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.  …

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…

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…

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…

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…

The Last Iris

Busily preparing and framing photos for a photography exhibition, I re-found a set of photos I thought were lost when my computer crashed a couple of months ago.  With the first day of Autumn arriving officially tomorrow with the September solstice I thought it might be a good moment to post this reminder of the…

Monochromatic – Rhapsody in Blue

I’ve been wanting to finish my marathon fruit photography series with the wonderful damsons we’ve just picked from the orchard.  The colour of the bloom on the fruit is so blue and beautiful I’ve been wondering how best to capture it and had finally decided my plain blue crockery would be the perfect compliment. I…

Growing Tomatoes and Connecting with Nature

I’ve thought a lot about the state of the world lately as we’ve been picking the fruit in the orchard and harvesting vegetables and herbs from the potager and the herb garden. It seems to me a sad thing, that for all the miracles of modern science and technology, so many of the supposed advances we…

The Château and The Fairytale Swan

A trip out with the camera earlier in the week took me to a village I have not visited for a few years.  I confess I had quite forgotten what was there and after a quick look around the church – yet another fine example from the 12th century – we followed the path towards…

Alliums, Garlic and a Potager

It’s been a good year so far on the Hillside for our potager. The plot near the orchard which we had ploughed up by the local farmer last year looked intimidatingly large at first, more suitable for feeding a couple of rugby teams than our tiny household, but as Mr H has worked his green-fingered…

Quotation #2 – Heaven in a Wild Flower

Recently discovered and already one of my favourite bloggers, Cosme of BCLPhotography – great posts and great photography, if you don’t know his blog you really should – has invited me to join an interesting new challenge, posting a favourite quotation over 3 consecutive days and inviting 3 other bloggers each day to join in….

Darkest Fruit

Before moving to France 13 years ago I had always dreamed of having an orchard and indulging in a variety of homely pursuits like baking apple pies from my own apples and creating jams and conserves from my prizewinning strawberries and raspberries.  We now have the good fortune to have just such an orchard and…

Exotic Fruits – The Cape Gooseberry -Physalis

I was browsing the exotic fruit aisle again in the supermarket this week and these wonderful Cape Gooseberries, or Physalis Peruviana to give them their proper name, took my fancy.  I must confess that I still haven’t actually eaten a single one of them, so intent have I been on capturing their astonishing forms and…

Voluptuously Vivid and lots of Black

We have some beautiful geraniums in pots in our courtyard. The colour is an incredible rich and bright fuchsia which is almost impossible to capture in a photograph no matter the time of day or the light conditions. After numerous attempts I decided to try something a little different and photographed some of the older…

Hillside Views – Haybales

On our walks these last couple of days, Freddie the Labrador has insisted on walking along the field where the hay has recently been cut and turned into beautiful round bales.  They smell divinely of summer, sweet and warm with a sprinkling of sunshine and look particularly beautiful arranged in a string like a necklace of…

Broken Beauty

I have been planting some new roses in the garden this week and after the rain a few days ago one of them was left looking a little bedraggled and started to lose its’ petals.  Having cut the blooms back quite hard to encourage the rose to grow and settle in its roots, I discovered…

Enveloped – Weekly Photo Challenge

Enveloped Enveloped in a golden sunset, the earth sleeps, wrapped in dreams of summer……. The hillside was bathed in glorious sunset light the other evening when I took this and I thought it would express perfectly my idea of ‘enveloped’ for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge. I’ve included a monochrome version too…………. ……and a colour…

Glorious Spring

The hillside has exploded in a riot of blossom and colour this week.    I know I’m in danger of repeating myself by offering up another post with blossom as its’ subject but when I went out onto the orchard this afternoon to the glorious sight of the fruit trees abuzz with the industry of…

Rustic Beauty – The Humble Turnip

After the lovely promising spring weather of a fortnight ago we’re suddenly plunged back into the damp and chill winds of November here on the Hillside.  Our sunny moods have departed with the warmer temperatures and so my plans for more spring inspired images for this post have been moved aside to make way for an…

Spring # 2 – Fragile Blossom

In the courtyard on our French Hillside is an almond tree. It has never been exactly prolific in producing fruit but its’ show of magnificent pale white-pink blossom is always our first herald of the arrival of spring.  The tree itself is need of an expert prune as all the blossom is now bursting forth…

SPRING – Tender Tulips

Signs of Spring are appearing everywhere on the hillside now – tiny blue forget-me-nots, wild violets, the first cowslips, the early daffodils, even some very precocious iris are in full bloom seeking the warmth of the sun.   Opportunities for photographs abound and I have a score of ideas for posts for the coming days.   I…

Orchids – Strange exotic beauty

Someone gave me an orchid. I’ve never been quite sure whether I really like orchids or not. To one who loves the beautiful simplicity of daisies, they seem worryingly exotic, fleshy and organic, almost alien things.  It seems they have many symbolic connotations – strength, loyalty, luxury, virilty ( the name itself derives from the…

Winter # 3 – The Quietly Beating Heart

Here and there amidst the silver bare winter’s landscape are vibrant reminders that the pulse of life continues through even the darkest days and the longest nights.  The berries in the hedgerows and the hips of the roses are rich and blood red with the promise of Spring……..    ALL PHOTOS © JANE MORLEY  

Winter # 2 – Life is Sleeping

The hillside is really in the grip of Winter now. The trees are shivering in the winds from the north and the warmth of the autumn colours has been chilled  to a palette of  brittle greys.  Only the laburnams and the lime trees are still clinging to their delicate copper- coloured  seed pods as if…

Winter – Ghost Leaves

The colours on the hillside are changing now from their glowing autumn shades to the darker hues of winter. Nature’s astonishing architecture is becoming visible everywhere, in the bare branches of the trees, the hips on the rose bushes, the cones in the evergreens and in the fallen leaves which carpet the garden.  On our…

Double Vision # 2 – Thankful

As the season of festivities has already begun with Thanksgiving in America, my blogging friend west517 had the excellent idea that we use the word ‘Thankful’ as our prompt for todays’ ‘Double Vision’ post.  There is no official Thansgiving holiday in England, but the traditional harvest festivals echo the same roots and customs.   In our frantic,…

Little Acorns, Mighty Oaks……..

A while ago on one of our walks, Freddie the Labrador and I collected some splendid acorns and oak leaves. I fully  intended to snap a few pics while they were still fresh and colourful but haven’t somehow got round to doing it.  Today I was going to throw them all away as they’ve dried…

Gold, Copper, Chestnut, Conkers – Hello Autumn!

I had a very different idea in mind for today’s post but as I strolled along the path through the wood after lunch with Freddie the labrador, we stumbled across some exciting treasures which simply demanded to be photographed.  Freddie was delighted to have found a fox poo and a badger burrow plus a few…

Sunset Colours and Autumn Vines

Every day of September here on the hillside, has been warm, balmy and beautiful; the evenings noticeably cooler as the Autumn approaches but full of astonishing light and colours. I decided the other evening to take a walk down the hill towards the poplar wood where the sheep live, passing en route the tiny vineyard…