Weekly Winners, Antwerp Central Station

I needed some pictures for my photo class exam, so we took off with the camera and the tripod and spent some time in Antwerp central station. Lots and lots of photo opportunities there ...

Weekly Winners, Antwerp by night

Antwerp by night, an attempt at night photography ...



I wanted to make more and better shots so I returned two days later, just after sunset.
We took the elevator to the roof of the building above and took the next couple of panoramic night views of Antwerp.




From inside the building ...






Weekly Winners is hosted by Lotus at I am Lotus.

Friday's Fave Five, Tea, Flowers and a new Cookbook.

The month of November has whizzed by in a jiffy and it's the first Friday of December already!! Time to look back and reflect upon the week that has passed, and post about the things I'm grateful for.
This weekly meme is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.




1. Photography class. We've been through a lot of theoretic stuff, and things are slowly becoming a bit more interesting because we can finally put our knowledge into practice.
Last week we took a shot at night photography.

2. I got a lovely bouquet of red flowers from my husband last night. There was no particular occasion, he just felt like buying me flowers he said.

3. Rooibos caramel tea I bought at Lidl. I just love that sweet caramel taste.

4. I kind of like the series of portraits I made this weekend featuring my husband and Tisja, our 18 year old cat in a very cuddly mood.

5. A cookbook from my favorite three starred Michelin chef Sergio Herman, for only € 5.99. It's a newspaper promotion and it still runs two more weeks, so there will be two more cookbooks from this cooking genius!

Weekly Winners, Oct 23rd - November 13th

Lotus missed posting a couple of times and I missed her Weekly Winners meme.
Anyway, she's back now and I'm doing an XXL Weekly Winners with my favorite pictures of the last couple of weeks!
Check out what the others have posted at Lotus' I am Lotus, the homeblog of Weekly Winners.

Friday's Fave Five, Scary Monsters

 

Friday again ... now wait a minute? Where has that week gone to? It's been an amazing week for me, busy and relaxed at the same time, with lots of exciting moments. Time to look back by joining Friday's Fave Five and share some of the highlights from it ...  

 

  

1. A looooooooooooooooooong weekend. It's always a treat for me when my hubby is home, and this week he did not have any appointments until Wednesday. We visited a pumkin fair, had fun with the camera on two different photo walks, we slept in, took our time to enjoy breakfast a bit more than usual, you know, we had a lot of fun together!

2. On Monday evening we had a Halloween market in our village. It was organized for the very first time and it was a great success. Not only the vendors were disguised as creepy monsters, so were a lot of the visitors! To savor the true Halloween atmosphere, we went there after dark. I took my camera and tried some of the manual settings on my camera, as I had learned in photography class the week before. It seemed to work just fine and I'm really pleased with the photos I took!

3. The weather has been unbelievably warm and sunny these last couple of days, and we thoroughly enjoyed our Indian Summer. Fall is really at it's peak now, and the colors are wonderful. Add two more weeks and the leaves will all have fallen, so now was the time to make a photo walk to capture Fall in all it's beauty. When we came back, I made us lunch, and noticed it was still warm enough to eat outside. We had a salad with a glass of rosé wine and basked in the warm sun. It was heaven!

4.I had a breakfast date with my friend Nana on Thursday morning.  I forgot to take my camera, so that 's a bit of a shame, but we did have a great time. Well, we always do, don't we? Her present for my birthday was very well chosen, I love it. Want to know what it was? Well, remember the pink and green cups and bowls I bought this Summer? She gave me matching mini oven dishes I can use to serve an appetizer or a little garnish on the side of the plate. She had found them in a little shop in Nyons, France. This makes them even more special to me!

5. I went shopping for clothes, and actually found some nice stuff at bargain prices! The lovely compliments my friend Nana gave me yesterday about how I looked in my new mini skirt made me confident enough to want to buy another one, thus following my husband's clothing advice. I also found a very stylish gray dress, a belt, a sweater and a cardigan. I'm so happy with my new outfits!

