Panoramic, beautiful views on your commute

How's this for a view on the way to work?

I travel across the countryside to work and the views are so amazing that I have to force myself to ignore them most days lest I accidentally miss a corner and end up rolling into a pile of cow muck in a farmers field. Unfortunately, the best views are at points on my car journey where the road is freakishly narrow and where there is no opportunity to park unless I risk pulling onto a farmers drive and blocking the trackers.

Strange really, as I am sure that there are panoramic parking spots every two minutes when you drive up hills in Europe. I certainly had plenty of brilliant photo opportunities when we holidayed in Majorca. But here, in the Midlands, on the edge of the Peak District, car parking spaces aren't deemed a necessity, gorgeous view or not. So the best, and only, parking spot I found gave me this picture on my route in today. Snow still peppering the ground, bright blue sky above. It was around 2 degrees Celsius. It was beautiful.

So do you take the time to look around and view the landscape? Share your photos here in the linky, or send them me via Twitter @ymummyreally or via the Facebook page, or even, goodness how many social options have we got, share them on Google+ ( discovered that yet?) on the Yummy Mummy? Really? page.


I'd love to see them.

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Breakfast at The Gallery

Tara, over at wonderful blog Sticky Fingers, has set the theme of breakfast for this weeks photo gallery.  In case you haven't come across this before, every week Tara hosts a collection of wonderful photo posts on her blog.You can click on the coffee mug at the bottom to view the collection.

Now breakfast is one theme I can easily get involved in!  I have more than one photo for this!

What would be in your breakfast photo?  Would there be food at all?  Are you a smoothie drinker? A coffee en route to work drinker? What about a bacon butty at the cafe?

I'd love to hear about your breakfast routines and whether they are complete chaos (which is usual in our house with a 6 year old and a 4 year old to contend with) or whether they are serene calm affairs.  Feel free to add a comment below, contact me on Twitter at @ymummyreally, or join the discussion on Facebook where you can share your pictures with me if you don't have a blog.

So here's my breaky photo attempts!  My favourite is, by far, the tea.  Just call me Marple.

 

 

 

Before and After: Make-up in 5 minutes with Clarins

How to do your make-up in 5 minutes with Clarins.

I am trying to get over my fear of having my photograph taken.  It tends to reveal too many flaws for my liking, so I have photo album after photo album at home, we are up to number 46 now, with very few photographs of me in them.

So I decided to face my fear directly.

This is me before and after my make-up session this morning.

I have realised that the first is possibly the most embarrassing and poor photograph of me ever.  So if I can publish this post I will have faced up to my fears! I am such a wimp.  I get pretty red cheeks and a red nose now in the morning.  I am reliably informed it's because I'm 'getting on a bit'.  Nice.

Here's me less than 5 minutes later having popped on a little bit of Clarins Advanced Extra-Firming Day Lotion (SPF 15) rubbed on as if I was rubbing on suncream - with not much grace or sophistication; some Clarins SKin Illusion Foundation (SPF10), rubbed in with fingers like the moisturiser, there's no messing with brushes in this house; some Clarins Concealer, a quick dab with the brush then rubbed in gently with fingers again; a tiny tiny bit of eye shadow near the top lashes, mostly done with my finger; a quick brush of mascara, literally two upward strokes and a final splash of lip gloss, Clarins lip gloss of course, received from a good friend for Christmas.
 

It makes a subtle difference, and it took me next to no time at all. It has to be easy, as I'm clueless at this beauty thing really!

Many may say I didn't slap on enough!  But I never want make-up to look like make-up.  I prefer it if no-one can even tell I'm wearing make-up as long as they also think I look surprisingly healthy despite an age increasing approaching 40.

 

It's all Clarins, and I save up specifically for that, purely because it's the lovely lady at our local Boots Clarins counter that introduced me to make-up for the first time 4 years ago.  I don't trust any other products!

And don't look too closely at the moustache will you!  I'm dealing with that - honest!  Check out my post on my venture into Electrolysis here.

Oh, and I should say, that this is NOT a sponsored post.  I haven't received any freebies or benefits from Clarins whatsoever for writing this post.  I just love the products.

Extreme close up: attempting photography!

I am not a great photographer.  In fact, on the evidence of previous posts, I am a terrible photographer.  But when I saw that Tara at Sticky Fingers' new Gallery theme was Extreme Close Up.  I felt I had to join in with the challenge.

I took a few pictures of the children, but they just look like I forgot to back away before clicking.  My best attempt of the afternoon is here.

Our magnolia is the only flowering plant in our back garden at the moment, because, after four years in this house we've still only got as far as sorting out the patio, lawn, hedge and a few evergreens and perennials to fill up the space.

Actual flowers haven't got much of a look in yet; making our tree particularly special this spring.

For more extreme close ups, head over to The Gallery.

The Christmas Bad and the Portrait Ugly!?

Christmas has definitely arrived at our house.  The 'Santa Stop Here' sign is outside, the tree is up, lights are on, and Christmas cards are appearing randomly on shelves.  But I still haven't found a suitable card display technique that doesn't involve banging nails in the wall and doesn't involve blue-tac.

And although my effort at capturing our tree isn't too bad (?), after receiving Joanne Mallon's tip following my last post, I jumped straight into Android market and downloaded myself the Colour Touch App that appeared after searching for 'Hipstamatic' in an attempt to improve my pictures.  And literally one minute later I had created.... well.... this.    

Appropriate caption anyone?

OK, maybe I shouldn't have tried to photograph myself!  

The app is actually very straight forward and good for quick edits (turning colour into black and white, sepia etc with one click).  So thanks Joanne!

But I think a bad picture will always be a bad picture!  I'll start working on the basics first shall I?