Pride colours
A few weeks ago, we joined the crush of the crowds watching the Stockholm Pride Parade.
Apart from the dogs, there were a lot of people on floats having fun.
The bold wore adorable hats and gas masks and handcuffed themselves to each other.
The silver seemed to be in a world of his own as he glowed among the brightly-coloured pom poms, like a fish in a coral reef.
The gold played to the crowd with Roman togas and smiles.
And the beautiful – well, they knew they reigned with their golden youth and good looks.
As Asquith once said, “Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.”
For more colourful worlds, please visit: My World.
Diving in to meet yourself halfway
Let yourself be silently drawn
by the stronger pull of what you really love. — Rumi
This picture reminds me of the way we should, perhaps, live our lives: with joy, mouth open, eyes full of expectation.
Diving into the unknown and expecting wonder.
For more creatures, visit: Camera Critters
The F word
It’s approaching gently, the F word.
You can’t feel it in the heart of the day,
But in the cooling of the morning breeze
And the tender setting of the evening sun.
Old old wood embraces the sun and shines like a ruby.
It has seen the passing of hundreds of seasons
Welcoming each one like a friend.
Soon, it whispers, the F word will be here.
Fall. Autumn. Welcome back, dear friend…
For more lovely skies, please visit: Skywatch.
Beauty, revealed
Words of comfort for those in need.
Even in the darkest night a flower of hope blooms.
Of arrows and moss
Still looking back to my world as it was in England a few weeks ago…
My sister took us to the leafy woods to try our hand at archery.
We built a campfire. Whittled sticks. Grilled marshmallows.
And admired the arrows with their vibrant colours.
Our very own Robin Hood taught us how to hold the bow, aim and shoot.
It took a long time to go around all the targets because my sister kept stopping to stroke the velvet moss with her bare feet.
Dim sunlight filtered through the leaves so it was like being in a underwater world of green.
The silence was pierced by children’s laughter.
All in all, it was a glorious day out.
For more great days, visit: My World!
Excuse me waiter, but there’s a snake in my soup!
Most people don’t pee on snakes like I do. They tend to leave them alone. Or if they live in a country where a snake bite can kill you more quickly than you can say, “I’ve been bitten!” then the inhabitants are trained from birth to kill them (the snakes, not the people shouting “I’ve been bitten.”)
Such was the case in China. Many a time the shout would be heard, “Snake!” and people would rush out of their classrooms with sticks to chase the snake away.
But not all snakes managed to escape — as this unfortunate story goes to show…
When I lived in China, I had the upstairs flat; the other VSO volunteer lived downstairs and also on the ground floor was a room housing our two interpreters.
One night as I was dozing in the heavy, drowsy heat of summer, I heard a terrible shouting.
I rushed downstairs to the interpreters’ room just in time to see an enormous green tree python snaking its way in through the window.
Pythons are not poisonous, so together with the girls’ boyfriends, we took brooms and chased the snake out of the door and outside.
Where we hoped it would do the sensible thing and find another shady tree to lie in.
I went upstairs and fell asleep.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
The loudspeakers woke me up, as usual, at 5 am and I groggily jogged downstairs to go to the university sports arena to do early morning exercises with my students.
Imagine my surprise when the sight of a fat green python greeted me at the bottom of the stairs!
I almost died of fright until I realized that the snake already had (died, that is).
Apparently, it had decided to slither back into the room – under the door – and got very aggressive when it got stuck and the boys had killed it. (Somehow, I managed to sleep through all the screaming that accompanied this event…)
After teaching morning lessons, my eager students returned to the flat with me as they all knew that there was a surprise waiting for me in the fridge. (A huge luxury, I know, and one that worked as long as we had electricity – which wasn’t very often.)
I opened the fridge and there, in my honour (after all, I was called Plofessor Peony by my students) was the skeleton of the python curled up in its own fat. Just heat it up and it would be snake soup, I was told.
Not my cup of tea soup, so I invited my students to lunch.
And before you could say, “I’ve been bitten!” they had polished off the entire contents of that bowl… well, apart from the skeleton, of course.
More animal stories over at Camera Critters.
Swimming through clouds
It was one of those days, one of those outings that took my breath away and left me wishing I had brought my camera with me. My mobile phone had to try and capture the purity of the day…
… when earth, sky and water seemed to be made up of nothing but clouds.
Who could resist swimming through those candy floss clouds in the lake?
Oscar couldn’t.
I like to think that people all through the ages – past, present and future – are united by their child-like wonder at the endless beauty of clouds floating in the blue.
For more wonder, please visit: Skywatch!
Castle ruins
As you know I was on holiday back home in England recently. The ruins of Bramber Castle are situated near my sister’s house. Not content with photographing the watchtower, I fell in love with the rest of the ruins too.
900 years ago, men toiled carrying heavy stones. Using muscle power, they somehow built a castle on a hill.
The watchtower was given thick walls as a defence. Its lonely eyes surveyed the countryside.
Sturdy walls overlooked golden fields with hay-filled dominoes standing sentry.
Some of the perimeter walls still stand, perfect for time travellers with imagination.
After hundreds of years, the castle was abandoned, the good stones all taken and it just fell into ruin.
Only the 24-metre tall (that’s 75 feet) watchtower remains intact. To me, it looks as if it is a stone face that is screaming.
