by I am cheating a little and using the Four Corners concept to quickly introduce to you people and ideas so that future articles on Portugal make a lot more sense.
Introducing Mr P — who does not really wish to be on the internet at all. Ironically, I met Mr P online playing a rather silly game called Tribal Wars. Mr P was born in Morocco of French parents and has been living in Portugal for most of his life. He has a degree in Biology from Pau University. He speaks French, Portuguese and English extremely well and has knowledge of Spanish, Italian and German as well. He has a strong sense of history and of culture. The mix of our cultures and our language brings a lot of humour to our lives. We love to travel — not just in the broadest sense — but in the everyday sense of exploration; not only of ourselves and our lives but in the beauty found all around us. We have adventures everywhere! This picture was taken at our handfasting where we took our vows in front of friends and family.
Next up is K — my eldest daughter who has almost finished her nursery school assistant’s training in a record time of just under 8 months — one more stage to go and she qualifies. She has a little boy who I will refer to as B — he will be four years old. K is the earth mother, the one who takes after me most, she grows and cooks her own food, crafts and does endless art and handicraft projects with my beloved B.
Next is H my surviving son – shown here at his wedding last year with his wife and my second grandhild M who is also a real cutie.
Last, but not least my youngest C , my “baby” who is now all grown up, married and who received her Doctorate in BioChemistry from Bath University last year.
These are the people who keep me sane, give sense and direction to my life and above all love me dearly just like I love them.
This is such a lovely and beautiful sharing of “the Four Corners” that make up the pillars of your world, Nicola!
I originally put this in the “RelationShaping” category — but then I changed it to “Boles University” because so much of the descriptions of your most beloveds has to do with education and learning and making a human difference!
Thank you!
Lovely images and great to meet your family! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Gordon – it is nice to share them – even if by initial only !
Look forward to more of these – everywhere I go there are another 4 corners in a different area of my life. I love that you include making a human difference in the education and learning category. I have to say I forget that they are there – must do better !
Yes, our “Four Corner(stones)” — can change with us throughout the day — and the fun of it all is sharing those moments of discovery at a certain moment in time.
I did some color correction on tone and tint on your infamous handfasting image that was sort of “filterized” in the Instagram sort of way — and it cleaned up pretty well, I think, except for the lower left hand corner that just wanted to remain an unnatural and muddy dark. There’s nothing in the actual image that would cause that sort of shadow, and that’s why I hate these filters that only add inauthenticity to really important moments in our lives.
I love the idea of them !
You got the raw film pre edit and huge size – I am still waiting for the tidied up ones in reasonable size – the instagramed ones I refuse to share as they have a huge claymark/copyrite stamp in the bottom corner. She could well have been using some kind of filter because it was incredibly sunny that day ! – Whatever you did to it – it looks pretty good ! Thank you.
Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder where that shadow is coming from? I’ll have to look at the original again closer. I’m so glad you have the originals that haven’t been filtered.
I can hazzard a guess – the other photographer perhaps ? I did hear loud mutterings about them always pushing and getting in the way !
Ah! That would explain it! I don’t like it, though… SMILE!
its irritating as you cannot easily crop it out without lossing the balance in the picture .
Very beautifully written. I love that you shared you family with us.
my pleasure
You have a great family. It was a pleasure meeting everyone!
They have all grown up a lot since I last shared them with you and everyone here – the years fly by quickly !