Fruits of My Mind

Now That’s a Scarecrow!

2011-11-18T10:48:00.001+01:00

Maybe you did not know, but scarecrows used to be just that, real crows to scare off crows and other unwanted, opportunistic scavengers. This is how some farmers still do it in France, however cruel, unethical and non-pc it may seem to some people. (Don’t worry,they shoot them first.)

A Bit of a Splash

2011-11-10T10:43:00.001+01:00

Out for a Sunday walk the other week I saw these people basking in the autumn sunshine having coffee or possibly hot chocolate, because this place serves a wonderful cup (or pot) of cocoa.

There was a screen of water jets coming up from the fountain, so I thought I would take some pictures of the water with people in the background. At the time I did not, although perhaps I should have, think about the fact that the people were in bright sunshine and the water in the shade. But unwittingly I got a rather strange-looking picture. I have not edited the image at all. I think it looks like I have splashed blue paint on a photograph.

Sometimes photos come out in the most surprising way, giving you an effect you did not envisage. I learn all the time!

Insatiable Alsatian!

2011-11-06T01:49:00.001+01:00

On our walk last time we lost the chicken farmer’s sociable dog to a high-energy chase of a poor little wild boar. Evidently our furry friend could not get enough of us, because when we next tried to sneak past the corner to the farm, he spotted us yet again, and this time from about one hundred metres.

He did not jump at all or push his nose into your side, but he just gently brushed against my leg as he caught up with us. Then we were stuck with him, for over an hour. He simply trotted along as if he was our dog.

He got his paws wet in the ditches along the narrow country lanes, and he crossed the road to explore everything he could smell, hear or see.

He was often behind us, but liked to be in the lead, in front of us, as if he had taken us for a walk.

We felt like his flock, especially when he turned round to check that we were keeping up with him. Cars passed, slowing down for the three of us looking like a couple taking the dog for a walk after lunch. After a while I started to feel quite comfortable with the dog quietly moving around us. It almost started to feel normal, a quiet country feel.

When we reached our turning point he just looked at us …

… and followed us all the way back again. Just as we got to “his” corner, I thought for a second his thirst might lure him home, but no.

Luckily for us, our neighbours were out cutting some hedge, so we managed to sneak in while he was distracted by their activity. Then he quite simply adopted them instead and laid down next to them with his head between his paws in, what looked like, a very comfortable position. And there he stayed for quite some time.

It was not the first time the chicken farmer got a phone call to come and collect his dog, who really likes company. Not much of a farm guard dog, is he?

Alsatian Chasing Baby Boar

2011-11-01T00:13:00.001+01:00

On our first full day in France we thought we would go for a normal, quiet country lane autumn walk. It was very windy, but the sun was quite strong, so the top layer of clothing came off pretty quickly. As we were coming towards the end of our hour-long walk, we passed the chicken farm wondering if the guard dog, who patrols the grounds, would come pestering us like he has done in the past, following us all the way home.

I thought we had made it without him spotting us, but no. All of a sudden you could hear him breathing next to you. (This is not the time to be afraid of dogs for sure.) As he came up to me from behind, I tried to ignore him, but he said hello, I suppose, by nudging my elbow with his nose. Then he just followed us as usual, sniffing around like dogs do.

All of a sudden he went into the ditch sniffing particularly intensively, and quickly moved into the field where maize had stood before. There he stopped and “froze”, staring into the high grass between the fields. He had spotted something.

Then started a playful chase, if you are the dog, and a scary “run-for-your-life” chase if you are the baby boar! They ran this way, that way and back again, across the road and back yet again. At one time the playful dog grabbed the little boar by the neck and then let him go again. The little wild boar had probably been “separated” from his parents because of the farmers’ Sunday hunt in the area. Gun fire and hunting horns had been heard all through the day. So being picked up and tossed around a little by a friendly playmate was not such a bad alternative!

(Boar trying to escape on the right. Apologies for image quality, but I was 150 metres away by this time!)

Wonderful Autumn

2011-10-15T13:36:00.001+02:00

The other day the rain suddenly disappeared and the morning sun surprised us. The sun shone through the wooden blinds and I knew I had to grab my trusted Nikon and go and get some autumnal images. I felt I could not trust the sun to stay, so I wolfed down my morning porridge and dashed out.

Here are a handful, well seven then, photos from my neighbourhood.

Misty

2011-10-12T22:05:00.001+02:00

Well, two images actually. Since I have not posted many “Pics of the Week” of late, I thought I would put up two in one go. They are from a forest walk this summer when you could hardly see the trees for the heavy mist. It made for some interesting photographs though. I chose monochrome to emphasise the raw and damp conditions.

That Girl Again – Her Tragic Background

2011-10-10T16:31:00.001+02:00

Yes, my curiosity got the better of me. I just had to find out. I wanted to know why she went into foster care. What about the mother? I had to do some more digging, work my way back into more old archives. I was hooked!

To fill in the gap in her story I had to go back to the above page in the picture. As you can see, without reading any particular words, some text is in darker ink, fresher and younger if you like. At the bottom you can read “Dot. Maria”. That’s our girl. “Dot.” is short for daughter. Above her is another girl, born in 1878, three years later than the brother on the line above. Squeezed in a bit further up is a new entry, Maria’s mother, Kersti Persdotter.

The reason for Maria and her mother being added to this page, to this household, you find in the column on the right, with the heading “Död”, which means dead. Have you guessed it yet?

In February of 1879 the wife and mother of this household dies of consumption, and in June, four months later the daughter Anna, almost exactly Maria’s age, dies of diphtheria.

