Elora Gorge Waterfall

Elora Gorge Waterfall
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Sometimes you have to push yourself
It enables you to find your boundaries, your limits.
I doubted myself.
In the face of an upcoming challenge I had doubts ...
Could I ?
Would I ?
What if ?
As it turns out the challenge was / is far less than I imagined.
The thought of failure is harder to face than the failure itself.
Still I had to prove to myself that I was/am up for the challenge.
Oh I am tired and sore but I have banished those demons that haunted these last few days.
Some will laugh and call me silly or daft, stupid even but once those niggling doubts are allowed to take root they are worse than weeds.
I gave myself the strength to face them and in the facing they withered away.

This reminded me of a poem ...

.. by Ruyard Kipling

IF…..
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son

When the fields turn to gold

When the fields turn to gold
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Those who know me know only too well how I relish the first hint of Autumn.
The cool nights and warm days of September are, to me, so much better than the oppressive heat and humidity of July and August.
Sleeping with the windows open is a pleasure especially when you have a down filled duvet.

Ah yes, Autumn not only is the weather better but the harvest of squash, root vegetables and fruits make for splendid dinners, "comfort food". Those hearty stews and soups forgotten during the heat now tantalise the thoughts.

Who could not love this time of year....

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

Singing Sands-moonscape

Singing Sands-moonscape
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

I think I have used today's quotation before but it pretty well sums up how I feel when I am "out there".

A recent trip up the Bruce peninsula found me at Singing Sands.
A place of such incredible diversity and breathtaking beauty.
A place that will call me back time and time again I am sure.
From flora and fauna, to the windswept wide open shoreline the almost alien landscape of the Alvars* and the majestic Lake Huron sunsets.

* "These areas of grooved and scraped stone are a globally rare habitat known as an alvar. Only select areas within the Great Lakes basin (including Ohio's Kelley Island), Sweden and Estonia have alvars. Created thousands of years ago when the mighty weight of the glaciers passed over the area, you can still see grooves and markingsfrom where they scraped over the bedrock"

Quote from

http://floraofohio.blogspot.ca/2011/07/rams-heads-on-singing-sands-bruce.html

We really are blessed with some of the most interesting, complex, rare and breathtakingly beautiful landscapes here in Canada.
I am glad that these places are relatively devoid of people,
Selfish?
maybe.... :-)


I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy. ~Hamlin Garland, McClure's, February 1899

Noisy neighbours

Noisy neighbours
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

This weekend was my wife's birthday. A grand family get together somehow materialised as the stars and planets aligned and busy people all ended up in the same place to spend some of that ever so precious commodity, "time" together.

This got me thinking, to a lot of people a family gathering should be, more aptly named, 'family feud' but to me, my inherited family and the get-togethers are something to look forward to and enjoy.
I remember a few years ago talking with my Mother-in-Law about the grand family dinners we had as the children grew, good times all.
Somehow they slipped away as families grew and the need to provide for them pulled everyone to different parts of the continent and the world gobbling up chunks of "time".
No one meant it to happen, it just did.

Now though the children are grown, starting lives of their own and the pressures are easing.
Saturday evening was a testament to this as almost all the family were able to gather to celebrate my wife's birthday.....

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

Family, where good times go hand in hand

Two quotes to consider this week:

What greater blessing to give thanks for at a family gathering than the family and the gathering. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable. ~Mark V. Olsen and Will Sheffer, Big Love, "Easter"

p.s.Next time Gary, next time.

Still beautiful

Still beautiful
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

This last week my wife and I took a mini vacation.
Just the two of us and no particular destination in mind apart from a couple of reservations in small towns north of us.
Long leisurely drives, early dinners and stopping whenever something caught our eye or sparked our imagination.
I really enjoy these times alone with my wife, we get a chance to catch up and to some degree reconnect.
Life can be so hectic and there are so many demands on our time that days like these become more and more important.

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret

Now that a kn-oy-fe ....

Now that a kn-oy-fe ....
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Lets talk about people,
people who you can rely on,
people you can rely on in a pinch.
Don Corby is one of those people...
let me explain ...
Late on Friday evening I was given the opportunity to show some of my photographs in Fergus. The trouble was I had no images in frames and no frames to put them in.
Hence the panic call to Don ...
Don, I need 6 frames by Monday !! I whined ( if you can whine in an e-mail).
I now, I know, said I, busy weekend, last minute panic etc. etc.
Don replied "what time do you want to pick them up on Monday morning".
This is not the first time he has bailed me out and it probably won't be the last!

You know Don deserves to be put on a pedestal for customer service and an excellent product.

So Don here is your moment in the sun, a heartfelt "thank you" from your pain-in-the-butt customer :-)

http://www.corbyframing.ca/

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. ~Winston Churchill

Golden Hour Glow

Golden Hour Glow
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

It seems that the only time that I want to be outside during these inferno like months is early in the morning. The earth has had a chance to cool before the fireball rises above the horizon yet again to scorch the fields, man and beast once more, to torture us for another long day.
So my photography fix has to be had in that few hours before the sun climbs too high because the rest of the day is spent hiding in the air conditioning.

This is one mad dog Englishman who does NOT go out in the mid-day sun!!

Still there is hope ....

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. ~Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting