Texture Tuesday

Oh my how time flies when you're having fun, or when you are stricken with a dire bout of the flu and then your grandbaby gets croup and your eldest daughter catches that from her baby, and you go to a funeral and you hear of another one to go to, and you are training in the midst of this to be a census collector and have a test to submit before you can be truly employed. Oh what a few weeks I have had needless to say I have not touched my camera, I have barely been out of bed by 8.30am most mornings, and I have watched more telly than ever in the last few weeks, because I am just exhausted from trying to breathe mostly and just want to veg. Boring !!!!!!!

So I am back well somewhat back, and am submitting in Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday again.

This weeks theme is Pink.  I scoured through my London photos to find a picture of Pink, yep the very sassy blonde bombshell Pink.  We ended up standing about 10 feet from her in Trafalgar Square back in April 2009.  The mobile phone service provider 3 was doing a flash mob style advert, and we were given microphones and sang karaoke in the square.  It was a total hoot and suddenly just in front of us a person stood up wearing a hoodie and climbed on a frame thing and started singing "So What", she pulled back the hood and it was Pink.  I went crazy, before this I have to say I was not a huge Pink fan, barely knew her songs but I don't know, just being there in the heart of London in Trafalgar Square, being filmed for a television add and then having Pink pop up just in front of me, well it was fantastic.

Now I am a convert, I even have the latest CD and everytime I hear her sing "So What I'm still a Rock Star" well I am transported back to London, to Trafalgar Square and well I just love it!!!!!

I didn't feel these pics were worthy of texturing though, they are quite blurry and I didn't think they would be good enough.  So once again I very typically resorted to a flower shot, I swear one time I am going to set myself a task of not shooting any flowers for a month I swear I am.

Oh one more Pink shot before I post the pink flower.

I tell ya she was waving at me I swear she was, you can see that can't you?!!

Anyway my pink texture Tuesday shot, here goes.

So I duplicated it, posterized it and then I used Kim's Granny's cupboard texture on softlight at 63% and then Sweet Treat on Overlay at 90%.  I like the drawn effect the posterizing give it. So there you are my Pink post.  

Out of the Kitchen

I have escaped my kitchen, yeeha and I headed for the park this weekend.  We are just a week away from our annual Carnival of Flowers and I just could not resist the temptation to wander, sniff and shoot in the parks.  These Delphiniums are just so beautiful don't you think?

Umm now I not completely sure what these are but the colours are gorgeous.

Poppies abound in Spring here and these couple just caught my eye, the process of coming out is interesting isn't it?

Iris's oh my goodness how beautiful are these?

We came across a family having a photo shoot with their little girl.  We aren't allowed to take photos of strangers children here in Australia, you have to be very sneaky about it actually, even swimming and sporting carnivals are no camera zones now, ridiculous really.  But her beautiful big red balloons matched her very frilly, layered tulle red skirt, she was a delight.

She even had this lovely table all set up for a tea party as a wonderful prop, how I would love to see those photos.  sigh lovely....

An old fashioned car rally was held on Saturday as well and these folk came dressed for the part.  They were so cute.

Wisteria always makes me think of cool English winters, old English gardens, boughs covered in the beautifully scented bunches.  So sweet.......

 

Then home we wandered, filled with a quite peace that comes from just wandering and watching.  How was your weekend?

Carnivale

This weekend was the 60th Anniversary of the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers.  We had beautiful weather and the parade was wonderful. I am still not a parade person, standing in the sun with wriggly kids, whinging parents, pushy photographers, oops was I one of them and just a lot of waiting and standing.  The floats were better this year than some other years but the gaps between the floats was sometimes long and frankly boring.  Sorry but it was.  The performers on stilts were great and there were quite a few different ones, the beautiful red lady above was really pretty.  The Koala was walking with the volunteer fire brigade and I am afraid that once again this summer they will be very busy.  We are having extremely hot weather already.  What a great bunch of men and women they are.

Toowoomba has really become extremely multicultural in the last few years and the parade showcased many of the different nationalities that have made their home here.  The Asian walkers were particularly colourful.

 There were so many colourful floats and performers and then we went up to the Food & Wine Festival.  This is about the 8th year I think that the Festival has been run and the first that we have been.  It's a new and different concept for Toowoomba.  We tried some different wines and there were local cheeses and olives to try also.  The Whitlams a well known Australian band played on Saturday night and Bjorn Again an Abba knock off band on Sunday.  All in all a pretty exciting weekend for our little town.Then of course there are the gardens that have entered the Carnival competition.  We visited the Grand Champion Garden, which is only a short walk from our house.  The pot above has been mosiaced (if that's a word) from plates and china hearts.  All throughout the garden there are little nooks that have been prettied up with lovely mosiacs.  We actually know relatives of the owners of this garden and there is a wall where special mosiacs were done for a Grandma who passed away not long ago.  Now the grandchildren can remember Grandma whenever they wander through the garden.

Also this weekend I cooked.  Saturday morning I made the yummiest French Toast with bacon maple syrup and balsamic strawberries, delicious.  This afternoon for lunch I experimented a bit.  I got some store bought puff pastry and cut the pieces in half, blended some cottage cheese, humous and grated fresh parmasen and spread it on the middle of each piece.  I topped this with thinly sliced tomato, red onion and asparagus.  I sprinkled a little more grated parmasen on top before baking in the oven for about 25 mins.  It was so delicious.  We had a couple of glasses of Pino Grigio with it.  So lovely for a spring afternoon.  So Carnival weekend was lovely, I'm glad we decided to venture on down this weekend.