Maria and her mother move in, and the mother marries the farmer on 15 May 1880. So far so good. But the farmer had obviously lost both wife and a daughter, but rather quickly replaced them with a girl the same age and a new wife six years younger. Spookily enough, the deceased wife had exactly the same name as her replacement, Kersti(na) Persdotter. Kersti, Kjersti, Kerstina and Kjerstina were all the same name, nobody made any real difference between them.

So where is the problem then? Answer: nine months after the wedding. Yes, sadly I found the evidence in the “Death Book”. Nine months and one day after the wedding our Kersti, Maria’s mother (36), dies. No cause of death was recorded, but the assumption is of course that she died in childbirth. No child, stillborn or alive, was recorded on that day, or near that day, so Kersti presumably died with the child inside the womb more or less. Tragic. Her first child was born out of wedlock, which was noted in archives to follow her wherever she moved, and then she marries properly like a “good woman” and things go horribly wrong.

Not knowing who her real father is and having lost her mother, five weeks later Maria moves in with her aunt Anna, witness at her christening and her closest relative, at the age of eleven. Three and a half years later she appears in the household as a maid with my relatives, my grandfather being just a baby. My first great aunt was just seven days away, so Maria’s presence in the family was welcomed, I guess.

Like I wrote in my previous post, she moved to Denmark within a year, she was ready to fly at the age of sixteen. Perhaps she had children of her own to care for later, but that’s another story.

Who’s That Girl?

2011-10-02T01:10:00.003+02:00

A young girl has intrigued me for a couple of weeks now. No no, it’s not what you might think. She lived over a century ago. You see, I am doing research into my family properly now. I have turned into an amateur genealogist by joining a website holding over 30 million photos of pages from Swedish archives. Before, I relied on handed-down documents and just copied other people’s work.

I started by trying to look into my paternal grandmother’s background, because nobody had done that to my knowledge. Since I knew some of her parents’ data I got going straight away. I ran into problems early on, finding some discrepancies to the little information I had previously. I thought I needed some guidance, but decided to practise on something easier first.

I chose to go for my paternal grandfather, and it was much easier. Most of the facts I had before, so this was a pure exercise in research strategy. When my grandfather was born in 1883 there were already two children in the family, but before he was six months old they died at the ages of four and two. The girl succumbed to bronchitis and the boy to diphtheria and paralysis. Later another girl was born, my great aunt.

But now there was a surprise. A fifteen-year-old girl was all of a sudden a member of the household. Where did she come from? Who was she? Could these poor people afford to have staff? Was she a maid or just a lodger? My guess is as good as yours. In this document I could see where and when she was born, where and when she had moved from, that she had moved in only seven days before my great aunt was born and that she within a year emigrated to Denmark, at the age of sixteen!

I was intrigued and puzzled. I needed to find out who she was, so I followed her trail back in time. First I tried the birth register where she claimed to be born, and could not find her. What? Then I suspected she might have lied about her age to get employment, which made me look up and down a great number of pages. Still could not find that entry anywhere, so I took another approach.

I found her in the parish she had moved from in the register (household by household), with data about family members and their literacy, “character” and their catechism knowledge. She was a foster daughter in a farming family far away from my grandfather’s family. She had officially moved from there 13 days before she registered in the town where I had first spotted her. That must be the time it took to move in 1884.

So now I had found her closer to where she claimed to be born at least. I followed the trail and found an entry stating a completely different birth place. Now things started to make sense. But why had she put down the wrong birth parish? Did she not know where she was born? According to this latest information her mother and she were born in the same place, twenty years apart. I had to dig deeper.

But what about the father? My suspicions were soon confirmed. She was born out of wedlock, father unknown, by a twenty-year-old maid in a big household, on a big farm. Since the father was unknown, she was given the Christian name of the master to add to “daughter”. Like so many other girls born out of wedlock she was christened Maria, perhaps to appease the Church, God and whoever. In the registers it was noted that the young mother had “given birth out of wedlock” and the date for when she was given absolution. And I can read about it still after 142 years!

Since the registers and archives I now have access to are photographs, it is not possible to search on the computer in the modern way, but I sometimes have to flip page after page on my screen in my search for a certain entry. In one of them I had to start on the first page until I found her on page 331! But it was worth it.

So now I know that Maria Jakobsdotter was born outside wedlock, father unknown, by a twenty-year-old maid, went into (correction: was in) foster care at the age of ten, moved to my grandfather’s family at fifteen and then emigrated to Denmark at sixteen. The “misinformation”, discrepancies, call them what you like, might have been an attempt to cover up her origin, so that she could start an adult life without prejudice. Did my relatives know her true background? We’ll never know. I only hope that she managed to get a decent life for herself, because I think it takes some guts to move away from what you know when you are fifteen.

Outstanding questions: Who was the father? Why and when did she go into foster care? What happened to her mother?

I think I will have to give up here and go back to my own family history. But I am sure she sang lovely lullabies to my grandfather and his baby sister.

French Harvest

2011-09-16T18:43:00.001+02:00

It has always been fascinating to follow the cycle of the farming year round our place in France. Different crops in different fields depending on demand and perhaps EU subsidies, who knows? There is always a fair amount of maize, or corn, which is a staple feed for the dairy cows, but different kinds of cereal are also abundant.

The maize is normally harvested in late autumn, so we miss that most of the time, but not the August harvest of other crops. How they can predict the weather so accurately is beyond me. They seem to know exactly when to get the guys with their big machines out. I guess the farming community in an area co-ordinates the activities, because you see the same people in all the fields, working their way through them. They know when the rain is coming, so they literally work day and night. You hear the harvesters from afar and you see the cloud of millions of minute particles rising to the sky and being swept away by the wind, that is if it is not night time.

I have long been waiting for a good opportunity to get some decent photos of the night harvest, and this summer I finally had my chance. They were doing the fields right next to us, so close to midnight I got my tripod and camera out and positioned myself at the junction where they had parked their big transporter. It was totally dark, so I needed a torch to see what I was doing.

As I was standing there in the dark a tractor came along and parked in the field. The driver got out, walked up to me and shook hands and said good evening. I must have looked rather suspicious lurking in the dark, but I think he had seen me earlier in the day taking some pictures of them. I felt however the need say something about photography, all in my very best French, hoping he would not say too much back!

I wanted to get some spooky pictures with some blurry light. Since there was so little light, the shutter speed had to be very slow, giving any object time to move some distance. In some exposures you can see how the same detail is repeated five or six times, giving the image a rather mysterious effect. Here are some sample pictures.

Who Needs Disneyland?

2011-09-11T19:19:00.002+02:00

It has been long since I blogged last.

My summer was very eventful, getting onto a flying start with a visit from my son and family to our holiday home in Normandy. You will understand how busy it was, children getting up much earlier than my preferred time in the morning, so in order not to miss too much time with them, I had to drag my body out of bed and try to increase my energy level to theirs, because they were up and running with a smile on their face straight away.

They had been to Disneyland in Paris on their way to us, but I am convinced they will remember these animals better than some costume cartoon animals.

Who needs Disneyland?

And this ride in the playground at the old ruined castle in Mayenne was full of joy.

Who needs expensive toys when you have a collection of empty plastic bottles?

Instead of extortionate restaurant prices you can sit in the dying sunshine on the doorstep with some snacks and a locally produced apple juice.

We all had a lovely time at our own pace. The simple pleasures of life always outstrip everything else, especially when you are in such wonderful company.

Damn the Weather!

2011-07-21T15:34:00.001+02:00

I have had these tickets to go hot air ballooning for two years, and we still have not been able to take off into the skies. The weather never seems to be right; absolutely perfect conditions are apparently required.

So instead I went for a walk with my camera.

Water Music in Gent

2011-07-15T18:01:00.001+02:00

Grand pianos are rather expensive. You need to keep them safe, at the right temperature, at the right humidity, stable and also polished to a really high glossy standard. When in Gent the other weekend we came upon this strange boat with a remarkable cargo.

It was moored at a riverside restaurant, so we assumed it was for entertaining the dinner guests later that evening. We carried on walking down the narrow streets and lanes and were just crossing a bridge when we heard piano music being swept in our direction by the wind. No, it was not “Blowing in the Wind”, but some classical piece. So we looked upstream and saw this surprising scene.

A man was using his whole body weight in order to steer this, as it turned out to be, Bangladeshi wooden boat. A pianist was assisted by a helper to both keep the sheet music on the stand and to turn the pages at appropriate moments. A woman was sitting next to a man getting ready to jump ashore to moor the vessel.

The pianist was very good and a crowd was gathering on the river bank and on the bridge. Everybody seemed astonished, but all the faces lit up and people were smiling and chatting about this rare musical event.

The pianist kept on playing while the boat was being moored. But was the woman just decoration? No, all of a sudden she stood up and started singing.

I do not know who they were, why they were performing in this unusual way, and I did not recognise the music, but it was a nice surprise and very enjoyable. A grand piano and a soprano thrown in for good measure, not bad for a stroll in the old town of Gent. (I wonder how much the insurance was for this musical adventure?)

My Heart Is Bigger Than My Brain!

2011-07-13T16:30:00.001+02:00

And here is the evidence.

What? you say.

You know that I have a soft spot for the little birds in general, and in my garden in particular, since I attract them with food in order to enjoy watching them and taking photographs of them. In my previous post on Monday I outsmarted the cats, but today my brain short-circuited, it did not perform any better than a lump of jelly.

Alerted by commotion in the garden I looked out from the kitchen window and saw a bird of prey on top of a struggling woodpecker. What did I do? I rushed upstairs for my camera, which had the short standard lens on. I thought there would not be time enough to switch to the 300 mm lens. So I took two pictures from an upstairs window. And here comes the real brain meltdown. Since I saw that the victim was still alive and kicking, literally, I ran down to scare the predator off, hoping it would leave the poor juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker alone on the grass.

When I had come out through the kitchen door on the side, I took only two steps before the Sparrowhawk took off with its load firmly in its grip. (Here ought to follow a long sequence of very offensive words, but I have edited them out before having written them.)

Lessons learnt:

1) Always keep the 300 mm lens on when in house.

2) Preferably keep camera on same floor as oneself.

3) If you think you are a good photographer, think again!

I should of course calmly have taken the 30 seconds it takes to switch lenses, then positioned myself in a suitable window, and I should have put the camera in continuous shooting mode in order to get as many pictures as possible of this rare occasion, a Sparrowhawk tearing its victim apart. I would have had images of strings of bloody flesh being pulled by a natural-born killer. I had a fantastic opportunity to catch a real wildlife situation in my own garden, but my heart took over. How stupid can one get? Keeping cats out is one thing, but you cannot do anything about birds of prey.

Instead I had to resort to looking at the two blurry pictures, consult the bird book to confirm it was a female Sparrowhawk and then curse myself for being so soft-hearted. D’oh!

Killer Instinct!

2011-07-11T22:02:00.001+02:00

Killer instinct, but no hunger! Why is it that cats chase birds only to catch and kill, but not eat? I know it is an instinct, they are programmed to do it, but why is the instinct still there when they have no other natural reason to kill? Why kill and not eat? You would have thought that evolution (or is that devolution?) would link those two urges, to eat and kill. Both or none, but that seems not to be the case.

My regular readers know that I feed birds in our garden and have had problems before with killer cats. These days I keep the shrub next to the feeders clear nearest the ground not to give any predators anywhere to hide. But cats are lightning quick when it comes to killing. Birds feeding off the ground are easy prey.

An incident the other week made me take another security step. I was upstairs when I heard a terrifying scream from the garden; I rushed to a window only to see the one we call “Socks”, because of its white paws, carry away a Great Spotted Woodpecker!

I was down in the garden in a flash, ran after the cat, with the poor bird in its jaws, into the copse behind the garden, only to hear the heart-breaking screaming continue for what seemed an eternity, until it suddenly stopped.

The following day I went to a garden centre and bought some of those green-plastic-coated metal sticks and some wire. I made my own cat (de)fence, with the intention of at least slowing down the furry felines enough for the innocent little birdies to take off and save their lives.

It seems to be working, and the wonderful twist on the story is that the birds now have even more places to sit while they are waiting for a chance to have a nourishing meal.

I feel much better about myself now that I have turned a death trap into a bird sanctuary.

Updating Tom Tom (and Visit to Gent)

2011-07-07T12:40:00.001+02:00

If it ain’t broke … That’s why I have not updated my sat nav in the first year, but last week I was booking a hotel in Gent, Belgium (more about that visit later), and before clicking away the last window it asked if I wanted to transfer the address to my Tom Tom. Sounded good, I thought, so I clicked on the button with the familiar icon. But before anything was activated my Tom Tom suggested I update the software. I don’t know why I hit the Yes button, but I did. Then I clicked on a few options that looked useful. Disaster!

When I tried to switch on the trusted guide gadget, it froze. It dawned on me that this was exactly what I had read a lot about on the net. I tried everything, like unplugging and then re-plugging, rebooting … Nothing worked. My next step was to google the issue, which led to many different, possible solutions, all involving complicated instructions about finding obscure files on my PC and to copy lots of stuff back and forth.

Then I remembered that my Windows software had popped up a window saying there was something not quite right with the drive which was the Tom Tom. But I had to close the Tom Tom first, and then the window disappeared, so I had to go to Control Panel and find the Check Disk function, and then activate it to correct what was wrong.

While this was in progress I realised what I had done initially. I had greedily chosen to update parts of the software which I had not paid for when I bought it. So I guessed that must have been what caused the freezing. Once the Tom Tom had been tidied up, I updated only the basic default option, and hey presto, it was again in working order!

I was happy as a child, picked up the Tom Tom, went outside to get a signal, walked up and down the street waving it in the air. I felt a bit silly, especially when the security patrol (I live on a military base!) came past in their pick-up truck. I was so embarrassed that I felt compelled to wave to them with a stupid smile on my face.

Like I mentioned earlier, we went to Gent, and I could certainly have done with the help of my Tom Tom to find the hotel in the old town centre with narrow one-way streets and pedestrianised areas. It was like in the old days, and in the end I had to stop and ask for directions.

The medieval town centre itself was unbelievably picturesque. We had a terrific two-night stay and had excellent food, beer and wine. The place was rather pricey, but not enough to deter us from returning. We actually bought a hotel voucher to get a cheaper stay next time with this particular chain.

Red Hot Lily

2011-06-28T19:17:00.001+02:00

Scorchio! Even the weather forecasters on the BBC have started using that word jokingly now. It comes from a British comedy show in the 1990s where the weather girl pointed at a map with lots of suns, and she always said it would be “scorchio”, as in very very hot.

We have had two extremely hot days here in Germany now. Today when I got in the car in the afternoon, the car told me it was 40 degrees outside! After a few minutes of driving it had dropped to only 36 degrees.

So our trooper of a flower, the lonely lily in the pot, decided to open up today. It has almost become an annual event for me to take some pictures of it to document the solemn occasion. This year it seems to be much redder, not so orangy. It picked the hottest day of the year so far to show its wonderfully red petals. I think you can detect the colour of the early morning sunshine in the shot below.

Luckily the forecast for tomorrow is for more normal temperatures, that is, after the release of all the pent-up energy in the clouds. There will be thunder and lightning accompanied by rain.

Famous Colours

2011-06-26T01:53:00.001+02:00

Have you ever been expecting a child? Did you not all of a sudden then see many more prams and buggies than you previously had done? Have you ever met a long-lost friend, only to start running into this friend over and over, as if by magic? It seems there is some sort of awareness or recognition phenomenon, something that happens in our brain, triggered by a single event or situation.

I had a similar awareness situation this morning, in the bathroom. On some towel racks were two items, not towels but some tops or T-shirts. I wondered why I was staring at them, why I could not take my eyes off them. It was not because they were in the slightly odd place, but there was something about them that I could not figure out straight away.

Then I realised it was because of the colour combination. See for yourself.

I am not a particular tennis fan, so I would not normally think twice about these two items side by side on a rack. But of course, it is Wimbledon now, and you see these two colours all the time on the telly. They are world-famous.

Sadly Robin Söderling went out yesterday to an 18-year-old aussie, because he was not well, so I suppose I have to switch my allegiance to Andy Murray. One pines for the days of Björn Borg, five consecutive Wimbledon championships. Beat that!

Adorable Or What?

2011-06-20T23:18:00.001+02:00

This beautiful juvenile great spotted woodpecker was just sitting there tucked into the foliage waiting for the parent to provide some food. It is leaning in sync with the leaves on both sides as if it was part of the vegetation, had it not been for the strong colours.

Beautiful Blue Eyes

2011-06-15T19:48:00.001+02:00

Just a quick post about something that happened this afternoon.

I heard a terrible commotion from the dense hedge at the bottom of the garden. Birds were shrieking in the nearby trees, and there seemed to be some movement in the hedge. First I thought there was some sort of fight taking place, but when I went down to investigate I found this young jackdaw on a weak and wobbly branch. It did not fly off, just moved further away from me. I did a quick tour of the web and found out about this bird. I believe it had just left the nest (in one of the tall trees above) and more or less fallen down into the hedge. Since it was not quite ready to fly just yet, it had to stay there while the parents were calling from all around. And they are loud!

The younger they are, the bluer the eyes. Are they not beautiful?

What Is It Like To Be a Bird?

2011-06-13T11:44:00.001+02:00

As you could see in a previous post, a male adult was slaving away trying to keep up with the offspring’s food demands. The day after I saw a female Great Spotted Woodpecker doing the same with her young one. It was a different individual, because the red patch on the head did not look the same.

But this mother had also had enough of it, or rather, thought it appropriate to encourage the youngster to start finding its own food. She bullied it off the branch they both were sitting on, trying to chase it away, so it ended up hanging upside down by its sharp talons for a long while, not knowing what to do.

This is often how you can tell the youngest ones apart from the adults, this “lost” behaviour. They can be spotted sitting still for long periods of time, looking bewildered, trying to take it all in. They seem to be thinking hard about what to do next. I can fly, so I must be a bird, but what am I supposed to do all day? I can eat, drink and fly, but then what?

They can look totally lost, but also fluffy and dead cute! Like these young ones, a blue tit and a willow warbler.

How Many Times Removed?

2011-06-10T19:28:00.002+02:00

Not long ago I had an email from a stranger. No, not the usual spam, but an email with serious and personal content. He claimed to be my relative, but I had no idea of his existence.

When I had read the whole message I concluded that he was indeed right. We were related.

It turned out that this man was researching his ancestry, digging into data archives. I have my family tree on a website called Geni, where you easily can build your family tree and get a good overview, so it took me only minutes to confirm this man’s claim.

He comes from the same part of Sweden as I do, and just like me he had moved abroad, so he was researching mostly on the internet. Long gone are the days when you needed to find old dusty documents in parish archives and physically hold them in your hands. Nowadays your computer mouse is your best friend.

Not only was this distant relative of mine doing research, he was also writing a book about some aspects of his findings. He does his work like a proper genealogist, and the reason he had contacted me was to possibly get some input, data and perhaps even photographs. As it happened, I did have on my PC some photos of interest, including a wedding photograph from 1878.

So, what about how we are related? First of all you could say that all humans are related, going all the way back to our earliest ancestors in Africa, or to Adam and Eve, if you believe in that sort of thing. But that would be to stretch the concept somewhat. We had to go back only seven (7) generations to find where our family trees interconnected, 309 years ago! A man who was born in 1702 was our joint ancestor, my great great great great great grandfather.

So, what does that make him, my newly-found relative? Not my cousin exactly, and how many times removed? My mind boggles!

Male Woodpecker Feeding Hungry Youngster

2011-06-09T15:16:00.001+02:00

Since we got back from holiday I have seen many birds feeding their young. The parent normally comes to my feeding station and then flies off with its beak full of food to the impatient young bird, sometimes a very short distance away.

I have seen the usual great tits and blue tits caring for their offspring, but also nuthatches and even tree creepers, who normally prefer to stay down the bottom of the garden. But the best spectacle on offer are the woodpeckers.

You are often alerted to what is going on by the calling of the hungry youngster. Its helpless and clumsy behaviour reveals its youth. It is very common that the young bird is as big or bigger than the parent, but the colours on the woodpecker’s head gives it away. The adult male has got a red patch at the back of the head and a juvenile at the front or all over the head. The female’s head is all black. The adult in the sequence below was working his little cotton socks off to satisfy the culinary needs of his offspring. Recognise yourself anybody?

(Photos taken through a bedroom window with a heavy 300 mm handheld lens!)

Here comes daddy with some yummy food!

I am hungry!

Left side or right side?

OK, this side. Here you are.

Here is one for mummy.

And here is one for granny.

Another one for uncle Albert.

This is the last bite for now.

Great, daddy is off for more! I am starving!

Not Only Garden Work …

2011-06-06T22:01:00.001+02:00

As always this time of year, the garden in France has grown like mad; grass knee-high, weeds everywhere and hedges bulging out of control. So last week was spent having a go at all the green stuff with hedge trimmer, grass strimmer and bare hands. The weather was wonderful; it only started raining as we left yesterday morning. I won’t bore you with pictures of garden tools and machinery, or even worse, sweaty gardeners, but I leave you with a picture more representative of what we indulged in after heavy duty garden work. Aaaah!

Brain Power

2011-05-20T19:35:00.002+02:00

This time of year I am at my busiest. It’s exam time. In addition to my regular part-time work I do a lot of invigilation, managing an exam room with either A-level students or Year 11 sitting their GCSE exams. Sometimes both groups are represented in the hall, even doing up to six or seven different exams, and with different finishing times.

One task of mine is quite obviously to make sure nobody is trying to cheat, but most of the time it is a matter of assisting them in case they run out of paper, pens run dry, noses start to bleed (I have had that!), somebody starts sneezing or coughing desperately, or like just now, a candidate (18 years old!) had forgotten to bring an eraser, so I very quickly lent him one with a nice smile from me and an embarrassed smile from him.

This afternoon there is only a small group, well spread out to give them plenty of space around each individual. The ten candidates in front of me are doing A-level “Advanced Decision Mathematics”, which doesn’t look like maths to me, being more of a linguist. There are hardly any numbers in the questions!

It is absolutely quiet in the hall but for the occasional turning of pages and the constant quiet humming of the big extractor fans, which could easily put me to sleep should I close my eyes.

However I have to be very vigilant, it is after all called invigilation. If the fans were to be turned off I am sure I would be able to hear the candidates' brains producing a similar low-level humming, coming from their collective pulsating brain activity, which might even produce more electricity than one of those much-debated wind turbines.

I hope it doesn’t sound too sentimental, but I cannot help thinking of the importance of these 90 minutes. The number of marks they achieve in their exam might determine whether they get that coveted place at university they have worked so hard for. Presumably I am the only person in this exam hall who is thinking right now about how that could even shape their whole future. All ten candidates seem to be very much on task. Only fifteen minutes left now. I sincerely hope they all have done well.

Where Have All the Birdies Gone?

2011-05-18T19:05:00.001+02:00

I am puzzled by a garden mystery. Every time we leave to go on holiday, all the birds who frequent my little feeding station have to fend for themselves once the feeders are empty and the strings with empty green plastic nets are fluttering in the wind.

Depending on how long we have been away, it takes a little while before they are back in numbers. After a 17-day Easter break I expected the return of my feathered friends to begin in earnest after three or four days. But still three weeks after our return there are not that many birds around the food despite the abundance and variety on offer. The spotted woodpeckers come frequently to feast on the fatty balls with seeds in them, the nuthatches swoop down on the nut containers like greased lightning and the blackbirds, who are building a nest in the nearest cherry laurel, are almost residential.

(The female blackbird soaking her building material.)

The greenfinches, normally the dominant species, turn up every now and then, but only in small numbers. I have seen great tits and blue tits on the odd occasion. There are normally dozens of birds. Where have they all gone?

I have been through several theories about their unexpected absence:

- Is there something wrong with the food? Hardly, because visiting birds seem to like it.

- Has there been a bird epidemic of some sort? Maybe they have perished for medical reasons? I have no way of finding out.

- Have the many predatory domestic cats caught them? Neighbours’ cats are constantly on the prowl, hiding in the shrubbery to jump on the gullible little birds, but I have not seen any evidence of any mass slaughter like a couple of years ago when I found fifteen carcasses under and around the nearest shrub. Then again, they might of course have run off with them.

- Then there are the squirrels, who normally feed side by side with the birds, but they do squirt a lot to mark their territory (I believe). Does that contain a bird-repelling chemical? They have always squirted, so why now? I don’t think I can blame the squirrels.

- Are they all busy reproducing, nesting or feeding young ones with proper baby food like maggots, worms and juicy, flying insects? Possibly, but surely at least one of the parents would occasionally be free to come to the open bar for a well-deserved, healthy snack?

- So, I have only one theory left; they do not like me anymore. They are finally protesting against the inconsistent supply of that extra nutrition they have come to demand. Please come back, I even promise to top up the water at least twice a day!

Eurovision Song Contest 2011–Duesseldorf

2011-05-14T21:21:00.004+02:00

First of all I have to say something about the outing at Blogger for several days. I know my fellow Blogger bloggers have had strange stuff happening to their blogs. For me the odd thing was that I tried to put up a post from the Kappesfest in Rheindahlen, but it took forever before it came up with a message like “no can do”. Then I tried the shorter post I had prepared about the lily, since I thought the many photos in the other post were the problem. No luck there either. So I tried a few times, and all of a sudden the Lily post made it through. So I had to wait a couple of days before the Kappesfest post was finally up.

The oddest of all was that it then was displayed as posted on Tuesday, I guess it must have registered my early attempts somehow. Weird and wonderful world it is, isn’t it, the techie side of things.

Now to a quick proper post about this big European event, (or should that be non-event?,) The European Song Contest, which nobody but Eastern European countries seem to take seriously these days. We just came back from a meal in Duesseldorf where this event kicks off in exactly one minute.

We will be following it from the sofa, commenting on how ludicrous it all really is. Euro pop has earned a very dubious reputation, and there is a certain negative ring to it. However the city was full of life, in particular the old town, where all the revellers were roaming freely, even before it all had started.

As we walked down the central avenue, Koeningsalle, a cacophony of honking horns went slowly past us. German flags were abundant and some young women’s bottoms were precariously balancing on car door frames. I think it was a Ni**an promotion more than anything else.

Then there were thousands of flags everywhere, in people’s hands, on people’s heads, painted on people’s faces, and also in shop windows, like here. Notice how appropriately the Swedish flag sits between the British and the German ones!

No, I had better get downstairs and check it all out. I can hear Graham Norton’s voice on BBC now, which most likely will be the most entertaining aspect of the evening. His sarcasms and witty observations will do nicely for me.

The Beauty of a Lily

2011-05-11T09:02:00.001+02:00

All of a sudden they are just there, so I had to get some good shots of one of the tall lilies standing guard at the front of the house. Close up they are so beautiful, like poetry, like a love song… There’s colour, shape, texture …

There is only one thing I find slightly disturbing, or am I merely being a bit naughty now, but is the lily sticking out its tongue(s) at me with a yellow hedgehog on it?

Kappesfest Rheindahlen 2011

2011-05-10T11:46:00.000+02:00

Last Sunday it was Mothering Sunday in Germany and there was also something going on in one of our little towns nearby. It was called Kappesfest, and I had to look it up in my dictionary to understand the significance of the word. It means [White] Cabbage Holiday! Kappes could also mean [to talk] nonsense, rubbish. What a day, eh? We knew there was a staty of a farmer with three or so different vegetables in front of him, being part of the statue, or should that be called an installation these days? We simply had to investigate.

On our bikes through the countryside we came across some horses with cool shades.

