This is not as easy as it seems. Photos that tell of your life without people is not as easy as it sounds. For those that know me let me know if you think the photo tells of me for those that don’t know me so well let me know what you think I am trying to pass on about my life.

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© irene waters 2017

If anybody would like to take up the challenge please let me know and I will link to you.

Posted in 5 photos 5 days, Memoir, photography | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

7 Days, 7 Photos Challenge – Day 1

“Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day”. I was challenged by Rebel Guy.  This is not as easy as it seems. Photos that tell of your life without people is not as easy as it sounds. For those that know me let me know if you think the photo tells of me for those that don’t know me so well let me know what you think I am trying to pass on about my life.

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© irene waters 2017

If anybody would like to take up the challenge please let me know and I will link to you.

Posted in 5 photos 5 days, Memoir, photography | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Dare to Dream : A book Review

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The cover of this hard back version of Katherine Sinclair’s Dare to Dream does not do the book justice. If I was someone who purchased on cover alone I would have thought I was letting myself in to a romantic novel. Although there was some romance it was not the primary theme of the book and it didn’t follow genre guidelines by always ending happily. Instead this was a book that covered three continents, England, China and America and gave an insight into life in each in the 19th century.

I found the storyline intriguing. Emily Farraday, the daughter of a diplomat, finds after the marriage of her father being shipped off to finishing school. En route she is informed that her father has died and she is penniless and has to go into service at a doctor’s premises to pay her fathers debts. The Father in turn is told that his daughter has died, shot in the head by a poacher. He is presented with a body wearing his daughter’s jewellery. Emily captive in the doctor’s house meets Kane, a badly burnt and disfigured violinist who has confined himself in the cellar. Also kept captive in the cellar is a woman, Briony, whose husband has declared her insane so he can carry on affair. Together with Briony’s brother’s help  (who has been alerted by Phin,  Emily’s unknown Chinese half sister) they escape but not without having to kill another servant.  Being wanted for murder they take passage on a boat to New York. Eventually they all end up in San Francisco along with the wicked step mother Tonia. Believe me it was a good yarn.

What I did find fascinating however was the history of America. The boat’s arrival coincided with the Mexican/American war. I’m ashamed to say that I had no idea before reading this book  that California used to be part of Mexico. The descriptions of San Francisco in the 1840s were vivid. It was a social history of a place that I had not previously read anything about and I found the descriptions of Chinese prostitutes kept in cages, floating stores in the harbour, the vigilantes and thugs roaming the streets and much more including the fires that ravaged the town riveting. So much so that it led me to want to know more. With the small amount of research I have done since reading the book I believe that Sinclair did her own research properly.

I had never heard of the author prior to reading this book but those of you that live in America may well have done. Sinclair is a pen name of Joan Dial who is a prolific author who writes under a number of pen names and a number of different genres. This book I would suggest is a hybrid of several genres.

Posted in Book reviews, Zach | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Weekend coffee Share 22nd October 2017

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© irene waters 2017

Welcome. Come on in. I have had the most wonderful weekend at home doing what I love best – writing, reading and gardening. Now it is time for a little company. The house is clean and tidy (well downstairs at least), the garden is looking inviting with snap dragons snapping and daisy like flowers smiling. The borders are down and I have mowed the lawn and done the edges. The new old pool pump is up and running. All you have to do is tell me what you’d like to drink. I have a bit of everything.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that I am constantly amazed at how serendipitous life can be. On Tuesday at Art Appreciation we started a unit on art glass. I’m finding it beautiful and interesting. We started with an American, Dale Chihuly. His installations are colourful, large and like entering another world. I’d love two large pieces to put outside my windows in my reading nook (but I doubt I could afford for it to happen). After learning about him we heard of him again with the Californian fires. One of the victims had a huge collection of Chihuly worth a fortune and with the heat of the fire the lot melted. I know this is a loss that is incomparable to what others have lost (including lives) but I always find it sad when art is lost to the world. The next bit of serendipity happened when I started reading my next book City of Falling Angels by John Berendt. This non-fiction book about Venice starts with the fire which destroyed the Le Fenice Opera House in 1996. More lost art but living near the fire was Archimede Seguso, a renowned Venetian glassblower who has his studio in Murano. He creates 100 pieces that records what he watched through his window as the opera house burnt to the ground. Serendipity. Increasing the layers of  the written word.

Tuesday after art appreciation we dropped in at the golf club and had some potato skins with blue cheese. Yum. The birds moved in to join us. We had a treat as it had been raining (torrential) and the course was closed so the kangaroos had moved up to the club house and taking advantage of the grass on the first tee. They are always on the course along with kangaroos, koalas and large lizards.

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© irene waters 2017

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© irene waters 2017

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© irene waters 2017

 

Friday we went to Mooloolabah to a shoe shop to see if we could get some shoes for Mum. Success which is surprising as she has such difficult feet to fit but we walked out with two pairs and very happy. A lovely lunch at Alexandra Headland finished the day. Today Muffin visited – pure bliss.

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© irene waters 2017

There is still time to enter the Carrot ranch writing competition with my competition still open until the 26th. Cahs prizes and a lot of fun. free to enter. New competitions every Tuesday and Thursday during October and can be seen at Carrot Ranch.

Now it is your turn. How was your week? Has your weather been warmer/colder, wetter/drier. Have you read any good books or seen any good films?  I finished reading Relativity and will review it sometime this week. Thank you for dropping in for coffee, it is lovely to see you. As we don’t have a host at the moment if anyone wants to leave a link to their coffee share please feel free to do so.

Posted in daily events, photography, Weekend Coffee Share | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Balmoral: Silent Sunday

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© irene waters 2017

Posted in photography, Silent Sunday | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Property Dealings: Three Line Tales

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photo by Andre Benz via Unsplash

I own this station. I bought it fair and square even if it was a bankruptcy sale. The first thing I’d do is get rid of the voice. “Mind the gap” annoyed me immensely.  Perhaps I’d charge a premium if trains wanted to stop at my station. No, I’ll swap it for Mayfair.

Thanks to Sonya for prompting three line tales.

Posted in creative writing, fiction, flash fiction | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Glow: Weekly Photo Challenge

 

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© irene waters 2017

I noticed the prompt for this week before I took the dogs out for their morning walk and when I saw this plant, seemingly glowing I had to pull out the phone and take a photo. Perfect for glowing I thought.

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© irene waters 2017

Until I thought of New Years Eve a couple of years back. We sat out on the marina in the dark waiting for the fireworks. Our glow sticks gave the only light around

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© irene waters 2017

Perfect for a prompt of glow I thought until

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© irene waters 2017

I thought that the best glow you can see is the glow of happy faces. Faces that light up

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© irene waters 2017

full of the joy they feel inside.

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© irene waters 2017

old faces and not so old,

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© irene waters 2017

faces of friends

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© irene waters 2017

and the faces of those in love.

In response to Weekly Photo Challenge

Posted in photography, Weekly photo challenge | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments