Skies

Most of the time, if I'm stopping to take a picture of a nice landscape, I'll stop and take a picture of the sky too. I find skies particularly pretty. There is so much variation, and you never see two skies that are the same.

Below:

- Starry night sky at holiday cottage

- Fair weather over Blythburgh

- Southwold (or thereabouts) getting a soaking

- Cloudy sunset at holiday cottage

Marsh Harriers

During our holiday in Suffolk, we visited a large amount of nature reserves and marshland. Almost every time we visited one of these places, we would see Marsh Harriers. We also saw them very close to the cottage we were staying in at the time, and would sometimes hear a pair calling.

Since we only really saw these birds as distant flying blobs, I don't really have any award-winning photos. However, the ones I do have give a vague idea of what the bird looks like from below.

The first picture is a male, as you can tell from the white patches on the underside of his wings.

The second pictures is a female. The female is a much darker bird, but with a pale forehead.

Dragonflies

Due to being away, being busy, and then being somewhat distracted, my blog seems to have been rather neglected of late. So, today, I have made myself a cup of tea, and now I am going to blog.

Now, onto the post!

Whilst I was away, during the first two weeks of the summer holidays, we went for a fair few walks around nature reserves. We found that most of these areas were heavily populated with dragonflies and damselflies. These were two of the main things I took (or attempted to take) photos of, and I developed a certain interest in them. After buying a little fold-up guide to dragonflies, I am now successfully on the way to calling myself a Dragonfly Geek.

Below are a female Common Darter, a Blue-Tailed Damselfly, and a male Common Darter.

Making Music

I've played acoustic guitar since primary school, and have managed to keep it up. I started learning classical guitar in Year 7, and despite the fact I should practise a lot more, am trawling through Grade 5 (which I might even be ready to do the exam for, one day) and I think I'm certainly improving, little by little.

As well as classical, I've always enjoyed casually strumming a few chords and singing along to various songs. Occasionally, me and a friend of mine (called Renee) record the odd cover here

and there and upload to Youtube, with the band name 'Ruthless Mindz'. Since there are only two of us, it's all acoustic, and it's all recorded with a pretty bad microphone- but, here are a few link to a couple of songs we've covered anyway:

The Importance of Being Idle by Oasis

Just Tonight by The Pretty Reckless

We're trying to form a full band with a couple of other friends, but it's not going particularly well. We go to different schools, and have nowhere to practise together. On top of that, our drummer doesn't really have access to his drum kit.

Oh well, maybe one day we'll get our act together, stay tuned!

Neither of us have a massive knowledge of music theory, and we haven't managed to string together any original songs as of yet, but we're trying our best!

I was also given a photo shoot voucher as a Christmas present, and did a shoot with RLS Arts for the band. Here is one of the results, and if you want to see anything else about the two of us you can look at our Facebook and Youtube accounts.

Introductions and Apple Toast

Good Afternoon, Bloggers!

I used to have blogs, but every time I make one it just seems to fall to the back of my mind and never get posted on. Now, however, I think I have some motivation, and have been urged to make a blog by my good friend Steph, and my Mum (both blogs definitely worth a look). I intend to share news and creative pursuits, and sometimes thoughts that simply come to mind.

As a person, I'd say I have a rather large sense of adventure, and I love to be spontaneous and experiment. Speaking of my experimental nature, I love to experiment with food, trying unusual combinations. Although I do have some drastic failures, sometimes some really nice things can come out of it.

One of the more successful ideas would be Apple Toast.

Something that's definitely not an original idea, but people seem to think is rather strange. Trust me when I say that it makes a pretty tasty breakfast or after-dinner snack, and it only takes a couple of minutes to make - it's literally just stewed bramley apples on toast, with sugar and cinnamon- and it looks a bit like this:

Taken with my trusty camera (Canon Powershot SX220 HS) it probably gives you a good idea of why I love apple toast. I almost want to make some more right now...

Anyway, this brings me on to another of my hobbies, photography. I don't own an SLR, because I like to take spur-of-the-moment pictures, and having to faff around changing lenses just isn't practical for that. Maybe by using a compact I lose some of the quality in pictures, but I really like my camera and have always been happy with what I achieve with it. It certainly takes excellent pictures for a compact!

Thanks for reading, I will update as soon as something you might find interesting pops into my head. Follow or comment if you're interested, and I will be happy to follow back!

- Megan