Happier Behind The Camera

I was grateful today for the overnight thunderstorm and for Jackie’s watering the parts it couldn’t reach early this morning before she and Shelly drove to Helen’s to offer sisterly assistance.

This meant I could concentrate on the dead-heading necessitated by the storm’s stripping of many petals. After more than an hour I retreated indoors with wobbly legs and wringing wet shirt to sit at the computer and apply myself to retouching two more of the images from my mother’s old album.

First I tackled my grandfather from c1926 at Conwy. Judging by the position of his hand I suspect he was holding a cigarette.

This photograph was probably taken in about 1919, before the marriage of my maternal grandparents, Annie and George Henry Hunter, who are the couple on the right.

These two images suggest that my grandfather was, like me, happier behind the camera.

After completing this work I returned to the garden,

where bees were very busy, being particularly partial to swarming over purple alliums and pink hebes.

Red geraniums, white marguerites, and pink hydrangeas produce an attractive bank on the front drive. Jackie is constantly thinning out the daisies so she has sufficient vision to her right when driving out.

A variety of day lilies continue to proliferate.

The last three day lily images are from the Kitchen Bed, also home to lysimachia Firecracker.

Pale pastel blue and white campanula spills over the Shady Path

from where we have views towards the house, and across the Palm Bed, among others.

This clematis Polish Spirit is nearby in the Dragon Bed.

From the stable door we look down the Gazebo path, and back from the agapanthuses coming into bloom in the Palm Bed.

Further garden views are afforded by the Rose Garden and the Phantom Path,

leading to the West Bed with its honesty and lilies.

Some time after Jackie returned home she drove out again for a Hordle Chinese Take Away meal which we enjoyed with Hoegaarden in her case, and more of the Fleurie in mine.

67 comments

  1. Happier behind the camera–I was going to comment on your grandfather’s scowl. 🙂 Marvelous work on the touch-ups. Your garden and home are just so beautiful. I know I say that all the time–but it’s true. Your photos are like a brochure for some wonderful place to visit.

    1. Thank you very much, Gary. My cousin, Yvonne, who shares these grandparents, got in touch after I published an earlier post about her father, Ben. Having grown up in Manchester, she now lives in Spain.

  2. Your maternal grandparents and their friends posed quite artistically.

    So good to see your profusion of bees with all the talk about a future dearth of bees.

  3. My mother was always banging on about the importance of dead heading. You’ve clearly been doing a sterling job. Amazing work too on the old photos.

  4. I think your grandad was in the standard pose for the 1920s and 1930s male. We have exactly the same photograph of my dad’s dad in a park in Blackpool. The pose was later developed, of course, by Robert de Niro with his “You looking at me?” speech.

  5. And your family today, and those for generations to come, will be blessed and grateful because you not only enjoy being behind the camera…you know how to use a camera to capture the most precious and beautiful photos! 🙂

    You and Jackie and Little Nugget and the bees…you all work so hard to keep the garden looking so very beautiful!!! 🙂 I think all the flowers and plants and trees are smiling because of the good, tender-loving care they get!

    Maybe in those two photos the sun was in your grandpa’s eyes…or he was waiting for someone to say “Say Cheese!” 😉 😀 I think he is handsome and the the two couples look happy to be together!

    HUGS!!! 🙂

  6. I concur with JFWK – Your Grandad seems to have adopted ‘the’ pose for a young man about to have his photo taken as i have an almost identical one of my Father some time in the 40’s right down to the wide lapels and open necked shirt. 🙂

    What a preponderance of purple profusion today, but i note with sadness that your poppies are now past their prime. 🙁

    Agapanthus and bottle-brush – sounding very much like my city in our Summer. 🙂

  7. I don’t know lysimachia Firecracker but I think I like it. The photograph of your is fantastic. It is especially interesting because the angle of the pose is identical to the angle of your pose in your Gravatar. Have a look and see what I mean.

  8. You live in a Fairytale cottage ! I half expect Helena Bonham Carter to wander by with cup of tea in hand 😀 Everything looks dreamy. You’re Grandfather and friends dressed pretty dapper for a day at the beach. Not big on smiling was he? Still, a snappy dresser ! Cheers xK

    1. I was thinking the same thing about your grandparents and also, my father would have been 16 the year this was taken–closer to the age of your grandparents than your parents..Were you the eldest in your family? I was the youngest in mine and that might have accounted for that.

  9. One of my favourite places to be is the Chicago Botanic Garden, and the spot I can be found is in the English Walled Garden. Still, yours far surpasses that haven

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