I didn’t go out taking shots for the PhotoHunt – I knew a couple of weeks ago what I would post for the Walking theme! Taken in November 2007 with my old camera, it shows my hubby walking in the countryside behind our village.

Have a great weekend!

photohunt

Current Mood: just fine

The PhotoHunt theme this week is Protect(ion); I’m stretching this a little by showing you some serious lack of protection. I took these photos yesterday morning from my garden – it shows a worker on a construction site. Not sure if he’s got a death wish or maybe he thinks he’s invincible. This guy was standing right on the edge, some 3 storeys above the ground, without any protective gear whatsoever; it made me dizzy just watching him!

Maybe I should add that this is by no means unusual in Gozo. And deaths from falls are not exactly uncommon either. Makes you shake your head, doesn’t it?!

The weather is very kind to us this weekend; it seems this is the first real spring day we’re enjoying. So please don’t take it personally if I don’t visit you – or if I do might not comment – because it’s a crime not to go out there and get some sunshine into my face!!

Wish you all a happy weekend!

photohunt

PS: I haven’t forgotten about my promise to tell you how to do a triangle collage…. just was a little late with it: please scroll down to the next post!

I know I’m awful at promising stuff and then… well not forgetting about it, but simply not finding the time. BUT eventually I keep most of them!!

So, about that triangle collage, and how to make one… My first step was googling for a triangle made up of triangles, which I found here. I apologize to the makers of the puzzles on the Word Puzzle Championship page for the abuse – I simply couldn’t resist, because it was just perfect!

Clicking on the little pic on the right opens the full-sized graphic in a new window, where you can save it by right-clicking. Now, open the graphic in photoshop, together with the photos you want to add to the graphic.

Select one triangle with the ‘magic wand’ tool:

Press <Ctrl><C> to copy the triangle.

Switch to your first photo and press <Ctrl><P> to paste the triangle anywhere on the photo, then move it to the part which you want to copy into the triangle. You might have to play with the size of the photo first to make it fit – that’s by far the ‘hardest’ part of it all! You might also want to decrease the triangle’s opacity, so you can see what’s under it.

When you’ve found the right spot, make sure your triangle layer is active and use the magic wand again to select it.

Now make your photo the active layer by clicking on it in the “Layers” toolbar, and press <Ctrl><C> – this will copy only the part of the photo that’s covered by your triangle.

Switch to your triangles graphic, where the triangle you had copied should be still selected. Press <Ctrl><P> to paste the little photo… et voila! :)

Repeat the same steps for each of the other triangles – the biggest challenge will be remembering to select the Background of the triangles before using the magic wand – otherwise you won’t get the triangle! When the whole triangle is filled up, delete the background (or just make it invisible) to remove the black lines, and your collage is complete! :)

Hope you’ll have some fun with this! :)

Update… here’s my ‘model’ who is as yet nameless. Another stray addition to our garden. He (she?) is beautiful, but Felix isn’t too happy about it!

Finally… my Purple PhotoHunt! The first one is a blatant fake – what’s purple used to be red – but I liked the photo so much that I had to see what I could do about it! The pic itself was taken yesterday afternoon, when a colleague was given a small farewell party at the hotel.

The collage shows a few purple things I found in my immediate surroundings – CD covers (for my friends – shame they’re still in my possession!!), a couple of flowers in my garden, and my unfortunate vice (the only one though, except for my gadgetitis LOL)

I might post the larger versions to my fotoblog later; for now I have to run and get my shopping done!!

photohunt

PS: Perhaps later today, I will also let you know how I got that collage of triangle photos done!
Talk later!

Current Mood: content

Year after year the same resolution follows my Easter shopping: “Next year I’ll stay at home on Easter Saturday!” I vow to get my Easter shopping done the week before, at the very latest. Well, year in, year out it’s the same story; I just don’t manage to honour the promise to myself – and here I am again, finding myself in Victoria on an Easter Saturday morning, and the views from the perspective of a windscreen aren’t pretty:

Something is different this year, though. Instead of being my grumpy old self, I didn’t let stress take me over, and it’s been a breeze, actually! I found a parking space immediately upon arriving in Victoria; my basic grocery shopping was done in no time. Afterwards I enjoyed a walk to my favourite sweets shop, at the opposite side of town – and back again. On my way back I dropped in at the bargain bookshop, where I found a couple of Dean Koontz novels at 5 EUR a piece!

Finally sure I was done and thinking I could safely leave that precious parking place, I started my journey home – only to realise at the second corner that I’d forgotten to buy CDs and printer ink; both had been on my (unfortunately mental) shopping list for an aeon. Still, I didn’t fret as I would have done a few months ago, and what do you know: I drove the short stretch back and parked exactly (and legally!) 5 m away from the shop.

