A Little Sunshine

I am sending a little sunshine your way this week.

Here are some pictures of a bouquet of daffodils my husband bought for me from the weekend farmers market. First of the season and so bright and cheerful I thought I would share them with you.

 



 

It is still about a month to the equinox and it has been dark and rainy recently, too little daylight, too little sun!

 



 

Daffodils are members of the Narcissus family or genus.

 

"Narcissus is a genus of predominantly spring perennial plants in the Amaryllidaceae (amaryllis) family. Various common names including daffodil, daffadowndilly, narcissus, and jonquil are used to describe all or some members of the genus." Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

  

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a hunter  who was renowned for his beauty. He was the son of a river god named Cephissus and a nymph named Liriope.

 

He fell in love with his own reflection in a pool, and pinning away and was changed into the flower that bears his name.
 

Yellow is one of the primary colours and can symbolise joy and delight as well as the sun and summer.

 



 

Spring is a great season to celebrate new beginnings.

 

 

Trolling the internet for music for spring a found the following article:

  

The "10 Top Songs for Spring" by Bill Lamb is his list of

pop songs. "These are the songs that bring to mind for me the hope, joy, beauty, and carefree spirit of springtime."  (http://top40.about.com/od/top10lists/tp/springpopsongs.htm)

 

1.  Lovin' Spoonful - "Daydream" (1966) (link below)

 

2.  Simon and Garfunkel - "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" (1966)

 

3.  Hugh Masakela - "Grazing in the Grass" (1968)

 

4.  U2 - "Beautiful Day" (2000)

 

5.  Andy Grammer - "Keep Your Head Up" (2011)

 

6.  Cat Stevens - "Morning Has Broken" (1972)

 

7.  Dario G - "Sunchyme" (1998)

 

8.  Patti LaBelle - "New Attitude" (1985)

 

9.  Smash Mouth - "All Star" (1999)

 

10.  Jason Mraz - "I'm Yours" (2008)

 

 

I hope you enjoy following the links.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

As promised here is "Daydream" and the Lovin Spoonful:

 

 

 

 

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Here are a couple of paintings that I have finished recently:

 

 

The first is called "Lilies 2" and is a watercolour:

 

 

 

Here is the second, "A Rest in the Shade", it is a painting of an old car I photographed when I was in France last fall. It is a watercolour too.

 I think it is a very old Citroen but I am not sure, does anyone recognise it?

 



Thanks for dropping by, I appreciate you feedback.

 

 

That's all for this week,  

happy Wednesday, with whimsy,

 

Gillian. 

 



Aloha Honu

Here is another post about my recent trip to Hawaii.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, also known as Honu, symbolize good luck and long life; they are revered as fine navigators who can always find their way home.

Some legends credit turtles with leading the first Polynesians to the Hawaiian Islands.

 

In ancient Hawaii, turtles had sacred status and only members of the Royal family were allowed to eat them.

 

 

The Green Sea Turtle is considered a guardian spirit that can change its shape at will. The Hawaiian God of the sea, Kanaloa, often assumed the shape of a sea turtle.

 

Turtles are now protected, I took the close ups with a telephoto lens, mostly from about 20 feet away.

Not everyone however respects this distance, there were many taking "selfies" with the turtles.

 

Turtles are ancient creatures, inhabiting the earth since the time of the dinosaurs.

 

Sea turtles cannot retract their heads and limbs into their shells and the Green Sea Turtle is named for the colour of its skin not its shell; their colour ranges from yellow to olive green to brown and almost black.

 

 

Adult turtles are vegetarian, they feed on algae and sea grasses.

 

 

They come up onto the beach or rocks to "sunbathe" and return to the water to feed.

 

 

This one is not nesting just prefers to bury itself in the warm (hot to my feet) sand.

 

 

 

The Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle breeds and nests almost exclusively at the French Frigate Shoals, an atoll located in the northwestern part of the Hawaiian Island Archipelago, inside a National Wildlife Refuge.

 

 

 

 

Beautiful, peaceful creatures.

 

 

 

Mahalo, I hope you have enjoyed todays journey.

 

 I appreciate and thrive on your feedback.

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Here is another ink and watercolour sketch I did while I was in Hawaii:

 

 

 

  

That's all for this week,  

happy Wednesday, with whimsy,

 

Gillian. 



Come along for a ride?

Or maybe I should say come along for a swim.

Seahorses to me are magical creatures so on a recent visit to Hawaii I was thrilled for an opportunity to see them up close at the Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm.

Ocean Riders Vision Statement:

 

"To inspire ocean awareness by saving the endangered seahorses from extinction through education and propagation."

"The seahorse has and extraordinary biology with the head of a horse, tail of a monkey, a kangaroo like pouch and a true male pregnancy. The seahorse was once found in all colours and sizes, in coral reefs and sea grass beds all over the world. Today, overfishing from pet and medicine trade, habitat destruction and pollution, has put the seahorse on the edge of extinction." www.seahorse.com

 

There is a very interesting guided tour at the Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm; here are a few pictures I took and recollections from my visit.

 

The seahorse farm raises about two dozen species of seahorses. In the wild the survival rate for baby seahorses is 1 in a 1000; at the farm there is about a 50 percent survival rate.

 

Seahorses mate for life and love to cling to each other and anything else in their environment.

 

They move around with their tiny dorsal fin, but don't move very fast, they can easily be swept away by currents so they cling for safety.

 

They eat tiny shrimp, they don't chew them, instead they suck them into their mouth as through a straw.

 

The top seahorse in the next picture has a prominent pouch, this is a pregnant male seahorse. The female seahorse lays eggs in the pouch and the male fertilizes them, as the babies mature inside the pouch it swells and after about a month in the pouch the babies are squirted out in small batches. The babies are no bigger that the end of my finger, and in nature the babies are left to fend for themselves.

 

My favorite part of the tour was at the end when we were allowed to "hold" a seahorse, or more precisely the seahorse held onto us.

 

The seahorse farm also has a pair of Sea Dragons (from GB Reef in Australia).

 

Since we were not allowed to photograph them here are some images I got off the web:

 

These are Weedy Sea Dragons

 

 

 

 I hope you have enjoyed my seahorse tale, thanks for dropping by.

I appreciate and thrive on your feedback.

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Here is a ink and watercolour sketch I did while I was in Hawaii:

 

 

 

 

That's all for this week,  

happy Wednesday, with whimsy,

 

Gillian. 

 

 

Travelling Whimsy

I was travelling in France this fall and what to share some highlights of the trip. First though I am shocked and horrified by the recent attacks in Paris.

Early in our trip we visited the town of Albi in France.

Albi, capital of the Tarn,  is arguably the most interesting small city in the Midi-Pyrenees region, and we had a memorable visit.

The medieval St. Cecilia's cathedral is remarkable and unique monument, being both fortified and built of brick. It is the largest brick church in the world.

"Built between 1282 and 1480, the current cathedral was built as a defiant assertion of papal power in a region which had only recently been brought back under the power of Rome following the period of the Cathar heresy.  The Albigensian crusade was the only crusade directed not against infidels, but against dissenting Christians." http://about-france.com/cities/albi-guide.htm#attractions

A closer look at the bricks and a look at a couple of the "gargoyle like" statues on its exterior.

 

 

 

 

Next to the Cathedral is the Bishop's Palace which houses the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.

 

"Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901, was the great post-impressionist iconographer of Parisian life in the late nineteenth century; he was a native of Albi, and the museum hosts the largest collection of his work."

 

"Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), also known as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French: [ɑ̃ʁi də tuluz lotʁɛk]) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century yielded a collection of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times." Wikipedia

 

One of his paintings: "Salon at the Rue Molins"

 

 

One of his posters: Jane Avril

 

 

 A view of the Bishop's gardens, also from this viewpoint you can see the Tarn river and the medieval bridge.

 

 

 Here is a closer look at the medieval bridge in Abli, which crosses the Tarn River; it is a thousand years old and is still in service today.

 

 

We walked across the bridge and looked down on a sandbar in the river:

 

The pigeons gathered and were bathing in the river. Then we noticed this fish swimming close by:

 

 

Not sure what was happening I stayed and watched for a few minutes and to my astonishment the fish came part way out of the water and lunged at one of the pigeons.

 

The scene now had my full attention and as I watched several of the large fish swam close to the sandbar and the pigeons seemed to ignore them, and then one of the fish came partway out of the water and this time grabbed a pigeon. The other pigeons scattered. I did not get a picture or a video but here is one from You Tube:

 

 

 

 

 

After some research on the internet I discovered that the fish is a catfish.

 

Here is a picture of the medieval bridge and the sandbar from the other side of the bridge.

 

 

We came across one more unusual site, we saw Hummingbird Moths on some late summer flowers.

Below is a picture, the Hummingbird Moth is in the centre of the screen. 

Her is a video I took of the moth but it is still not very clear.

 

 

Here is a video (not mine) that also contains some stills of the Hummingbird Moth.

 

 

 

Lastly, when we took a stroll through the covered market, I noticed these black radishes,

another new experience.

 

 



 

That is the end of my travelling story for today, I hope you have enjoyed the journey.

 

Here is a painting I have recently finished, another watercolour, it is called "Lone Arbutus".



For more details on this painting follow this link.

That's all for this week,  

 

happy Wednesday, with whimsy,

 

Gillian.