a new affair of the heart.....?

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a comment on Flighty's Plot,   in which I said that I wasn't a great fan of roses.  

That seems to have made fate or karma or the Great Rose God smile in a mischievous sort of way.  Not long afterwards, we went away for the weekend and stumbled on a small rose garden.  I can't remember exactly how many photographs I took there, but it was a clatter (Northern Irish for more than a few and less than loads).  

I realise now that I have never really appreciated the variety of shapes, colours and general beauty that roses can assume, but my education has started.  The collage shows a few of the roses on display - two of the shots have been processed (bottom left corner and top right corner). 

If anyone can help out with the varieties here, I'd be very grateful.  I have the RHS Encyclopedia, but there are so many variations it's difficult to identify them when you're starting from scratch.

Now, the image at the start of the post!  This is a piece of public art in Coleraine.  It stands at a waterbus stop on the River Bann, on which Coleraine is built. 

It's quite a striking work and I think it's a dragonfly, which may be a reference to the river.  Frustratingly, I haven't been able to track down any reference to it on the Coleraine Council website or public art in Northern Ireland websites and so I have no idea who created it or when it was set up.  It looks to me as if it may be made from recycled materials, but that may not be the case.  Anyhow, I'll keep trying and may end up contacting the council to try to get some info.  It actually looks a little bit confused to me, as if it's not sure how it ended up on the pole or what to do now!

I realised that with one thing and another, Creativity Boot Camp had come to an end all of a sudden.  We had exam fever in our house for a while there, with AS levels going on, so I fell a little behind with some of the prompts.  I still have one more to do, but here are the last few to complete all the images.

Full bodied - this is my favourite jug, from the Iveagh Pottery in Co. Kerry.  I LOVE the shape and the colours.

Smooth - the first image for this was hurried and also betrayed the fact that I was thinking about food

The second image for smooth was much more refined!!

The final prompt was Smile and I'm afraid that things became a little silly

The only one that's left is Hush; I intend to post an image for that, but am not hushed at all at the minute and so will wait a little before deciding what it's going to be.

The Boot Camp was fantastic - I felt that it gave the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and start to do things differently to the way I had been used to.  I'm continuing with Sunday Creative, which will be a little more leisurely.