28th October photo - comforting tea

Now that the clocks have gone back an hour, it is cold & dark at tea time so time to drag the slow cooker out from the back of the cupboard for a nice comforting winter stew.

Everyone manages to eat a stew without complaining too much and it is nice to be able to go out walking and come back to find tea already made!

Not quite sure which of these 3 photos I will use. I think historically it will be nice to look back and see the equipment we used in the kitchen and then laugh at how ancient it was! So probably just the slow cooker one. I can see why I don't post many photos of savoury foods - they are not as appealing as cakes & cookies!

27th October photo - Stokesay Castle

Concious that I have rather neglected my home county of Shropshire on my forays into Wales - I decided to put that right today and had a lovely home grown walk around the hills of Craven Arms. My starting place was the hauntingly beautiful Stokesay Castle.

The castle is owned and maintained by English Heritage - but was not open today! I love this view - it reminds me of a room that Rapunzel may have been locked up in.

Even the moat is well maintained - minus the water though!!

I followed much of the Shropshire Way along my walk and it reminded me that I really need to explore this walk way around my county - I have walked bits of it but I think the time has come to walk all of it! I am tempted to use this lovely symbol of the Shropshire Way as my photo of the day, but as I intend to walk along it again and so get the chance to photograph it before the year is up, I am going to stick with the castle photo as my POTD.

Along the way I thought I had discovered something unique to Shropshire - a two headed cow! But in fact it was just 2 cows standing really close and being pally - it did startle me for a minute though!

The hills above Craven Arms have some fantastic views but it was a little hazy today so they don't show up to their best (again!!). One day I really hope I can get a perfect landscape shot to show you all.

My walk was a pleasant circular walk and this is the lovely view of the castle on the homeward stretch.

26th October photo - back to Rodneys Pillar

Today's walk took me back to Rodney's Pillar, just slightly over the border into Wales. When I visited here in June I fell and injured my ankle so was not able to really enjoy it - today I was in good health and the weather was delightful, so I made the most of it and had a great time.

It was a lovely time of year to visit as the trees were a multitude of colours.

Even the ferns & bracken were changing colours.

mmm.. which way to go??

The paths were strewn with golden coloured leaves - the child in me wanted to throw them in the air - but I restrained myself!

I think this photo of the leaves on the branches may be my photo of the day.

25th October photo - back to Nant y Aran

I went back to Nant Y Aran forest in Wales today and was treated to the spectacular sight of the Red Kites feeding again over the lake - its just as good second time around! But again the birds are so difficult to take pictures of, that my photo of the day has to be the lovely Autumnal trees around the lake (with a few of my poor attempts at wildlife photography thrown in for good measure!

24th October photo - a little slice of heaven!

After yesterday's housework catch up - today is a much nicer housewife day and what better way to spend it than baking.

Today's offering is so delicious!!

Apple, summer fruits and caramel slices. If you look carefully you can see the sticky caramel peeping out between all the fruit. It is quite sweet so I have served it with a huge dollop of natural yoghurt They were really easy to make - follow this link for the recipe and other tempting tasties. I have printed loads out - my recipe folder is bulging!!

23rd October photo - Shropshire Star

Sorry - boring photo today!

I have been so busy catching up, post holiday stuff, that I have not done anything remotely photo worthy today. I was sat mulling over what I could possibly take as my POTD - when the Shropshire Star evening paper dropped through the letter box as an answer to my pondering's.

We have the paper delivered each evening and is part of our daily routine - we all rush to get to the letterbox first to read it. You can imagine their disgust with me tonight when I got it first and then started taking photos of it!!!

15th - 22nd October - holiday catch up.

We have been away in The Algarve for a week's holiday. The weather was gorgeous, hotel lush and the food just fab - so a nice & much needed break. I have tried to choose 7 different types of photos - to give a flavour of our trip.

15th October photo - We flew early in the morning so were treated to a spectacular sun rise from a rather unusual angle - unfortunately this first photo does not do it justice - but believe me it was worth being woken from my travel sickness tablet induced slumbers for!

16th October photo - We explored the area the next day - we have never been to the Algarve before and found this lovely sandy beach. We had to walk through the Sheraton Hotel complex to reach the sands and they had sunbeds to hire for 150 Euros a day - so we just sat on the sand like peasants!! We did find more reasonably priced sunbeds on our next visit.

17th October photo - The food in the hotel was great - the chef was particularly proud of his carving skills - so fruit & vegetables were carved each night into grand designs. The roses came from humble beetroot's!

18th October photo - This evening we actually stayed up after our evening meal and took some lovely night shots. This one was taken next to the pool.

19th October photo - never ever did I imagine when I started this project that one of my photos would be of a vulture - but is is today's photo!! There was quite a commotion around the pool and when we went to see what the fuss was about - we found that this vulture had landed in a tree in the grounds. He stayed there for a couple of hours - the staff said that they had never seen one before so they wondered if he had got lost on his migration route. It was an amazing sight anyway.

I will choose one of these 2 photos as my POTD.

20th October photo - I eventually managed to unwind and start to relax and get into the holiday spirit. Each day at 5 o'clock was happy hour at the pool bar so we treated ourselves to a cocktail each. Mine strictly non - alcoholic! So a typical holiday photo - book, cocktail, pool and palm trees.

21st October photo. Today we went to Vilamoura - a lovely town just a few kilometres away from our hotel. They had a very posh marina with lots of very expensive boats. We sat down and admired them - in the best way we knew - with a cake and orange juice & coffee from a waterside restaurant.

22nd October photo - a trip out to Alberufra today. Not as posh as yesterday's trip - but the geology along the coast was amazing - there were fantastic rock formations and high cliffs to explore. I just had to include this lovely photo of Steven taken as we walked along the coast marvelling at all the different rock patterns.

But it is in the wrong orientation for my album so I have chosen this one of a beautiful street sign which were dotted all over the old town.

Anyway back to reality now - the dark & deary weather of the UK - which in its own bizarre way is very comforting!