A bird's eye view

[girlyswot]

My flat is on the second (US = third) floor and because of the way the ground slopes, it feels much higher than that when I am looking out of the window. Normally my attention is caught by the water a couple of hundred yards away in the Cromarty Firth. It is tidal and so it's always fun to watch it rise and fall through the day. Or I'll look across the sea to the Black Isle. Or, very often, I'll just be mesmerized by the ever-changing sky. I have my Gmail theme set to 'Tree' which has a weather-sensitive element that just can't keep up!

But today it is foggy. I can just about see the houses across the street down below, but not the fields and certainly not the water. My attention is focused instead on the tree immediately in front of the window. There are several tiny blue tits perched on its bare branches, pecking away industriously, looking for food. I don't think that anyone else (except possibly my neighbour) can see them.

When I was an undergraduate, I had a second-floor room in the front quad at Exeter just opposite the chapel. From my window you could see all the details of the carvings of the apostles that were quite hidden from view at ground-level. I loved sitting in my window seat and looking out at my private gallery.

What are your hidden, private places? What do you see that no one else notices?

Comments

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

I love these two views: the spot in the garden in the second picture down (http://land-girl.livejournal.com/300025.html), and the view from my bedroom window (http://land-girl.livejournal.com/145477.html). The middle part of the garden, where the willow tree is now, I imagine to have been occupied by the Danes who gave the village its name. I am sure that they would have set up camp here, by the river.

My other secret place can be seen in this post, here (http://land-girl.livejournal.com/323190.html). It feels very ancient, and magical.

[amamama.livejournal.com]

Awww, it's f-lokced! *pouts* Those views sound absolutely lovely, though. And which village are you in, that got its name from the Danes?

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

It would be easiest if I friended you, wouldn't it? And then you can see them :-)

Corby. It means wooded place, I believe.

[amamama.livejournal.com]

Yay - friended back. :-)

[amamama.livejournal.com]

Oh, wonderful! I've now properly enjoyed myself. :-) I love rapeseed fields, it's such a cheerful yellow. The ancient, magical place looked just the part. Magnificent trees up the hill! I love trees. (Don't have a clue what Cor is derived from, but -by is a place where people live. Lots of farms named either just By or some combination (like Nordby - north by), in addition to by meaning town).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Your views sounds beautiful (even the fog). I am jealous. I don't think I've ever 'owned' any really lovely views. Nice ones, yes, but not impressive.

On holiday last year, though, having particularly asked the holiday company if I could have a good view (after a run of bad luck), I was inspired to do my post-ski stretching exercises clad in my long underwear in front of the large triple-glazed window, gazing across the literally trackless wastes to the mountain on the other side of the valley. No one could see me, and I could see everything as the light died. It was wonderful.

[moonette1.livejournal.com]

Private? *laughs* I haven't had any private place to myself since I had my first child. It's a nice thought, though. Once in a while I take a walk on the beach when the kids are in school and I can avoid the guilt of not walking the dog (he's not allowed onto the sand in our town). The ocean is my favorite place in the world. Your place sounds quite lovely. I think I'll book a flight out there. I'll just tell Mike I'm going "shopping" for the afternoon. ;)

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

I ride round London on the bus (ideally no. 24 but can't be this one all the time sadly) and sit on the top deck and look at London from the first story up. This is the most interesting hidden private place in my large capital city, although I also know a cute little garden in the City that no-one else goes to. And the cemetery in Margravine Gardens is pretty good.

[grandma-kate.livejournal.com]

Since I am the only one who goes into my exercise pool (unless grandboys are visiting), I have all the views from there to enjoy all by myself. From March through October, we have nine different sun flags on the screened windows of the gazebo that the pool is in. I exercise and watch them flapping in the breeze. We have many deciduous trees that change greatly over the year and I watch them in all seasons. We put up plastic sheeting for the winter months so the view is not so clear but I can see a great may of the decorative suns that are on the fences and on the walls of the covered porch where the hot tub is.

[amamama.livejournal.com]

My computer is on the first/second floor and I have a view that goes past the neighbours house, across the field they said they's start developing seven years ago, but which is just getting filled up with trees as time goes by (it's been a thistle farm, which is so not fun to have as a neighbour, I don't know how many thistles we weed each year), but the view across the fieald to the hills in the distance is quite lovely, and one I savour, because when they finally do build, that view will be gone and all I'll see is houses. Right now, though - in this very moment - we've got the blue hour, and woth the snow that arrived over the weekend, the effect is magical. It really *is* a blue world out there. Beautiful. I'm not sure I have that many hidden, private places, but I do tend to see (and fall in love with) all the wonderful details around me. A rusting bulldozer at the edge of a field, slowly being invaded by nature, the blue hour, the way the snow first attaches itself to one side of the light poles, then when it gets slightly milder, slides down in all kinds of mesmerising serpentine patterns (oh how I loathed not being able to run around with a camere yesterday). I've been told that I see what no one else sees, and I've never quite understood what that is - but maybe this is it? All the wonderful details, all the proof of life, of nature, of creation everywhere? It's a wonderful, magical world we live in.