Fanciful perhaps. But in the 1200s, the baron who owned this castle did not want to obey cruel King John.
So the King took his four children hostage, carted them off to Windsor Castle and let them starve to death.
Legend says that the four children return to their home at Bramber Castle every Christmas and their pitiful cries, begging for food, can be heard…
… if you listen carefully.
For more amazing history, please visit: My World!
Snake in your pants … or excuse me, there’s a snake in my toilet!
Lunch is getting cold when the phone rings. It’s Sir Pe explaining that he has to take a longer way home due to a large black snake with a white V on its head sitting right in the middle of the narrow bridge. Immobile. Tongue flickering. With a mean look in its eye.
He thinks it’s a poisonous adder.
I do what any sane person would do and rush out with my camera to try and take a photo of the magnificent creature. Unfortunately it’s moved off into the verge and slithers away quickly when it hears the shutter noise of the camera.
I return home feeling brave. My Facebook friends tell me later on that it looks like a harmless grass snake.
But I still feel brave because I took photos for you, dear readers, anyway – thinking it was a dangerous reptile!
Which brings me to the title of this post.
When I lived in China back in the 1980s, I visited many a temple perched picturesquely atop mountains.
Climbing thousands of stairs carved into the mountainside under a hot sun works up a thirst. So, you drink a lot.
And eventually, you have to pee.
Now toilets back then were non-existent, or – if you were lucky – large sheds with ditches overflowing with human waste.
So, you didn’t enter them unless you had to.
I just needed to empty my bladder. So, I wandered off into some brush, hid behind a large rock …
… and relieved myself. For quite a long time.
As I was finishing, I noticed a large black body and a very cross beady eye looking at me.
Somehow, I had managed to step on a snake and immobilize it while peeing on its body.
I jumped into the air and it slithered off looking … well … very pissed off.
Apparently, peeing on a snake stops it from biting you. Who knew?
Which brings back memories of that time in China when I came eye to eye with an angry green Tree Python.
But that, dear friends, is a story for another time.
So – what unusual toilets have you experienced?
For other, hopefully, snake-free adventures, check out: Camera Critters.
Sea-filled clouds
More skies from England. The Sussex coast.
I love the way the shabby beach huts
Give the tinted clouds a splendour
That trickles down as warm honey onto the pebbles.
I love the way the immense clouds of silver plate
Can make me feel as small as a tiny boat
In the palm of the world
And turn the sea to icy green.
I love the way the pearly clouds, the smooth pebbles,
The loving curve of the rocky promontory
Can be as vulnerable and tender
As a small boy and his father
Sharing sea-filled dreams.
(Click the photos to enlarge.)
For more visionary skies, please visit: Skywatch.
Heritage chalk
One of the treats we experienced while back home in the UK was a lovely visit to the Amberley Working Museum.
It’s a large open air museum on the site of the chalk pits that were in use from about 1830 – 1963. Nowadays, it houses a lot of items from the early Victorian era.
There is a printing workshop and a resident blacksmith at the forge.
There is a wheelwright, a stained glass maker, a potter and a walking-stick maker.
I also came across a Victorian version of a shoe shop: it was fascinating to see shoes and boots in the making.
There are vintage buses and beautiful glossy fire engines, looking like works of art on wheels.
Other beautifully crafted vehicles included these carts, made of weathered wood.
It was a relaxing break to go back in time to a slower era, to a time when great technological changes were about to make a breakthrough.
Or as the Victorian writer, Charles Dickens wrote:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us….”
For more inspiration, visit: My World.
Magic moment
Happy hour down at the local lake. A moment of utter joy and beauty.
(Click to enlarge.)
For more magical photos, please visit: Camera Critters.
Bramber skies
Next to the ruins of Bramber Castle stands the ancient church of St. Nicholas, over 900 years old and still in use today.
The castle-like church roof stands solid in the Sussex countryside. Blue skies, a lone bird, lilac clouds nestling on the hills.
Idyllic.
And yet… walking around to the other side of the church…
Deep shadows, dark stone weathered by the ages,
Secrets brooding.
Mysterious beauty flung against the brightness of the sky.
For more historic skies, please visit: Skywatch!
Child-like spirit
What did I do on my holidays in England? I hear you ask.
Lots. So much that it will probably take weeks to tell you all about it.
By which time you’ll be begging me to stop!
We burnt our veggie sausages on a campfire.
I reverted to our childhood, by duelling with my sister (that’s her on your left) with sharp sticks dripping in roasted marshmallows.
I think our child-like spirit rubbed off on the kids, don’t you?
Anklebiter #2 with his cousin
So, what fun did you have over the summer?
Summer beauty
You know her as Anklebiter #1. This name doesn’t really do her justice. For one thing, she turned 9 on Monday and is more a shoulderbiter these days in stature.
The name doesn’t really sum up her true nature: kind, funny, warm, compassionate, adorable and extremely generous.
Light of my life.
A true beauty – both on the inside and the outside.
Happy Birthday, my summer treasure!
Brown and agile child, the sun which forms the fruit
And ripens the grain and twists the seaweed
Has made your happy body and your luminous eyes
And given your mouth the smile of water.
Pablo Neruda
For more beauties, please check out: My World.
Who says what?