Tina from Travels and Trifles has asked us to post our favourites of 2025 for Lens Artist Challenge this week. It took me a while to look back and select just 12, one for each month.
January
A wonderful start to 2025 with my son Laurence marrying his fiancee Maddy. Such a happy day.
February
I took this in my garden, these little birds are usually hard to capture.
March
Also taken from my garden, most probably relaxing with a glass of wine watching the sky change colour.
April
Another from the garden! I did leave the house, I promise.
May
Somewhere in England
June
Cottesloe Beach, Western Australia
July
Zac on the pier, Nedlands, Western Australia
August
Cheeky Galah, Perth, Western Australia
September
The Munchkins, Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia
October
Comporta, Portugal
November
Leaving Portugal and returning to England
December
Sensory overload! Father Christmas arrived much to the delight of the munchkins.
Thanks for the memories Tina, this was a difficult challenge but happy I took part.
This is the question posed by Tina from Travels and Trifles this week. We are all familiar with the famous story by Aesop from our childhood. The moral of the story is “living a simple and happy life is better than living an extravagant life with constant fear“.
Of course we all want a happy life, not so sure about simple. I love living near a city, but not in one, just near enough to get an exciting vibe whenever I feel the need. On the otherhand, I do like the peace and quiet of the Perth suburbs.
Having lived and worked in London and also Hong Kong, I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of city life. We lived in the countryside in Hong Kong, an anomaly right there, but it wasn’t too far to drive into the city.
Hong Kong City – Day & Night
Hong Kong Countryside
Perth – Countryside and City
I love a city break for two or three nights, see the sights and visit fancy restaurants. Coming home to my serene suburban life is always welcome at the end.
This week for the Lens-Artist Challenge, Anne @ Slow Shutter Speed has asked us to go on a scavenger hunt for photos dealing with the topics she has suggested. Check out her website for all the details.
Our aim was to find between five and ten, no more than ten. With such diversity, it was a hard choice.
AND
This was lots of fun, I like a challenge that enables me to use photo editing tools. For this post I used SnapSeed. It’s a great free app that I have on my phone.
The Lens Artist Challenge this week is brought to us by Johnbo @ Journeys with Johnbo. He’s explained it well and we’re looking for photos that feature compositional elements like lines, patterns, or colours. Maybe we can find all three in one photo.
Bats in fronds, cables, clouds and birds on a wire
Munchkins one and two at the Airship Orchestra event at our local shopping centre.
Munchkin one is seven!
A colourful carousel featuring lines, patterns and colour
Remains of The West Pier in Brighton, designed by Eugenius Birch in 1866. Sadly beyond repair, but glorious in its hey day.
Brighton i360, an observation tower. An eyesore to be sure and not quite fitting with the surrounding Georgian architecture.
Thank you Johnbo for an interesting and entertaining challenge.
The challenge for Lens Artist this week is “Cats and Dogs” hosted by Tina. I’m not a cat person in any way at all and have never owned one. I’m always slightly wary of cats, you never know when they will strike. Give me a dog anyday.
I know the saying is “A Man’s Best Friend” but my two fur boys are also mine. Zac and Rufus have been with us for 9 and ten years. Both were adopted from rescue organisations. They were both apparently one year old when they first came to live with us. We think though that Zac was older and Rufus was younger. They love each other like true brothers and can’t do anything without the other.
I put together a small collage using Canva instead of uploading many different ones.
Rufus and Zac are so much part of our family, I can’t imagine living life without a dog around.
I’m running out of space for this blog and it’s so time consuming deleting old posts and finding the photos that are attached. Do I upgrade for more space or spend time deleting old posts and photos?
It’s been a fairly quiet month here in Perth for me. Many outings with Rosie of course, including one to the zoo. A few dinner dates, a concert in the park and a trip to the cinema. The weather has been very changeable, with a few hot days, extremely windy ones and too many cold ones!
On the day we went to the zoo it was slightly overcast and a few rain clouds about. Ideal for walking. I thought I had arrived early enough to find a carpark near the entrance, but not early enough as it was full. We drove around up and down the side streets and eventually found one, around ten minutes walk. Rosie seemed happy to walk. We hired a stroller once inside, but I ended up pushing it mostly empty! We had a lovely few hours checking out all the animals.
One of the many brass sculptures at the zoo
A tree kangaroo
“Such a strong girl”
Aboriginal Artwork
From here it all went downhill pretty fast. We walked back the allotted ten minutes and I said to Rosie, “hmm, I don’t remember walking past this building”. Well, after dragging Rosie up and down for almost 40 minutes, I called my daughter. I said, “Sorry, but you will have to come and pick us up. I’ve lost the car.” This was supposed to be her day to herself. We had to wait another 20 minutes but I was glad of the rest. Anyway, of course we found the car pretty quickly, I had missed a turning. Needless to say, the zoo is off the list for a while.
A day out with the munchkins at our favourite place, Chapel Farm. They keep some alpacas on the grounds. Such cute animals.
The artist himself
From a walk around Subiaco, looking at the new murals being painted.
