France – View from a French Hillside

Wordless Wednesday – A Sea of Corn ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY If you enjoy the photos on my blog please do visit my brand new website http://www.janemorley.photography where you will find many more photos and also http://www.theartcardpress.com for a host of greeting cards and…

Thursday Doors – Lucky 13

So here I am, still on WordPress and all set to stay awhile and participate in one of my favourite ‘challenges’ Thursday Doors! I’m back in the world of graveyards again for this week’s entry as I couldn’t resist sharing a door I found in the city of Angoulême cemetery this week. The weather was particularly…

Thursday Doors – Inside the Cathedral

Dear Readers, I will be moving my blog over the next few days to a new self-hosted site. If all goes well I shall still be linked to my dear WordPress community and nothing much will change except for a new site, my special project and some new avenues to explore ; if I get…

Thursday Doors – A Few Gothic Studs & A Door Knocker

It’s been strange not participating in Thursday Doors this last couple of weeks but at last I’ve had a little free time to get out and about with the camera for a spot of door hunting. A stroll around some of the narrow streets in the old part of the town of Angoulême this week uncovered…

Thursday Doors – A Little Graveyard Classical

Having spent most of my recent photographic time in one local cemetery or another, my chances for photographing a door of the normal variety has been somewhat limited. So, I figured I’d go with the flow and present for this weeks’ Thursday Doors offering another amazing door on a tomb. The local cemeteries are full…

Thursday Doors – A Little Graveyard Gothic

I’m in the middle of a project at the moment which seems to be taking me quite frequently to visit some of our local churches and churchyards. On one or two of my visits this last couple of weeks I have been astounded by the beautiful examples of art and architecture to be found in…

Wordless Wednesday – Spring Blossom

Wordless Wednesday – Spring Blossom ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY If you enjoy the photos on my blog please do visit my brand new website http://www.janemorley.photography where you will find many more photos and also http://www.theartcardpress.com for a host of greeting cards and photographic prints and even http://www.galeriedelamaison.com where you can sneak a…

Wordless Wednesday – Time for Gardening

Wordless Wednesday – Time for Gardening ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY If you enjoy the photos on my blog please do visit my brand new website http://www.janemorley.photography where you will find many more photos and also http://www.theartcardpress.com for a host of greeting cards and photographic prints and even http://www.galeriedelamaison.com where you can sneak…

Thursday Doors – Former Glory

I thought I’d share another church door for this week’s Thursday Doors post. Unlike the delightful tiny gem featured last week, this is a large village church which feels a little neglected these days but which must have been quite magnificent centuries ago in its heyday. Built, as so many of the local churches, during…

Thursday Doors – A Tiny Village Church

There is a tiny hamlet not far from the hillside which despite its diminutive size, boasts a number of lovely old buildings, a ‘town hall’ or Mairie and one of the sweetest little churches I have ever come across. The postage stamp grounds around it are always immaculately kept, the hedges and bushes trimmed and…

Thursday Doors – In a French Cemetery

I hope I shall be forgiven for the slightly strange theme of my Thursday Doors post this week. Whilst visiting and photographing a number of extraordinary ancient churches in our area over the last few months, I have also taken the opportunity to wander and explore a few of the local cemeteries. The tiny glimpses into…

Thursday Doors – At the End of the Tunnel

We’re visiting another abbey for my Thursday Doors post this week but this time it is not a ruin but a functioning monastery. The wonderful buildings of the Abbey of Saint Etienne, founded in the year 1003, were home until 3 years ago to 6 missionary monks of the order of Saint Theresa. These 6…

Wordless Wednesday – Good Things

Wordless Wednesday – Good Things ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY If you enjoy the photos on my blog please do visit my brand new website http://www.janemorley.photography where you will find many more photos and also http://www.theartcardpress.com for a host of greeting cards and photographic prints and even http://www.galeriedelamaison.com where you can sneak a peek at…

Thursday Doors – Beauty and the Beastly Cement Works

For my Thursday Doors post this week, I am revisiting a different part of a splendid ensemble of buildings which were once the beautiful Abbey of Notre Dame. After a long and chequered past of good fortune and subsequent destruction during the 100 years’ War and the Wars of Religion, the abbey and its ‘logis’…

Thursday Doors – A Dickensian House in a French Village

When I walked past this house in a local village and then turned back to look again at the very old and shabby exterior, I felt I could almost be looking at the residence of a character in a novel by Dickens. The shutters are cracked and crooked, all of them closed. The hinges are rusted…

Wordless Wednesday – Winter Blossom

ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY If you enjoy the photos on my blog please do visit my brand new website http://www.janemorley.photography where you will find many more photos and also http://www.theartcardpress.com for latest news, a host of greeting cards and photographic prints!