Why do I think I should be telling you all this? Because I believe my life is really changing for the better; I have become convinced that indeed, the way you look at the world, the world will look right back at you. And trivial though it might sound, by letting you know this, I just may get you started  to look at the brighter side of life, too. If you let yourself be harassed by circumstance that you cannot possibly control or change any more – just get on with it, and better still, make the best of it!

Right now (that was, when I scribbled these thoughts into my notebook!), I’m sitting at Cordina’s and enjoy watching the world go by. Realising that there really is no need to hurry home quickly, I found I deserved a coffee before tackling the traffic. The town is buzzing as it always does on this day, but I’m totally calm. The only saddening thing is to see how many people are passing by that have stress written all over their faces. A year ago (I actually do remember that) I wore exactly the same expression…

Nevertheless, next year I’ll try to get my Easter shopping done at least a week earlier. Just in case…

A happy, blessed Easter to you all!

Current Mood: Creative

I’m afraid I got carried away a little this week; fiddling with my photos is one of the best ways for me to clear my head from the stress at work. (Only going out taking them works better!)

My PhotoHunt Triangle post has loads of triangles… I’ve created this post on Thursday night, but I’m hoping to add a second set of triangles Friday night or Saturday morning. But just in case my plans don’t work out (they do have a habit of changing when I least expect it!), here is my set showing a few of my favourite views of Gozo:

Back with more – hopefully – later!

Current Mood: content

I think I might give up worrying about missing the PhotoHunt; as much as I love it, life has a tendency to interfere with my online activities. And of course I have the perfect excuse for missing last weekend’s post, as I was having the time of my life (see previous post)! Apart from that, I had no internet connection either.

Nevertheless, I got the perfect yellow shot while we strolled through the beautiful city of Nuremberg, so I decided to post-post my Yellow picture:

(If you click on the flowers, you’ll get the larger-sized photo on my photoblog – and if you like Roger Hodgson, keep clicking through the photos I took during his concert!!)

And now for my Hands post. I’ve been so busy this week with sorting out hundreds of my Nuremberg photos that I thought I might as well play a little more LOL! This little collage shows the hands of Roger Hodgson, Anina, a statue, two buskers, Claudia and Mick.

(No larger size available of this one!)

A whole week has passed since my friends and I met Roger, and I’m still in a wonderful state of mind. Fabulous! :)  (Mental note to myself: check where that darn smiley has wandered off to!!)

That’s all for now. Happy weekend!

photohunt

You won’t believe it, but I went out before 6 am this morning – to take photos at sunrise/dawn. Of course I was aware it was Saturday, but the PhotoHunt. slipped my mind completely. Again. *scratches head* Luckily, “the other Sabine” (who also forgot about it LOL!!) mentioned it to me in a Facebook comment, otherwise I would have skipped yet another one!!

I just spent an hour outside in the garden – wonderful weather today!! – and wrecked my brain for an idea, which came after a while. There’s lots of sets of Four in a pack of playing cards; here’s just one:

As for the photos I took this morning, I’m hopefully uploading them soon! :) Right now, the sun is drawing me back out into the garden; it would verge on the criminal to ignore her!

Happy weekend!

photohunt

I’m thankful for quite a lot of things… However, today in particular, I was sooo thankful that my first weekend without the cast turned out so sunny, and even a little warmer than it has been lately. So I set off for a little drive with the intention of capturing the mood of Thankful, for this week’s PhotoHunt.

Funny enough, it was just as I entered the door on my return home that I found the perfect shot awaiting: Simba sunbathing in his basket in front of the window:

Apologies for choosing Simba as my model again. But isn’t he just oozing thankfulness for being caressed by sun-rays? OK, on second thought, he looks a little like he doesn’t quite trust it to be true… In any case, he was one happy cat today! :-)

May your weekend be sunny and warm!!

photohunt

Warm is the PhotoHunt theme this week. Although Gozo is famous for its warm summers and mild winters (mild?!) we’re going through a prolonged cold spell that’s very unusual even for this time of the year. It seems it’s going to last forever, and to be honest, I’m really fed up with it. Last weekend max temperatures hovered on 10°C, while one night the lowest reached 4°C. In a country where central heating is widely unknown (not to mention unaffordable!) that really is just above the pain threshold! – Which is one of the reasons why my online presence has been practically zero since last weekend, by the way!

Here’s a close-up of our gas heater’s filaments – the warmth that’s keeping me reasonably sane these days…

And here’s proof that I’m not the only one who’s suffering…

Some of you might have seen the second pic already… I posted it as my profile pic on facebook a couple of days ago:

This is the carnival weekend, and I’d love to go up to Nadur on Sunday (tonight and Saturday being too crowded with half the Maltese population present!), but I simply don’t know what to wear to keep me warm… My cast is coming off next Wednesay, and until then none of my coats and jackets will fit over my hand!!

Thank you to who visited me last week and left comments. I hope I’ll be better at blog hopping this weekend! At least it’s supposed to be 2 degrees warmer…

I’m sooo ready for spring!

photohunt