Five on Friday

Hello everyone.  Thank you for coming by.  Today I'm joining in the Five on Friday linkup hosted by Tricky at FASTblog and I'm looking back at the times I've stopped to enjoy the street entertainers whilst walking around Rome's city centre and the city where I live. They do add a lively atmosphere to the city scene and give the walker a chance to stop, take a little rest and enjoy the creativity of the artists.

  

1. These musicians playing jazz had found a shady spot under the umbrella pines by the Roman Forum. 

2. There were quite a few of these artists busily creating colourful pictures with their spray cans of paint.  It was fascinating to watch them build up a picture with the different templates and add textures with simple equipment such as the edge of a piece of card. Even if the artists working on street corners around this area have been trained to work with these spray paints to create similar pictures they're talented and it's interesting to see the process.  

3.  This wood carver was working at his bench in a workshop that was open to the street and, of course, this attracted passers-by to stop and watch.  He obviously specialised in Pinocchio figures.  It was in a street near the Pantheon and hopefully I shall go back one day and take a second look in his shop as he was making and selling other items made of wood.     

    

4.  There's always something going on in the streets around Sheffield city centre, especially at the weekends and this group of drummers caught my attention.....

5.   ..... as did this artist making a sand sculpture.

I'm sure he was pleased that people appreciated his work.

Five on Friday

Hello everyone!  I hope that you've had a good week.  As it's Friday here is my blog post for Five on Friday hosted by F.A.S.T.blog. This week I'm sharing some collages made up of photos taken in Italy earlier in the year in March except for the photo of the butterfly on the scabia flower which was taken at a different time (during August).

However, I'm starting with one of the latest lot of flowers in our front garden, the pink jasmine hedge, some new 'Joie de Vivre' rose bushes that were grown from cuttings and the lovely lavender.

In March some one had not collected the oranges on this tree!  I've put the image with the one of the butterfly.  It's amazing to see so many creatures, butterflies, bees, lizards and crickets, but then in Italy the weather is warm during the day even in the early months of the year.  Our home is sheltered yet still on the mountain slopes of the region.

A local town always looks attractive with the planters in the public areas planted up with seasonal flowers. The bushes of rosemary and bottle bush were also in flower.

Thank you Tricky and Carly for hosting

As always thank you for your visits to my blog and for your kind comments. I'm keeping well as is my husband, but now I'm taking a blogging break.

Wishing you a good Summer,
Linda :) 

Five on Friday

Hello everyone!  I hope that you're having a good week. As Friday has come around again this is a Five on Friday blog post. Thank you Tricky for hosting.

After the recent sunny weather we're back to rainy days. That didn't deter me from meeting a friend on Wednesday at a local tea shop. We try to get together a couple of times a month for a catchup chat before browsing the charity shops or visiting a special event. This week my friend enjoyed a scone with her pot of tea and I had a chocolate brownie with a cup of coffee. We haven't a particularly sweet tooth as it's the drink and chat we look forward to, but the cup cakes always look attractive and tempting! 

We have many small businesses in my local high street including independent bakeries making bespoke cakes for special occasions.  I spotted this fantastic peacock, probably crafted in marzipan, adorning a cake in one of the shop windows. 

I snapped this display in a bomboniere shop when we were walking around a local Italian town. The cake for a little girl's first holy communion party is surrounded by the little ornament gifts that are traditionally given to guests along with the boxes to put them in.

  

Five on Friday

Hello everyone.  Thank you for coming by and thank you for leaving some lovely messages on my last blog post.  After our Sunday and Monday celebrating Father's Day and our wedding anniversary the rest of the week has been relatively quiet working around the house and garden. The hot and humid weather has meant doing this more slowly than usual.  Using the home computer has been really frustrating not only because I'm having trouble with it, but because our internet provider was working on a local connection issue and the service was off most of the day on Wednesday. Once again my blog post is going to be brief and for Five on Friday Meetup I'm sharing five images of the chickens in the fields opposite our house in Italy where they have plenty of space to run around. Wisely they retreated back to the shelter of the olive trees by our neighbour's vegetable plot and vineyard as I walked by across the fields.  I can get to a sister-in-law's home if I walk down to the woods and follow a stream running by them rather than walk up the lane to the cluster of houses where she and her family and other relatives live.

  

Our thoughts are beginning to turn to our next trip to Italy and yet I've hardly shared anything about our last one earlier in the year!  Hopefully I'll write more about that as well as life in England if the problems with my computer improve! 

Meanwhile I wish you a good day and a very peaceful weekend,

Five on Friday

Last Friday I missed the Five on Friday Meetup because I had a hospital appointment in the city. Before getting the bus home I went into Weston Park Museum and today I'm sharing five areas of the museum that I browsed around on that afternoon for today's Five on Friday.

Weston Park

Weston Park Museum

There was a room dedicated to schoolchildren's study projects and creative artwork which caught my attention.

For example, children of years 3 and 4 of one school had created a butterfly and a rhino beetle. The students had collected unused objects for their models. The butterfly's wings are made from plastic tarpaulin sheets and chicken wire. The head is an old saucepan and the eyes are striped baubles.  A garden trowel has been used to make the horn on the rhino beetle's head and its back is strengthened by the blades of a hedge trimmer. The chicken wire body is covered with CDs to give it a metallic finish.  As part of the project the children found out fantastic facts about the bugs.

The benches were also rather attractive and appropriate for this area of the museum - a lot of fun and a good place where children can sit and discuss the displays with their carer or teacher. There are many hands-on study activities for all ages in the different rooms. Guided tours, talks and events are all part of a museum's cultural programme these days and visiting a museum or art gallery is an enjoyable way to see beautiful items and interesting displays and learn more about our world past and present.  I appreciate having such places in our city and Weston Park Museum is just one of several that's worth supporting.

Leading off the room displaying the schoolchildren's artwork is a gallery dedicated to paintings showing the development of the industrial heritage of Sheffield from cottage industry to modern times.

Another room has displays that illustrate aspects of different cultures around the world.

This Japanese silk kimono was probably made for a wedding.  Kimonos are often decorated with cranes to symbolise long life and fertility, but on this kimono the embroidered peacock is linked to Kannon (Guanyin), a Buddhist goddess, and symbolises compasssion, kind-heartedness and good health. This traditional costume was probably made for a European woman as tassels and a sash have been added and the length has been shortened.

There's a lot to see in the galleries dedicated to natural history through the ages (above) and below is an example of the collection of ceramics showing different styles of decoration when producing objects of beauty as well as usefulness. 

In this display cabinet my eyes were drawn to the Staffordshire pottery plate with the familiar Willow Pattern decoration in cobalt-blue and the set of tea cup, coffee cup with handle and saucer produced in China and gilded in Europe (late C18th/early C19th).

Five on Friday link
Thank you Tricky for hosting.

As always, thank you for visiting and for your comments left on my blog posts. Wishing you a good day and week ahead.

Five on Friday

The weather has been warmer in the last few days and it was a good opportunity yesterday to take a walk in Ecclesall Wood.  This ancient woodland near where we live covers many acres of mature trees. It's managed by the city council for the benefit of wildlife and as there are public footpaths running through the woods it's a popular place to walk.  It's also well known for the native English bluebells that bloom there in early May and fortunately they're looking at their best right now.

I'm joining the Weekly Meetup for Five on Friday

hosted by Tricky and Carly.  Thank you both
for arranging the linkup.