I wish you a very happy and healthy Christmas.

I certainly hope Santa treats you well!

JT

The first wealth is health. Words spoken by my dad who probably reiterated it from a famous quote. But whoever said it, really is correct.

You never value your health until you aren’t feeling well. However, getting angry, frustrated or annoyed and upset doesn’t aid your recovery. Instead, it adds fuel to the fire.

For the last year, concentrating more over the last month, I have been meditating. Deep breathing, positive thinking and clear visualisations. Little to my knowledge that positive news and opportunities were on my way.

Then I became ill. Was this because my relative passed away at the time I was ill, or because I have caught a big or a chill? Don’t know. However, with a bad and painful stomach yesterday, visualising my solar plexus chakra being healed and cleared, with the help of a guided meditation, fizzled all the discomfort away. Power of the mind is key.

This image was taken in my car park at work earlier this year. I just love the way the clouds are formed and the way it accents the clear blue sky. Again, taken on my iPhone XR and this wasn’t edited. What you see is what it was. Pure bliss.

I wish you a happy healthy Christmas and new year.

Might speak to you before that though!

JT

When you’re down, feeling lonely, just look at the sky and restore your faith in your life. Have faith that better days are coming and it will be obvious why things didn’t work out the way you intended it to in time.

I took this photo on a residential trip with my work at Ford Castle in Berwick. It was the day before I was coming home and it was freezing, I was bored because the children were doing some bushcrafting, I wanted to just go home and enjoy a nice rest on my sofa.

But then I looked up and saw this beauty. This image will forever be my favourite picture. Taken on my iPhone 7, I still can’t get over the clarity and tone of the picture.

JT

I love sunsets.

I caught this (slightly adjusted) corker on the way home. On my way, I pass a lake with ducks and swans and thought it’d be the perfect setting for a picture.

I love reflections as well.

Over the last two years I have fallen head over heels in live with photography. I am so proud of my accomplishments and my hard work. I’ve literally started from scratch and can’t believe how far I’ve come.

I look forward to 2020 to see how further still my journey will take me.

I will keep swimming.

JT

It’s ok to feel lost sometimes. I feel like this from time to time, especially when life can be a bit blurry, but I think it’s the universes way of clearing paths you never knew you could follow.

Every day is a new day to rise and shine. It’s that fresh start that might be the start of something new! Make your presence known and power through. Aim high and don’t ever contemplate the thought of falling.

The picture I have attached to this post was taken in a glorious glorified greenhouse in a National Trust venue. The sun was bright and beaming and the breeze was fresh! But this picture isn’t just a shot of a flower.

It shows independence, integrity and pride. It symbolises strength, ownership and power. It isn’t afraid to be the way it wants to be. It doesn’t cower away by other plants appearances, nor does it diminish in beauty by the words of others opinions.

It’s hard to know where you belong and why you have to go through things you do. But, if you are reading this, you are put on this planet for a reason. So what if you don’t have all the answers?

Life will go on the way it is supposed to. Sometimes the best way is to sit in the front row and ride it out! Enjoy the ups and downs, the dizzying heights and sickening turns.

Maybe, just maybe, things will then start to make sense.

JT

Just be. Those two words are the best piece of advice I have probably received.

Just be. Be yourself, live in the moment.

I lost a good friend at the start of November. I would text her every day and see her every half term. I miss the fact I can’t tell her little things, see her and laugh with her anymore. I’ve found it hard today.

But, sometimes you just need to feel how you feel. Go with the flow, go through the motions. Carry on with life, enjoy every moment. Just be.

This image of the beautiful swan was taken at Paddy Freeman’s park in Jesmond/Heaton. Like a swan, you just need to keep swimming. Even when it’s cold, you don’t feel like it or you feel everything is going wrong.

Just keep going. Keep swimming. And have confidence that everything will be ok.

JT

I love nature. I have strong beliefs I am as part of the universe and earth as it is of me. Nature calms me and, pardon the pun, leads me back to my roots.

