Finance Friday | Easy Money
When I was younger, there was a lot of industry in the Black Country. Working and making money was hard, but there was was also ‘easy money’. Making beer could be considered a lot easier than working in a foundry or down a mine.
Neodigital Art | Defining Art
I used this picture last week and it was suggested that a colour version might look better. I did a lot of editing on this, cropping it and changing it to a watercolour image. I also edited out the cars in the background again.
A Black Country Sunday ramble
The weather is still very changeable in England. I need sunshine! It was a long winter and then we had snow in Spring. I want to take some photos of this beautiful landscape that we have in the Black Country.
Weekend review from the heart of England
I get a few local readers at the weekend and so I’ll explain about today’s picture. I took this at Easter at Forge Mill Farm in Sandwell Valley Country Park. From Walsall take the Birmingham Road, turn right at the Scott Arms and go up the Newton Road then left into Forge Lane. Forge Mill Farm is on the left, take the second entrance.
Treasure in the Black Country
This could be the only treasure map in existence with a motorway running through it. You may remember that I wrote about Princess Ethelfleda’s hoard of gold in my post just a year ago. We’re still looking for it. It could be buried at King’s Hill, there is a park there that’s suitable for scouring with a metal detector.
Looking forward to Spring?
Yes, it’s the Spring equinox in just four days! If you’re hoping for summer weather forget it, but we can expect blossom on the trees, tulips and daffodils and bluebells in the woods. I’ll be out there enjoying the fresh air and watching nature begin a new year. How about you?
Neodigital Art | Artistic editing
I can’t remember when I took this photo. I think it was the summer of 2011. I do remember having to take it through chain-link fencing. I have edited it again using PhotoScape using a watercolour option. It looks quite artistic now.
Neodigital Art | Changing winter scenes
I took this photo this afternoon. What do you think? These are the first ones of February. How do you think they would compare to January? It was just as cold, a biting wind today. This is the Milky Pool, that I have photographed before.
The nature of money
The area of Britain where live is known as the Black Country and used to be heavily industrialised. I used to listen to drop forge hammers pounding as a child and looked out of my bedroom window to see factories served by a railway line. They made trucks for trains and the workers were called in to work with a device that sounded like an air raid siren.
Neodigital Art | Artistic editing
This is one of my favourite pictures and I think very artistic. I think it’s a good shot and I got the editing right. I would have liked the tree a little more to the left and the ducks aren’t quite where I would like either! This is the original photograph:
A week of ideas to make life better
The best laid plans don’t always go right. I was planning to devote most of my time to this website and slowly reduce the number of blogs I wrote on WordPress, but my WordPress blog was syndicated and I have a lot more subscribers on there than here! But I have still managed some good posts here this week and now there are more readers for a zillion ideas!
Neodigital Art | The Oak House
I went to the Oak House in West Bromwich on Sunday and took photographs. There is always somewhere to have an afternoon out taking photos. The sun was bright and so that presented new problems. It was dark at about 1 o’clock and then the sky cleared and I had bright sunlight. You can see the light reflected off light colours and shadows in this picture. Most people stand in front of the house and get a nice symmetrical picture. You lose all depth then. I have the tree for some depth and the angle makes the house look taller on the left of the picture and smaller as it goes away from us. We have a lot of perspective.
Neodigital Art | White skies
We have had lot of rain in the past few weeks and even when it stops the sky is either grey or we have a white sky. In this shot the sky was white and so it reflected white off the water. In some shots, I have white sky, a band of green where the trees are and then another band of white with the water in the foreground. When I took this shot I put some grass in the foreground and broke up the white sky with a tree in the foreground. (more…)
It’s enough to drive you nuts…
You’re driving along and a woman’s voice is nag, nag, nag… Turn left at the next junction, take the third exit at the roundabout. Like I don’t know where I’m going! You can turn the sound off on the SAT NAV, but that gives you one more thing you have to keep an eye on. I need to have eyes everywhere on the roads around here. Regular readers will know I live in the heart of England; in the Black Country… (more…)
Spring has sprung…
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The Vernal Equinox
It was the Vernal Equinox this week which heralds the start of Spring in the Northern hemisphere. It’s time to start thinking about the garden. My readers in Australia will also have an equinox but theirs will herald the start of Autumn. I have two apple trees in my garden and I bought a ladder last year so I can pick the apples. I’m getting more an more apples, I think it’s because I buried the dog under the one tree. If I tweet something about the body under the apple tree, the police come around in Spring and dig all my garden for me…
Sandwell or Solihull?
Sandwell
The picture above was taken near my home in Wednesbury, which is part of Sandwell. Six towns make up Sandwell as part of local government reorganisation that made large Metropolitan Areas governed by Metropolitan councils. These were formed in 1974 and many people think it made things worse. Local government certainly became more ‘politically correct’.
Wednesbury History in brief
St Pauls church
The church in the photograph is St Paul’s in Wood Green, Wednesbury, near to junction 9 of the M6 motorway. The church was built in 1874 and partly endowed by the Elwell family who owned the local forge. It’s built from red sandstone and in 1888 a spire, clock and a peal of bells were added. How do I know all this? I have a book published in 1908 full of facts from Victorian times about the town that I live in. The town was prosperous then and they built churches, the Town Hall (1871), Art Gallery (1891), parks, baths and much more.
