Flowering Currant
Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Settings: f/5 – 1/250 s – ISO 200, f/5 – 1/800 s – ISO 200 and f/4 – 1/400 s – ISO 100.
Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Hope
Cee’s Flower of the Day
sea of daffodils
the green tick in your window
tells us you’re OK
© Xenia Tran
Across the Highlands community groups are doing their best to look after the most vulnerable among us, as Covid-19 is spreading here too. In the village of Ballachulish every household received flags for display in their window or front door. A green tick means you’re healthy and able to go about your business, a red cross means you’re not so well and need help. Volunteers monitor the displays and arrange assistance where it is needed.
We’re delighted that this haiku is featured in Haiku Dialogue: The Haiku Mind – Signs of Spring, Troutswirl, The Haiku Foundation Blog, 25 March 2020. A very big thank you to guest editor Tia Haynes and post manager Lori Zajkowski for putting this edition together.
Wishing you a blessed Sunday and may you all stay safe and well,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Settings: f/5 – 1/400 s – ISO 200 and f/3.5 – 1/800 s – ISO 160.
Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Connect
Cee’s Flower of the Day
Frank J Tassone’s Weekly Haikai Challenge #132: Covid-19
I am very grateful for all the amazing work the health service and everyone else who is making a positive difference is currently doing.
Following the example of Spain, France, The Netherlands and India, the UK is now organising a #clapforourcarers event on Thursday 26th March at 8pm where we can show our appreciation with a massive round of applause. You can clap your hands on your doorstep, balcony or indoors and share it online through social media.
Hoping you all stay safe and well,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/3.5 – 1/100 s – ISO 200, f/4 – 1/50 – ISO 200 and f/3.5 – 1/125 s – ISO 100.
Cee’s Flower of the Day
Rag Tag Daily Prompt: Hang On
Your Daily Word Prompt: Bearing
We are taking a short blogging break and will be back on Wednesday 11th March 2020.
Wishing you all a blessed Wednesday and a wonderful week ahead,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/3.5 – 1/320 s – ISO 100, f/3.5 – 1/500 s – ISO 100 and f/3.5 – 1/250 s – ISO 100.
Sunshine’s Macro Monday #31
Cee’s Flower of the Day
This tiny flower has appeared in our garden and might have come from a wind-blown seed. An internet search tells me it is called Mathiola Incana Alba. I hope she stays around for a while!
Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/3.5 – 1/100 s – ISO 200 and f/3.5 – 1/125 s – ISO 125.
Sunshine’s Macro Monday #29
Cee’s Flower of the Day
Viburnum
Wishing you all a magical Wednesday and a wonderful rest of the week,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Settings: f/3.5 – 1/160 s – ISO 100 and f/3.5 – 1/125 s – ISO 100.
Sunshine’s Macro Monday #27
Cee’s Flower of the Day
Rag Tag Daily Prompt: Magic
Looking back at our tenth year in the Scottish Highlands we are once more so humbled by the beauty of nature and grateful to share a few favourite moments from the places we love.
We have enjoyed our walks along the river, the pond and the shores along the Moray Coast. It was early January, when the last grown up cygnets flew the river nest and began the next stage of their journey. The pond swans were fortunate to have cygnets again this year, with one them surviving into adulthood. The river has been abundant with wildlife, with merganser, heron, redshank, goosander, and a record number of ducks. The mild Autumn brought a second wave of ducklings, who are still thriving today. We’ve seen many migrating birds pass our shores, especially geese, greenshank and dunlin. In the forests, we enjoyed peaceful encounters with raven, each of them inspiring a poem.
Raven’s Call became our most popular wildlife post of the year. A few other popular posts featuring wildlife were Summer Cygnets and Autumn Equinox featuring the pond swans, Two Herons and Mountain Frog.
With our mild Winter and plenty of rain during the Spring and Summer, 2019 was a good year for flowers, bumblebees and butterflies. The mild Autumn that followed saw many flowers bloom for a second time.
Hoarfrost became our most popular post featuring macro photography, posted late November after our first overnight frost. Flowers in the Detail, Fuzzy Blue and Cuckoo Flower also feature in the top ten posts for this year.
With the weather so much kinder than in 2018, we were able to travel North and West a few times. The beautiful landscape inspired many poems. In addition to haiku, haibun and tanka I revisited the villanelle and experimented with the lai nouveau and rubaiyat.
Our most popular post on the blog Fragrant Breeze was inspired by the wonderful landscape of Assynt in the Spring. Five other scenic posts feature in the top ten for the year, including Loch Broom, Forest Lake and Where Ducks Fly. We were delighted when our photographic post Castle in the Rain inspired a poem by a fellow blogger in Castle Ardvreck.
We want to say a very big thank you to all of you who take the time to visit and comment on our blog and to those of you who share your experiences through your own posts, photographs and poems. You are all an enormous inspiration and help make this world a better place.
A very big thank you too to all the lovely bloggers who host regular prompts and challenges. With so many photographs and impressions to chose from it’s a great help in finding a focus or different angle from which to approach a subject.
We look forward to what 2020 holds in store and wish you all a great start to the New Year. May this new decade bring new understanding and greater care for our natural world with increased compassion and peace among human beings.
You can see the 2019 highlights from our sister blog Whippet Wisdom in
2019: Favourite Moments Through the Seasons.
Wishing you all a Happy Hogmanay,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge #77: Favorite Photos of 2019
