Things I love Thursday

I've been inspired to have a go at my own version of this popular post. This week is going pretty fast like the previous few weeks have and I haven't had much time online but I'm still loving -

♥ My new Tatty Devine paisley necklace I got for a steal in the sale  the size I have isn't available any more but if I had lots of money I would love this one. Here is mine by the way and I absolutely love it.

♥ New film cameras, I can't wait to try my new Minolta and Olympus Trip I featured last week but since then I have acquired a few more which I'm really excited about trying when the weather improves. I saw this Olympus AF10 reviewed on the Lomography website, I found one on eBay for 99p and am waiting for it to arrive! I'm also really intrigued by the new Purple film on offer from July in the Lomography shop, one to try I think.

♥ As a new Crafty Creatives fan I was very happy to come across Ink Drops which has a similar concept except the box is full of beautiful bits and pieces of stationary, I think I will have to get one soon.

♥ I would love this new season Cath Kidston bag, not sure my husband would even if it does have trains on it! 

♥ Only two and a bit weeks until we have time off work and go to Manchester.

♥ The evenings are starting to be lighter for just that little bit longer, finishing in daylight is always a good thing

Sunday Sunday

Here we are again. Sunday already and another week gone. Can honestly say that I have achieved very little this week, the weather has been generally horrible and cold and I'm trying to be good by saving money before our holiday next month. Work has been as demanding as ever but hopefully I am starting to see that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Just another three weeks to get through and some well deserved time off will be ours. I have written a few Postcrossing postcards this week so looking forward to them reaching their destination at some point soon, I hope airmail prices don't rise too much when they are announced later this year as it makes it such an expensive hobby.

We had our normal Tuesday walk into town and had lunch at the newly refurbished Spartacus hmm looking forward to the summer to have some of the ice cream they now do. Our usual is tuna melt panini and it was as good as ever. A brisk seafront walk followed. 

The seagulls do amuse me, sometimes they are more than happy to let you snap away and other times they don't stay still for a moment!

What have I got planned for this coming week? Umm not a great deal really, going out for dinner with some friends tomorrow, spending time with the husband and maybe going out to look for some new boots.

Sunset

Living on the west coast means we are incredibly lucky with the beautiful sunsets we have here. When I lived in seafront halls during my first and third years I was lucky enough to have a room with a sea view and many an afternoon was spent looking out as the sun sank on the horizon. I was always amazed at the number of people appearing on the prom just before sunset and how they would stop to watch before carrying on with their evening.
I don't live in town these days so now I rarely see the sunset like I used to but if ever I am about then I do stop and gaze for a moment.

This week

I can't believe we are nearly three weeks into 2013! Only a few weeks now until we are off on a little city break to Manchester and going back to see family. This week has gone particularly quickly and now here I am on Sunday afternoon listening to a bit of David Bowie and reflecting back. Tuesday is our usual day off together and we headed into town for a wander around, not really looking for anything but stopping off for a hot chocolate and muffin in Costa.

I normally only go to Costa on day trips to Birmingham but we were quite cold so it was good for a little warm up, looking at the marshmallows is making me want some now hmm maybe have to go to the shop after. Snow was forecast across the country for most of the week and eventually it caught up with us on Friday, leaving us with possibly the quietest day I have experienced in work following the mass panic buying on Wednesday and Thursday. By the time I finished on Friday most of the snow had already started to melt and I thought that would be all for us but luckily we had a few flurries in the night and I was able to take my camera out on the way to work on Saturday morning. I am slightly envious of my family in South Wales as they have lots and lots of lovely snow but are pretty much stuck at home because of it. Here are a few shots of the snow, well what was left by the time it got light -

What else have I been up to this week? My first Crafty Creatives box arrived! I had been thinking about subscribing for a while and was really pleased I finally did, the Woodland theme is gorgeous and you get so many little bits and pieces to make things with.

As I've previously written, crafting and making things is something I hope to get more into this year and I think Crafty Creatives will help me, plus there are so many brilliant blogs out there by people showing what they've made, great inspiration for someone like me just starting out. I love the owl and the little toadstool beads, just need to decide what I'm going to do with it all now!

I may have been a little bit naughty and bought a couple of new film cameras on eBay.

I have been inspired by the beautiful photos Deb has posted using her Minolta, I'm always looking on eBay for good deals and found one I liked the look of and won it! The spring can't come quick enough, all I want to do is go out and shoot some film after a very digital last year. The Olympus Trip looks quite fun, it's only little and easy to carry around, looking forward to using her too.

This time of the month also means time for new issues of some of my favourite magazines, Mollie Makes and The Simple Things. I also picked up a couple of photography ones in town on Tuesday too, am thinking of taking out a subscription to The British Photography Journal as I had a leaflet with a good offer in it inside the magazine but I haven't decided yet. 

  

Hope you've all had a good week, whatever you've been doing and enjoying the snow.

 

French

Still no sign of snow here so today we have a little poem instead. 'French' was conceived from a grammar article in a French lesson back in late 2003 and was published in a collection of new writers by Welsh publisher Parthian called 'Next' in the summer of 2006 and became the first piece of writing I got paid for. It isn't perhaps the most cheerful of poems but it creates some good imagery and makes us hope we don't end up mad. 

