Skywatch Friday: Celebrating sensational summer skies

Just a note – if you have time, all of these images look better full screen.  Just click on each one and it will happen.

If you had asked me, just five months ago, what’s my favourite sort of sky you would have received in response one of my very best old fashioned looks.  But here I am, with my fourteenth Skywatch Friday post, and able to tell you that without fail, skies like the one in these photographs have me rushing for my camera.

Since this is a celebration of my favourite sort of sky I thought I would be completely self-indulgent and combine it with a few of my other favourite things.  All these photographs were taken yesterday afternoon in my garden – one of my favourite places to be.  The first and last ones feature poppies, which a quick flick through recent blog entries will demonstrate are one of my favourite photographic subjects for June.  This next one features the plum tree which is my favourite part of the garden, although you will understand that I don’t normally lie on my back under said plum tree, looking upwards.  Heavens, no, the neighbours already have too much to talk about!

I’m also rather partial to fairly abstract shots.  This is part of our little summer house.  It needs painting so I’m not going to show you the rest of it!  Maybe that will be a project for the coming months and I could feature it in the autumn with a rocking chair and rustic blanket or some such… 

Yes, I’m afraid we do have a rather ostentatious three-tier fountain.  But in our defence this was here when we bought the house, installed by the previous owners.  And we did decline the invitation to purchase their large Italian marble replicas of the Four Seasons and Michelangelo’s David.  Although I was thinking yesterday afternoon what good subjects they would have made against this beautiful sky…  Incidentally, don’t worry about my reputation with the neighbours following this next shot.  It’s true that I had to dangle my legs over the bottom tier, lie flat on the ground and point the camera upwards to capture this image of the top tier – but thankfully the fountain is not visible from any neighbouring property.  So all that can be our little secret…!

And finally, just because I can’t resist this combination of deep pink against my favourite sky blue, here’s one of the last poppies of the season.  There’ll be more next year.

Hope the skies are sensational where you are!

Skywatch Friday is organised every week by Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy and Louise.  Thanks to them and hundreds of regular contributors, you can click on the badge below to see beautiful skies from all over the world. 

Since I have been so self-indulgent this also seems a gentle way in to Leah’s suggested theme of self for July’s Creative Every Day challenge.  You can click here to see how others are starting to work with that.