Photo a Day 131 - Blue Monday

The colour of the month in the garden is blue - we are alive with bluebells - my favourite colour and my favourite spring bulb.

And the occasional clump of even bluer Grape Hyacinth.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Blue Monday"

Photo a Day 130 - Monday Mellow Yellows

This Kerria japonica brightens up a corner of my garden. I love the little fluffy golden balls all over the stems.  Unfortunately this is the only time of the year that this shrub is attractive as for the rest of the year it is only straggly green canes.

And a close up of a flower.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Monday Mellow Yellows"

Photo a Day 129 - Floral Friday Fotos

Spring is here ! -  I tyhink. We have had a few beautiful Spring days in among the cold miserable Winter weather that seems to have gone on forever.  Now the Spring blossoms are beginning to make a show.

I love the blossoms on this flowering crabapple.

The various Viburnums are just coming into flower. I think the Viburnum is one of my favourite Spring flowering shrubs/trees

The bee seems to like this one too.

And great excitement, the new Magnolia has flowered for the first time. This one is very different from the others in shape and colour.

Liz Needle   -  linking with "Floral Friday Fotos" and "Today's Flowers".

Photo a Day 128 - Flash storm

On Wednesday we had a flash Spring thunder storm in a small part of Adelaide. I happened to be driving home and was stunned at what I saw.  So stunned in fact that I forgot I had my new camera in the car. Luckily I remembered and took these shots driving along. The traffic had slowed down so much that I was able to snap away. Lucky though that the police were busy coping with the aftermath of the storm.

At one stage the main road was flooded and we had to drive through nearly 40cm of water. The hail was really thick even when I went through an hour after the storm.

 This water is covering the footpath, gutter and most of the main road.

Hail covers the sevice station

And the road.

I guess to a lot of people this doesn't seem extreme, but in a dry state like ours it was pretty devastating with roofs collapsing with the weight of hail, houses and business premises being flooded, numerous car accidents, roads flooded  and so on.  We had more rain in an hour than we have had for the whole winter.

And it was isolated to a few square kilometres of the city, though the rain itself was more widespread.


Liz Needle

Photo a Day 127 - Good Fences

Long time since I have posted here. Run out of fences and lots of other things to think about.

I recently bought myself a new camera -  a Nikon Coolpix 610.  It's a little compact but it has an amazing zoom and works out a lot cheaper than buying an expensive zoom lens for my Canon DSLR. I've been practising and thought I would post these shots of the vineyard which  is about 200metres up the road from my house. I didn't use a tripod which would have made the photos clearer, but it does show what the zoom is like for  small camera.

A good vineyard fence/trellis

And zooming in.

Liz Needle linking with "Good Fences".

Photo a Day 126 - Grey Fantail

Trying out the new camera yesterday. Caught a little grey fantail chasing insects around the flowering cherry tree - not yet flowering. These little fellows never sit still, so I was quite pleased to get this shot without a tripod.  

This first shot is not quite in focus, but I did get better.

More practice is in order, but I am pleased with this little camera. I was about 30metres from the subject.

Liz Needle   -  linking with "Wild Bird Wednesday".

Photo a Day 125 - Magnolias

Great excitement  -  my lovely pale pink magnolia is flowering. This tree is only 4 years old, but it has come on beautifully and it has the most enormous flowers. About half of them are flowering at the moment and I can't wait to see it in full flower.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Floral Friday Fotos" and "Today's Flowers".

Photo a Day 124 - Camellias

TRhe camellias are flowering in all their beauty. Sure the weather has blown them around a bit and the rain has caused some bruising, but they are still beautiful.

These are a few of the many varieties we have growing. They are such tough, easy to grow anfd rewarding plants to grow. I love them.

Liz needle  -  linking with "Friday Floral Fotos"  and "Todays Flowers".

Photo a Day 123 - Our World Tuesday

I thought today for "Our World Tuesday" that I would share with you a few more things that I enjoyed on our recent photography trip to Adelaide.

I really loved this old shop front. When I have time I will stop and ask how old the building is.

A little glimpse of another world through the opening.

And to get things in perspective, I borrowed this photo from a friend of mine. Our photography topic was "Perspective" and Di very cleverly snapped me, holding my daughter on my hand while balancing an obelisk thing on her head. Not a very flattering shot of me, but clever of Di to work it all out.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Our World Tuesday".