When I was younger, technology was just starting to begin. I would be a computer monitor in primary school, where every morning I would go into school and wheel the computer to my classroom. Kids Pix was the most amazing thing in the whole world! How times have changed.

I didn’t appreciate the outdoors as much as I do now. Instead, I would rather spend my time reading, singing, doing my homework and playing with my sister.

My fascination and love for the outdoors properly began on our family trips to Centre Parcs (formally known as “Oasis”). It was here we would ride our bikes, walk in the woods and hunt for red squirrels. What a time to be alive!

Centre Parcs is a holiday resort in the Lake District. Instead of hotels, you are assigned to a cabin (in the woods) which are self catered and within walking distance to the local leisure centre.

One time, I went on a riding trip with my older sister. At the time I was about 8/9 years old, my sister being 13/14. I wasn’t, and still not, very confident on a bike, but just cycling with my sister made me feel like Chris Hoy.

The track through the woods we took was quite gravelly at times, and I sheepishly followed my best friend down this steep hill. Then I slipped and fell off my bike and cried and cried and cried.

In shock, by both my hysteria and bleeding grazed knee, my sibling shot off back to the cabin for help from my parents. What felt like 2 hours later, which in fact probably was 10 minutes, my sister returned and told me to follow her back to the cabin.

Yeah, Mum and Dad weren’t pleased!

Still, it remains in my memory as if it was yesterday.

Happy times.

JT

I will set the scene: paths are slippy, cars are frosted over, it’s 3°c at the highest and it’s December.. I know, lets go for a walk in nature!

I love nature. I love being outside, especially with my camera. The cold doesn’t bother me, as such, just as long as the sun is shining – I’m off out!

In my city, beautiful Newcastle, there is a tranquil hidden gem called Jesmond Dene. Here is where you find a small animal enclosure, called “Pets Corner”, a wonderful cafe and gorgeous surroundings of a waterfall and stream encased by tall towering trees.

I didn’t want to be out for too long due to the cold, but I managed to take 50 photographs within the hour and a half I was there.

I was walking along one of the paths where I can across a gentleman with his two children. He told me to be careful on the bridge (where I took this photo). When I came to the bridge, I totally understood what he meant. To say it was slippy is probably an understatement. I didn’t test it out, dare I add, but watching other members of the public doing so made me stay on the side. How the ladies with prams got to the top, is beyond my comprehension!

JT

Oh, Summer! How I am missing you! Your heat, happiness, holidays and light nights!

Winter is never my favourite season, especially weather wise, but Christmas and family gatherings always win me round.

The photo in today’s post is from my beautiful summer holiday to Belgium. I went to visit my gorgeous school friend who has lived there for over a year now, and loved every second.

I had just had an amazing burger in the park opposite before visiting this belter of a building. I ordered the food in french and joined my friend and her friend, and a bunch of wasps at a picnic bench alfresco. Weather was very warm indeed!

The palace was incredible! However, the blister I was developing on my foot was not. Note to self: break in shoes before you walk 754346 miles around Brussels!

So, with the sight of better weather to come, and lighter nights, I shall embrace and enjoy the coldness winter has to offer.

After all, t’is the season to be jolly!

JT

Sometimes you have an idea that explodes in your mind. One that feels like everything has come together and you have that eureka moment! Well, I haven’t had any of those recently.

At work, my day job is a teaching assistant, I run a lunchtime film club. For the last 6 years I have watched films with the children but this year I decided to take a new more vocational approach.

It would drive me absolutely insane and irate when the children would talk all the way through the films, so why don’t I do a bit more of a hands on club? Each week focuses on a duty of film making. For the next two weeks it is special effects.

My not – so – eureka idea was to do paper maché. Not only have I used up half the planets supply of glue for my fifteen children, the 40 minute clear up afterwards made the task instantly regrettable.

But the balloons are dry, and the children are ready for painting their masks next week. I “can’t wait”!

The picture I have chosen to accompany this post is a photo I took at Whitley Bay’s Bonfire Night Spectacular! The fireworks were amazing and a 10 second shutter speed was used with and ISO of 100 and f stop 11.

JT