For more Friday's Fave Five's from other people, visit Susanne's Living to tell the Story.

Weekly Winners, The Eagle has Landed

Our daughter Patsy attended a training session with birds of prey, and I had the opportunity to shoot some unique photos. Enjoy ...









Weekly Winners is hosted by Lotus, AKA Sarcastic Mom at I am Lotus.

Street Views in Provence, Séguret

Over the years, on the many walks through small villages in Provence I took photos of street views. Some of the houses, windows and doors are beautifully decorated with flowers and plants, and I can never get past them without taking pictures.
Over the next couple of weeks, this is what I intend to share on Thursdays ..





Séguret is located in the northern part of the Vaucluse, north of the Dentelles de Montmirail and west of Mont Ventoux. The village lies at the foot of a hill topped by the ruins of its feudal château. Séguret is one of the official "most beautiful villages in France", and thoroughly deserves this distinction.

Friday's Fave Five, Quality Time with my Daughter

It's Friday, time to join Susanne's Friday's Fave Five again. The idea of this meme is to look back upon the week that has passed and post about five things that have made your week special.




1. I'm so glad my Mom is recovering well after her operation. She needed surgery to take care of an incisional hernia that appeared a couple of weeks ago. She is doing great, and she is going to be home very soon.

2. My daughter's birthday. That was a week ago last Thursday, but we celebrated it with a little family dinner and some quality time together on Saturday. It's SO nice to have her home.

3. Weight loss. Trying to loose weight is an eternal battle for me. Some may remember I lost some weight last year, but I gained it all back during Winter. Finally I joined Weight Watchers at the end of May, and so far I have lost 4.4 kilos. After gaining a kilo during our long weekend in the Gaume region, I lost 1.3kg this week at the Weight Watcher's weigh in on Tuesday evening, and another half a kilo this morning.

4. Playing with my camera. I had my photography class yesterday evening, and I practiced my skills earlier this morning. I'm hoping better knowledge and practice will make me a better photographer.

5. Chili con carne, Weight Watcher's style. Chili con carne has always been a favorite of mine, but now I found this low calorie Weight Watcher's recipe. Now I can eat it more often!

Street Views in Provence, Saignon

Over the years, on the many walks through small villages in Provence I took photos of street views. Some of the houses, windows and doors are beautifully decorated with flowers and plants, and I can never get past them without taking pictures.
Over the next couple of weeks, this is what I intend to share on Thursdays ....



This is one of the tiny streets of Saignon, a little perched village 3 km southeast of Apt.

Friday's Fave Five, Tourists in our own Country

It's Friday, time to join Susanne's Friday's Fave Five again. The idea of this meme is to look back upon the week that has passed and post about five things that have made your week special.




My week has been a very busy one, as we had
1. an extra long weekend away from home last weekend. We left last Friday and rented a little bungalow in a bungalow park till Monday morning. We stayed in the Gaume region, the southernmost part of Belgium, also known as the Belgian Provence.
2. The weather was wonderful, it was nice and warm and with gorgeous blue skies. (well, at least Friday and Saturday it was!) We could have breakfast outside and STAY outside until way after dark.
3. My camera worked overtime. We visited Torgny, one of the most beautiful little villages of the Gaume region, Orval abbey, the citadel of Montmedy ,Virton, and saw the most beautiful scenery! Needless to say my camera worked overtime!
4. Of course we tasted Orval beer, a Trappist beer brewed right there at the abbey. (Trappist beer is an appellation contr™lée in the world of beer. It covers the beers made by one Trappist monastery in the Netherlands and five in Belgium Source: Michael Jackson , the beerhunter)
We tried some dishes cooked with Orval beer later that evening, and had a matured Orval to go with it. Much to my surprise, I noticed that it was bottled on Oct 20th 2010, that's my birthday!!! My hubby asked the owners of the restaurant if we could buy some from them and bought a whole case!
5. It was back to school for me too this week. My cooking class started on Wednesday and yesterday evening I had my first digital photography lesson!