When we arrived in the square there was some cooking demo going on up on the big stage in front of a whole square full of beer drinking, wine drinking and sausage etc. eating people.

Otherwise a medieval theme was running through the stalls all around the little town centre, among them a baker who seemed to having done a lot of quality testing of his own products.

Some young maidens/ladies needed a rest on the church steps after all their earlier work.

In a corner of the main area we came across some birds of prey and their handlers, who let courageous people even hold their feathery friends. You needed more than an oven glove to feel safe!

(Merlin)

The eagle owl was a bit scary and heavy, so nobody took that challenge.

(Eagle Owl)

Then all of a sudden we heard music from the stage and we quickly joined this crowd.

What was going on?Jive, jitterbug and rock ’n roll! A group of middle age amateur dancers were getting everybody’s attention with a fiery and energetic display of supple elasticity. They really went for it; arms flying, legs jumping, skirts twirling and some cheeky smiles.

They were having a ball (sorry for the pun) and the audience had a wonderful time, as did we. Many cameras were out, but I was the only one crawling around, ducking to stay out of the way, with a long lens on an SLR, trying to catch the spirit and the agility of the dancers. I have only put up a very few of my photos here, but I hope these reflect what we experienced in Rheindahlen on Sunday. In order to avoid offending people I refrain from displaying some of the more “revealing” images, although they did not seem to mind showing both this and that! Great day out, good fun.

French Garden Beauty

2011-05-06T18:41:00.001+02:00

It is almost a month since we arrived at our French retreat to enjoy some tranquility. The garden was peaceful but not quiet; birds were singing, there was a constant humming of insects in the air and the flowers and trees exploded in the hot spring temperatures. The birch developed its little mouse ears into full-sized leaves and the apple tree attracted intense attention from all kinds of insects. Now spring has advanced to these somewhat more northern latitudes in Germany with the same force and energy, so we hope to enjoy a relaxed time in the garden this weekend.

To remind myself and to share with any passing blog surfer, I post these three photographs from Normandy.

Back Again After Easter

2011-05-01T20:33:00.002+02:00

It’s been a long time since I last blogged. Family business in Sweden first and then Easter Holiday in France are my excuses. (The clock faces courtesy of a shop in Vannes, Brittany.)

When we stay at our holiday home in Normandy we like to go on a mini holiday if time permits and weather is on our side. Although we enjoy the beautiful rural surroundings, often on hour-long walks, …

… we also like to see something different. Only a couple of hours’ drive away is Brittany with its Celtic heritage and beautiful coastal scenery. We have been many times, but we had not yet been to the south-eastern part around Vannes. So, that’s where we went this time. Isn’t the rocky coast stunning? I wonder what it might look like in the autumnal storms. The power of the sea, the swell with no wind to speak of was impressive enough, just the natural movement of the sea was fascinating.

After lunch in a restaurant with the above view (moules frites for me), it was time for some rock walking (didn’t really climb) and photography. There will be more images later, but I want to show you just this one of some sea gulls above the foaming water. They, very conveniently for me, flew into my picture on cue. I have cropped this photo slightly, but otherwise not manipulated it much.

Most of the time though, we sat in our garden (instead of doing work in it!) enjoying the summer-like temperatures, often in the shade of the lovely laburnum.

I will come back with more later, but this will have to do as my Easter report for now.

Japanese Cherry Blossom

2011-03-28T17:40:00.000+02:00

You know that spring is getting a firm grip on nature when the Japanese Cherry Blossom trees in our street look like this.

My study is on the first floor, so I have these wonderful colours outside my windows at eye level, and late in the afternoon the sun shines through the pink foliage, almost setting it alight. Magical!

Another Beautiful Day

2011-03-27T22:21:00.002+02:00

When I still lived in Sweden, one of the most welcome signs of spring was the Wood Anemone. In London I did not get many chances to see any, but here in the German forests I have reacquainted myself with them. They thrive in deciduous surroundings, and you most likely find them where there are beeches. So when we went for a soul-refreshing walk today, we spotted some along the narrow road cutting through the woods.

When we came to our watering hole, a café by a small lake, we discovered somebody had parked their means of transport on the other side of a little stream.

I enjoyed a Bitburger, a German favourite.

After a quiet, long while most people started to leave to make it home before sunset. The equestrians got in the saddle again, some with much difficulty.

We started walking back past a fishing pond with its tranquil water and soul-soothing atmosphere.

Crossing the open landscape with its farmland in spring mode, we met an old gentleman on his bike. This fellow is nearly ninety years old and cycles every day for hours. I see him everywhere, very often, and we always say hello and smile at each other, I with my camera and he with his binoculars. No wonder he has lived this long. Young people, take note! Exercise and fresh air go a long way towards a long life.

Macro Spring

2011-03-23T17:05:00.001+01:00

We have had 15 degrees today and wonderful sunshine. I could not resist the temptation to try my luck with some close-up images of the forsythia outside our front door. Little insects were whizzing and buzzing around, and I tried desperately to keep up with them; aiming, focusing and hoping they did mot move before my remote time delay had activated the shutter! Not easy, I have to say.

I cropped the best and thought I ought to brighten up my blog with some beautiful spring colours. Here you are!

Spring Walk at Sunset

2011-03-20T01:52:00.001+01:00

It was not particularly warm, just 8 degrees, but the sky was clear, and the sun was about to set, so those glowing sun rays painted trees in intense colours which were reflected in the water. I have cropped some images, sharpened them and made them slightly brighter, but I have not increased the colour at all. I find nature’s own colour saturation quite impressive.