Christmas cookie baking, although the icing was the best part
Taken on separate nights while having happy hour in my garden
Patti is the Lens Artist host this week and she has challenged us all to find the details in our subject. Post three photos from different angles.
I’m not quite sure I’m on the right track with mine! Maybe I’m biased but I think Rufus is extremely photogenic.
The last one is a tad blurry, but it was taken on the spur of the moment. Looks 3D or as if I have cut and pasted! You can probably guess that he’s excited for his dinner. Although you would think he hasn’t eaten in a week.
This week for Lens Artist, Sofia has challenged us to look back. I was inspired by her post to dig out some old photos of my first trip to China. Like many of you I have numerous photos of long ago travels. Many are in albums but there are a great deal of loose ones.
I took a trip to Guilin in 1989 and had been in Hong Kong for a few months. I had already met Anthony but had some free time between jobs. It was an organised trip made through a local travel agent, one of those all inclusive tours. As I was travelling solo I thought this was the best option. There would be no stress about where to eat and what to do.
I had agreed to share a room, quite brave when I think about it now. When I arrived at the hotel, which was a Holiday Inn, I met the other people in the tour group. I quickly deduced that the only other single person was a man, who was with two friends. I had a slight panic attack until I got to the counter and was told I was being upgraded to a King Size room. Phew, awkwardness averted.
The views from my large balcony. I was very impressed!
One of the tours was a trip down the River Li. Guilin is famous for its towering lime stone cliffs and beautiful scenery. The trip was meant to take three hours, with a bus back. As it was the dry season, the boat trip itself took 6 hours! I had got to know the others on the trip, so we spent this time chatting and taking photos. I do remember there being no drinking water, only Coke.
All photos were taken on an old film type camera. I can’t remember the make. After scanning these, I did some editing and brought them back to life.
At some bends in the river, the men sailing the boat had to jump out. They tried to push the boat through the extremely shallow water. We did wonder if we would have to also jump out to help.
Without a care in the world, enjoying the views and thinking how amazing China is.
The famous Elephant Rock at the end of the trip. There were many stalls selling small artefacts and gifts.
One of the American men on my tour, he was travelling with his daughter. We both ended up buying a hat each.
Before reading Sofia’s post I hadn’t thought about this trip for years. Now I’m remembering small details from the trip that have been locked away for a few decades.
After checking out of the Novotel, we took Grab Cabs to our next destination, The Pullman in Legian. Upon checking in I found that my request for adjoining rooms had not been accepted! We were all on the same floor though, us around the corner with Elena and Damian in two rooms with a room in between. I was a bit miffed as I had asked twice for this and in plenty of time. Never mind, time to move on and get settled for the next four days of more fun in the sun.
In the evenings there was always a PG film or cartoon showing. Pull up a Seat and enjoy the show.
Our room was more than okay and the balcony overlooked some beautiful frangipani trees. I saw cute squirrels hopping from branch to branch, peering up at me.
After swimming in all the pools and eating lunch at the hotel, we headed elsewhere for dinner. Elena and I had our wires crossed as to the restaurant I had chosen. Ending up walking further than I had planned only to find that it was “Drag Queen” night. The place was packed and not entirely suitable for young eyes. Always restaurants aplenty in Legian, so we just ate next door.
The Pullman featured three pools, one was adults only. This one overlooked the ocean and a cocktail or two are easily available to watch the sun go down. With Legian being on the west side of the island meant we got to see some glorious sunsets.
Enjoying the kids’ pool
One afternoon Rosie and I were having a siesta in the room and ventured outside to watch the squirrels. They were extremely tame, but I chickened out at the last minute to actually hand feed them.
As it was school holidays the breakfast buffet was crowded and noisy, also expensive. There was a long wait for coffee from a state-of-the-art coffee machine, operated by one man, and no other options available. So the next day we opted to eat at nearby cafes.
Exploring around the cafe while waiting for breakfast
Anthony continued his daily regime of walking two hours everyday, even in the heat and humidity. I managed a 15 minute walk to the shopping centre nearby. Holidays in Bali are all about relaxation, reading and swimming for me, with a cocktail to hand.
We had a drink one evening on the beach and watched the sun go down.
We didn’t venture to the beach much in the daytime. The sea on this side of the island is good for surfing but not swimming.
One night Anthony and I walked back along the shore. The waves gently lapping around our ankles and enjoying the cool breeze. As we bent down to put out shoes back on a not so gentle wave jumped up and soaked us. Luckily we didn’t have much further to go and squished back to the hotel.
All in all there is something for everyone in Legian. A place to go if you want to party all day and night. Restaurants, bars and cafes line the roads and the beach. Upmarket hotels and budget places jostle for space, most with an oasis of calm and tranquility at the back. A wonderful time creating memories with family.
The beach is where I like to be and the best holidays for me are to be on a beach and swimming in the sea. We live near one of the most beautiful beaches in Australia and in the summer it’s a wonderful place to be. There are also a few river beaches, although I wouldn’t swim in these, too many jellyfish. My dogs love a good dip in the river though.