Thursday Doors – A Long Way From Home

Last week two of our regular Thursday Door contributors – the illustrious Norm himself and the wonderfully whimsical Jean Reinhardt – posted a couple of light-hearted entries at a slight tangent to the usual ‘door on a building’ theme. I confess that this week I have not been able to be out and about in search…

Thursday Doors – Richly Wrought

I wasn’t sure if I actually had a door to share on Thursday Doors this week as I wanted to do something a little different and hoped to find something modern or colourful for a change. But, when I visited this astonishing church yesterday I decided the door was far too wonderful to be ignored…

Wordless Wednesday – In Memoriam

Thursday Doors – Romantic Romanesque

I’m back to the churches again this week for my Thursday Doors post with this beautiful example from the 12th century which I visited a couple of weeks ago. As always the stone carving around the door is exquisite and completely different from many other local examples by being spectacularly delicate and classical…

Wordless Wednesday – Autumn Landscape with Cows

Bright Green Strawberries and the Treat that Never Was

Earlier in the year when we were busy planting out our vegetables in the new enlarged potager we decided to have a go at growing strawberries. Visions of pounds of luscious fruit to offer our visitors to the tearoom, rows of pots of home-made jam and tasty additions to our morning smoothies, sent us scurrying…

Thursday Doors – The Ruined House Part II

My post for this week’s Thursday Doors is once again missing a door. It does however have a doorway and a hole for a window but sadly no roof. The house in question is our very own ruin, returning for a repeat performance to show off it’s other, though not necessarily better, side. …

Careful – Trespassers Beware

I’m still finding photos I had thought long lost after the demise of my laptop earlier this year and when I happened upon this wee trio of slightly spooky images from a local ruined abbey, although I realise it isn’t quite time for Halloween, I thought they might make a fun contribution to this week’s…

Thursday Doors – The Proud Resident

I’m really hoping that Norm is going to forgive me for being totally frivolous with my Thursday Doors post this week – I promise to behave properly next week Norm. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist posting a picture or two from a series I thought I’d lost when my laptop crashed a while ago. There…

(Extra) ordinary – A Ruined French House and a Fireplace

When we moved to France a few years ago, one of our projects was to be the restoration of a rather dilapidated cottage – the former caretaker’s cottage – in the grounds of our house. At the time the cottage was already in a state of poor repair but it did at least boast a…

Thursday Doors – French Cottage Door and a Vine Tunnel

We have a friend in the village who has one of the prettiest gardens I have ever seen. Filled with box and privet hedges, roses, stone walls, an old well and a chestnut tree, the garden is a perfect example of the romantic garden, always green and beautiful in every season. The house is a traditional…

Happy Place – a French Hillside and a View

When I saw the title of this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge I knew exactly what I would say if asked what is my ‘Happy Place’ and where I would go to find my ‘groove’ and inspiration . For almost 14 years now we have lived on a hillside in south western France. The roofs…

Thursday Doors – Garden Gate & Dappled Sun

We’ve had some wonderful sunny autumn days here on the Hillside this week and in the early morning the sun is playing lovely games with light and dappled shadows in the courtyard. I thought I’d include a couple of views of one of the wooden garden doors here for my contribution to Norm’s Thursday Doors…

Boundaries, Lines and Grapevines

The grape harvest (vendange in French) is well underway all around the hillside and watching the machines trundling up and down the rows of vines I decided I’d better get out and about with my camera before they finish and the grapes are gone for another year. The vines are one of the things I…

Thursday Doors – A Village House and Giant Gates

There is a well-known saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle – a love for privacy and a patch of personal territory on our overcrowded island is perhaps the explanation of this notion – but since moving to France we have been more than a little impressed by the Frenchman’s approach to presenting and…

Change – Sunflowers After the Sun

We’ve had the delight of fields of yellow surrounding us on the Hillside for a few months, but the sunflowers are finally being harvested. Here in France they are called ‘Tournesol’ which literally means turn to the sun, and this is exactly what they do. For several weeks seas of bright yellow faces look up…