About Me

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Delta, British Columbia, Canada
I took very early retirement from teaching in '06 and did some traveling in Europe and the UK before settling down to do some private tutoring. As a voracious reader, I have many books waiting in line for me to read. Tell me I shouldn't read something, and I will. I'm a happy, optimistic person and I love to travel and through that believe that life can be a continuous learning experience. I'm looking forward to traveling more some day. I enjoy walking, cycling, water aerobics & and sports like tennis, volleyball, and fastpitch/baseball. I'm just getting into photography as a hobby and I'm enjoying learning all the bits and bobs of my digital camera. My family is everything to me and I'm delighted to be the mother of two girls and the Gramma of a boy and a girl. I may be a Gramma, but I'm at heart just a girl who wants to have fun.

Monday, November 28, 2016

U is for UNUSUAL

Round 19 has flown by!  Already, we're at the letter U so that means it's not long until our ultimate Round will start.  As Roger has mentioned, it will be the "Farewell Tour," thus the emblem for Round 20 is the ultra-deluxe t-shirt designed by Troy.
Those who have been contributing for a long time will remember that Denise Nesbitt (from North Yorkshire, UK) began ABC Wednesday many years ago and it became unusually popular, getting posts from people all over the world!  Roger took over as Administrator of ABCW several years ago and I became his Assistant Administrator.  We then managed to put together a team so that everyone who posted to ABCW would receive visits and comments from as many people as possible.  Now, after 20 Rounds that equals 10 years, most of us on the team are, as Roger says, "fried" and even though we want to continue, our lives and availability to put so much time into it have become limited.  I, for one, would like to continue but only in a contributing manner, not as someone on the team. A few people have expressed interest in continuing ABCW in a different way, so by all means, get in touch with Roger with your ideas and he will assist you in how to do it. 

Now for my "Unusual" photo of the week, I bring you a few shots of a very special and unusual train that I saw near Darlington in North Yorkshire last summer.  My host pulled over on the side of the highway and told me to get my camera ready.  Uncertain as to what I'd see, my jaw dropped at the sight of this unconventional and unadulterated work of art.
"Designed by leading contemporary artist and sculptor David Mach, Train is made from 185,000 local "Accrington Nori" bricks and commemorates Darlington's illustrious heritage as "home of the railways."  Here are a couple more shots from the website.

Mach describes his train as "as much a piece of architecture as a sculpture," 60 metres long and 6 metres high, it is a perfect rendering of the 1938 classic locomotive "Mallard", complete with plume of billowing smoke.  Creating a large scale, life-like whole out of thousands of commonplace objects is Mach's trademark. To read more about this unusual piece of art and the artist, view the website here.

See you all next week when we venture into the terrain of the letter V as in violet and vegetables.

16 comments:

MelodyK said...

Wonderful post for U and beautiful way to fill in this letter

About this meme.... I know you've put in lots and lots of work, thank you for that. I totally can imagine how you would like to continue 'only' as contributor ;-)
So lets hope someone will continue and you can do that.

Have a nice ABC-day / - Week
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ (abc-team)
http://melodymusic.nl/a-b-c-wednesday-19-u/

carol l mckenna said...

Wow! definitely creative and unusual ~ great share and shots ~

Wishing you a Happy and Fun Week ~ ^_^

Reader Wil said...

Nowthat's the most impressive sculpture I have ever seen!And very original too.

Photo Cache said...

What a cool find. Thanks for sharing.

My ABC WEDNESDAY

ellen b said...

Very unusual for sure. Glad you could stop and zoom in with your camera! How nice to have photos of your good memories in jolly old England. I'm yearning to go back...

Roger Owen Green said...

I LOVE that train!

ROG, ABCW

Hildred said...

Wonderful. I have such happy memories of trains of all sorts and it is greast to see this particular one immortalized.

ChrisJ said...

Love it. I really love today's creativity in public art.

Amit Agarwal said...

Unusual indeed, Leslie! Thank you:)

Trubes said...

Now, that is aamazing Leslie,
I'm almost ashamed to say that I've neither seen nor heard of the sculpture of
'David Mach's train' and it's almost on my doorstep!
Memo to self... Next time Im up that way go and look at 'Davi Mach's' train.

I'm sad that Deniset Roger and you are stepping aside from the admin side of Abcw, I would love to
volounteer to help but it's not possible, as you know, re my health issues.
But if it continues with a new admin team I shall happly carry on in my present role.
I would hate to lose touch with all the lovely friends I've made on ABCW, and we've even had the joy of meeting twice, Leslie when you came to Liverpool, something I shall hold in my heart forever.
We have also had the joy of meeting Denise at her home in Yorkshire, another meeting I shall hold in my heart forever....
Now I have a bucket list of the bloggers I would dearly love to meet .... All down to ABCW.... see what you have started Denise !!
Love Di xxx
Abcw team.

Joy said...

I've seen photos of Mach's train but never realised where it was (I've made a mental note of that). The original is a beautiful piece of engineering and you can see one of its sisters, Dominion of Canada, in your National Railway Museum although it would be rather a trek from where you live and might be easier to visit York and see the original Mallard:)

Anonymous said...

How cool! Brick is a great "tool" to make things (in Holland most houses before 2000 were made of brick - I don't know the percentages now. Thanks for visiting!

baili said...

BEST display of unusual i think .
never saw such thing before .you did wonderful job by sharing it dear

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

hailstorm on first day of summr in Australia. very unusual indeed.

Anonymous said...

nice u word.
unexpected is or could be fruitful.

Unknown said...

nice words
आप की न्यूज़