French

 

The mad people clutch their

Throats,

Remembering where

Their treasures are hidden.

 

Chests full of felt-tip pens,

Golden buttons,

And virgin white paper.

 

Bundles of cotton,

Old seaside postcards in melodic caramel,

Chains of yellow pearls.

 

Fossils of loved people,

Swabs of fabric,

Ripped through clinging on.

 

In green chairs

They rock,

Eyes glazed,

Permanently still.

 

 

 

 

   

Snowy Aber

Ok, it might not be snowing or have snowed here yet so I thought I'd look back and share some photos of when it has snowed here in the past. I always thought snow didn't settle on the beach but I was proved wrong back in 2006 during my first year, we even made a snow being of sorts on North beach one night but it was the following morning I took these shots after I ventured out onto a very slippery and cold prom.

 



2007 saw another snowfall as did 2009, here you can see the castle and grounds with a light sprinkling.

It actually snowed twice in 2009, the above are from the February but it also snowed in December but that didn't last long unlike in 2010 just before we moved from town out to where we are now, the snow was on the ground for weeks because it was so cold. I hated having to walk down the hill when it was so icy but glad I live close to work so didn't have to risk taking the car out. Here is the snow from 2010

We didn't have any last year, at least not that I can remember, and I would like some this year, if only a little perhaps.

365 Explored

This week has gone quite quickly, only another five to go and we've got a two week holiday! It hasn't been the greatest week in work but I won't dwell on that but look on the positive side as this week two of my 365 photos have appeared in Flickr's Explore and I'm absolutely thrilled. The first one is piggy, he was a Christmas present for my husband, he loves little novelty presents although his favourite would be the potato shaped scrubby brush I once bought him. Here is piggy in all his pink glory

Wednesday was a terrible day so to cheer me up we headed into town for lunch and a spot of seafront photography. The one thing I really miss about living in town is being a two minute walk away from the seafront, it has to be my favourite place in Aberystwyth and the one I would miss the most if/when we move. When I lived in halls I was lucky enough to have rooms with a sea view so I have many beautiful sunset photos and sunset is still my favourite time to go out. My second Explore is a typical Aberystwyth winter afternoon

I wish I had more opportunity to get out and take photos in day light but at the moment time isn't on my side, sometimes I start work in the dark and by the time I finish the sun has already set and darkness and cold has crept in. Hence looking forward to two weeks off soon and the thought of lighter days ahead. We are going to visit Manchester again as we were both too ill to actually enjoy the places we went to last year.  

I'm currently bidding on a few film cameras on eBay, I fancy a new film challenge in the summer and want to try out some different cameras to include in my 365 as I haven't shot any film since almost this time last year. As of yet I have no plans for the summer except to take lots of photos and visit places I find inspiring like St Fagans which is an open air museum not far from Cardiff, I've lost count of the number of times I've been but always find something new to take pictures of.  

Putting a stamp on it

So far I've spoken about my love for photography and shared a couple of poems but have yet to go into more detail about my passion for postcards. I've always been someone who likes having real post, not just everyday letters and bills but correspondence. When I went to university my Grandma used to write to me several times a week and I used to send her and other members of my family postcards from the seaside. When my now husband and I first got together in 2007 we spent our first three months together apart, as frustrating as it was at the time I enjoyed sending him cards and letters with beautiful stamps on nearly everyday of the week and he has a box of lovely letters to show for it. We moved into our first flat in the summer of 2008 and although I did and still do, leave little notes and things for him to find when I'm not here, I missed sending him post. Of course I still sent cards to my family but I missed picking out things I know he would appreciate. I was designing some postcards to send home on Moo and I came across a piece about Postcrossing and with a tag line “send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person in the world!”. I carried on reading and knew immediately it was something I had to have a go at. I signed up in September 2008 and requested five addresses, five being the maximum at first, and went about picking cards to send to these five strangers that I now had a connection with. My first card was registered in Germany after a short three day journey and then the wait began for my first card. Just over a week later and my first cards arrived, I had three! My first one was from Norway and the second and third from the Netherlands. Below is my first card, NO-14234.

Looking back, I was hooked from there. I sent more official cards over the weeks and then ventured into the world of private swaps and trades. Four years later I've got boxes and albums full of cards from all over the world, I've seen places and read the words of people I would have never otherwise and I'm really glad to be a part of the project. Work commitments have slowed me down over the last year and I have thought about calling it a day at times but then I receive a card or a story that makes me want to continue for the curiosity of what might still be to come. I love the sense of anticipation in the morning waiting for the post to see what treasures come through the letterbox. I've made a few lovely friends though this project, one of them is Anu from Finland who lives in the West Midlands, in the same city where my husband is from and we've met up a few times. I did a private swap with a girl called Szilvi from Budapest back in 2009 and I'm happy to say we've been corresponding ever since, some of the cards I've received from Szilvi are my favourite ones and I'm planning on writing a longer post to show some cards from her at a later date. I have a few themes I like to collect, my favourite being Black and White cards and those by the publisher Nouvelles Images as well as Hello Kitty cards. I thought I'd share just a very very small selection of my favourite cards I've received either through official Postcrossing or through swaps and trades. 

 

  

Have a go, send a few cards and I promise you will find it very hard to stop.