Photo Scavenger Hunt - February

I've just been checking back and it was May 2012 when I last participated in a Photo Scavenger Hunt and I've missed doing it and looking for each month's photos;  so this month I'm joining in again with greenthumb at Made with Love  just click on the link for other participants.

Flowers

    A Hellebore plant in the kitchen garden at Rode Hall taken on our visit on17th February

Love

This Willow decoration which had been on display over Christmas near the lake at Trentham was out again for Valentine's day.

Number

A huge, constantly moving number on a wall in the courtyard at the Shrewsbury Museum which we visited on 11th February.  We asked a volunteer what it was for and apparently it is the ever growing total of the world's population.

Something Beautiful

Snowdrops at Rode Hall - so perfect, so beautiful.

Your favourite colour

A bowl of lavender at Rode Hall.  I love all blues through, mauves and lavenders I think this bowl and its contents gives an idea of those.

Bird

Female mallard walking on an icy lake at Trentham Gardens, taken on 3rd February.

On the road

Road works on the Stanley Matthews Way in Stoke-on-Trent just past the football stadium nearly opposite the Screwfix depot.

Tap

In the walled kitchen gardens at Rode Hall

Price

Local eggs for sale at the Brown and Green food shop in the shopping village at Trentham Gardens.

Heart

A Willow Heart on the Lakeside Walk at Trentham Gardens

A corner of your House

A corner of our conservatory

Whatever you want

The ruins of Moreton Corbet Castle, near Shawbury, Shropshire behind winter trees taken on a damp, grey afternoon on our way back from Shrewsbury.

Five on Friday

Joining in this week with  Amy and Five on Friday.  

Below are five things that have made me smile over the last few days

1.  A lovely bunch of daffodils for 99p not a great amount to bring cheer, colour and thoughts of Spring into the house.

2.  Thinking about Spring - well it is the 1st of March on Sunday so it was time to think about what we wanted to grow in the vegetable beds this year.  A visit to our local garden centre tempted us to buy some seed potatoes Juliette and Carlingford.  We also bought some tomato, beetroot, aubergine, courgette and leek seeds and were rewarded with two packs of free seeds, some marigolds to grow with the tomatoes and some small tumbler tomatoes, which was good.

3.  Coffee and toasted teacakes at the Emma Bridgewater factory shop cafe.  Always a treat with its wonky tables and assorted crockery.  This time we had matching mugs - Horatio's Garden ones.  

 We thought that perhaps they had been expecting us but no the decoration was out to welcome the Duchess of Cambridge who'd visited a couple of days before.

4.  Some lovely books to read.  I'm dipping into Beside the Seaside in between reading other books.  I picked this up at the Brierlow Bar Bookshop a few weeks ago.  The other two books have now been returned to the library but I've enjoyed reading both of them.  Both set in 1930s Britain 'Mystery in White' was written in the 30s and is set at Christmas, in a snow storm with stranded passengers from a train and a spooky house full of secrets whilst the  Maisie Dobbs novel is set in the 1930s and is the latest of the novels about this intriguing character who we first met, as readers, in 1929 and have followed with great pleasure as each book led us through to the latest, set in 1933, which ended on an intriguing note! Will she won't she?  I hope whatever she decides she does return perhaps in a new guise?  Or are her detecting days over? I hope not.

5  Fluffy monkey, up a tree at Trentham Gardens and visible across the great dividing fence from the woodland side of the Lakeside Walk.  I had to zoom in quite a way to capture him or her and its fur coat looked warm on such a cold day.

Click on the button below to find other bloggers who are participating in Five on Friday

Seeking Snowdrops

Having seen from the local weather forecast that Tuesday and Wednesday were going to be the better and least wet of the days this week we decided that as it was February we would seek out some snowdrops. 

 

It was a bright, sunny day yesterday so we set off to our nearest place for snowdrops, other than the woodlands, Rode Hall which is north of the city and just over the county border in Cheshire

 The statue in the formal garden was dancing with the joys of what felt like a spring morning.

 Yes, we did find snowdrops - lots of them - but they are so hard to photograph aren't they? 

I think this one took several attempts before I could reach any kind of clarity.  

Even with mirrors placed underneath to reflect back the hidden, secretive  inners of the flowers.

We walked down the path to Rode Pool

 Down there we also found daffodils and crocus  - so lovely to see and so cheerful too

 Under the trees were spring flowering cyclamen is various shades of pink

 I'm always drawn to taking photos of doors and gates and there are plenty here to choose from

 Over the gate was the path below

 The walled kitchen garden was open

 I love walled gardens even at this time of year there is plenty to gladden the eye.

 We found many hellebores too and again the gardeners had placed a small mirror tile so that you could see under the drooping heads of the flowers.

 As well as the walled garden the other interesting area for me is the ruin of the old Tenants Hall.

 

The plant below was at the top of the old hall and its scent wafted all over

 Apparently it is called Daphne Bholua Jacqueline Postill.  The queues for the cafe were quite long so after visiting the ice house and then looking at an interesting and colourful art exhibition in the stables we drove the short distance to the local church of All Saints at Scholar Green.

 From the car park over the road from the church was a lovely, sunny view of Mow Cop, a place I've written about in several posts.

Inside the church was quiet and the church ladies were serving wonderful tea or coffee and cakes as well as selling home made preserves.

Our cups of coffee and chocolate and orange cake were very tasty and very welcome after a morning out in the fresh air.

Well, we did find snowdrops and much more too on such a lovely sunny day in February

Five on Friday

Joining in with Amy and others for Five on Friday (the last in this format) on this Friday 13th February. Are you superstitious about today, I wonder?

 On Wednesday we visited the fairly new museum in Shrewsbury.  The Museum was previously housed in a timber framed building called Rowley's House but over the last year or two it has moved to the former Music Hall building and behind it the older building known as Vaughan's Mansion.

It is a lovely museum, especially for me the Medieval, Tudor and Stuart galleries.  Above a view of the medieval gallery in the old hall of Vaughan's Mansion.

I was impressed with the use of space and the way the differing galleries were displayed within it.  Above a view from the balcony of the Shropshire Gallery on the floor of the old Music Hall.

It was very hard to chose just five things from the variety of objects in the displays so I have sneaked in a collage of others at the end of this post. So, below are five random objects, not in chronological order,  from across the museum exhibits.

1. A carving, from the Tudor Gallery, of the Shrewsbury Borough Arms or 'loggerheads' removed in 1760 from the outside of Romaldesham Hall, the home of the Montgomery family, and placed with two other carvings into the fronts of cottages built on the site of the old hall.  These cottages stood from 1760 until 1949.

2. Women's shoes c. 1710 from the costume section of the Shropshire Gallery

3. An early 18th century oil painting by John Bowen of a formal garden belonging to a house on Dogpole in Shrewsbury.  The town has some very unusual street names which I will include in another post.

4. A seahorse from the art installation by Shirley Chub on the balcony overlooking the Shropshire Gallery

5. A silver hand mirror from the Roman gallery.  Said to be the finest ever found in Britain it was made in the Rhineland and may have been brought here by a wealthy Roman woman.

I am joining in Five on Friday, taking five minutes from our day to enjoy five things.  Please go and visit the other people who are also blogging about Five on Friday this week.

Amy from Love Made My Home
Helen from Woollybluebells

Gina from Fan My Flame

Joanne from A Whole Plot of Love 

Debbie from Saylor Street Cottage 

Lil from House With Hearts