Judge Carmen at Maastricht Carnaval

2011-03-09T19:55:00.001+01:00

At the carnival in Maastricht I stood for quite a while on a bench in a crowd in front of a stage. A male choir kept the audience warm with their enthusiastic singing, even at one stage singing about what I was doing. Mrs S said, they are pointing at you, saying something about photo. Neither of us understand much spoken Dutch, and I wondered if I had offended somebody, but my fears were unfounded. It was a song about taking photos, that word being mentioned many times accompanied by the lead singer pointing at me. I could only smile back in return and point my camera at somebody else in the crowd. Nobody seemed to mind, several of them (in particular women for some reason) more or less posing, smiling into the camera. But the best shots are normally of people who are unaware of the photographer.

This week’s picture is not one of outstanding beauty, but more of outstanding happiness on a man’s face. This bespectacled gentleman was dressed as Carmen, red dress with black dots and black wig and all. But the hair piece had been slightly dislodged and looked more like a black version of an English judge’s court wig and a Caribbean pirate’s floppy hair combined!

Judge Carmen had bumped into a couple he knew, but who did not recognise him at first in his outlandish outfit, so he had to “identify” himself. He laughed heartily at their reaction.

What I like in particular about this split-second out of the five seconds it all took, is that it tells a whole story, in a blink, his expression being representative of the atmosphere of this annual event, sheer joy, fun and some silliness.

Carnaval in Maastricht

2011-03-06T01:42:00.001+01:00

We have often passed through Maastricht on our way to or back from France, but we have never had time to stop. To make it worse, it is less than an hour from where we live, so we decided to go there yesterday. We know the Germans are keen on Karneval, and we have been to Duesseldorf and seen all the fancy dress, happy people and all the colours on earth. What we did not know, was that the Dutch are as keen on partying during the carnival season. Yesterday was grey and cold, but that did not dampen the spirit. Just look at these snaps.

Wood and Water - A Forest Walk

2011-03-03T20:37:00.001+01:00

Chicks Rock ‘n Rule? or That Damn Chicken Farmer!

2011-02-28T16:24:00.001+01:00

One of the many great features of our holiday place in Normandy is the beautiful landscape surrounding us. It is a varied and undulating scenery; crop fields and large grazing fields for the dairy herds broken up by small woods, copses and hedgerows. The local farmers manage their land very well; they cut the grass along the roads and they chop down trees on a regular basis, letting nothing go to waste. All the wood is used either for fences and similar, or for stoves like ours, at a cost of €50 per cubic metre. If you buy larger quantities you get a better price.

We like to think that our farmer friends look after the environment in an excellent way, although they sometimes dump all sorts of rubbish in funny places. There is a natural rhythm to the agricultural year with sound old farming practices. This time of year is particularly suited to maintenance, repairing and forestry, apart from the milking every morning at seven and every evening at six.

Then there is the EU, the European Union, and the co-ordination of, in particular, agriculture; what to grow, how much to grow, subsidies for certain crops, subsidies for NOT growing certain crops, rules about raising animals, large and small, and the space they need, i.e. their own creature comfort zone. And this is where I have an issue with the chicken farmer over the hill.

Like so many farmers he has branched out, but his main business is still fowl. He now seems to be expanding his chicken division. Not only will he be feeding up more chickens, but he needs to stick to, possibly new, EU rulings regarding the personal space each individual chick is entitled to. So his two big chicken barns with their characteristic feeding towers close to the family home will now be joined by three new barns on the other side of the road. Tons and tons of earth have been shifted in the last few months, the ground has been levelled and the foundations now bear witness to what we can expect in the future. I am not concerned with the smell or the sound because these buildings will be situated several hundred metres away from any public road.

As my regular readers know, we like to go for walks all around our little hamlet. Just up the hill from us we often stop to take in the views, just a little short of the said chicken farm. If we look over the farm we can see “for miles and miles”. If we look down to the left we have one of our absolute favourite views, that is, until now.

Even approaching this beautiful hill from the other side, like we do when we arrive on holiday, fills us with joy and anticipation. But now, he has ruined our view. Just look at it!

On the other hand, in his defence, I have to admit he should get some credit for creating this bird and fish pond by the road some years ago.

But he is ruining OUR VIEW, buuuhuuuh!

Not So Old Pictures Continued

2011-02-18T11:05:00.001+01:00

I had a comment from Oreneta with the very appropriate and justified question whether an image in my previous post came straight out of the camera. The answer is “not quite”. I used my photo editing software “Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2” to make a small adjustment. The result is like pulling off a thin coating of grey as you can see below.

Tech spec:

(All corrections within a range of max 100)

Focus – 44 sharper

Saturation – 20 more colourful

Brightness – 19 brighter, –60 shadows and 20 more highlights

I used the software’s One Step Photo Fix, and to me it looks just like clearing it up a bit. The difference is obvious when you see them next to each other, although it is a rather subtle enhancement. I sometimes use this feature when I want to check how I have managed my camera settings, what with all the ISAs, shutter speeds, depth of field and so on. I quite like the original, but the light was disappearing and there was a change of temperature creating humidity, hence the “grey coating”.

See what you think. Original on the left.

How is this for being honest!

Not So Old Pictures

2011-02-17T19:38:00.001+01:00

Nature looks fairly pale and even bleak at the moment, although snowdrops and other garden flowers have adorned the flower beds for many days now. On a walk through the forest just before sunset the other day I took a few images just out of habit. What might look like dormant or dead vegetation can actually make quite a decent photograph with its subdued and understated colours, like in this picture of some naked birches and dead bracken. Almost ghostly beauty.

This morning the sun was out and I took the opportunity to practise with my new long lens. Sadly my feeders are on the north side of the house, which is not ideal for photographing the poor little things, but the sun shines on the very top of some shrubs and cut-off trees nearby which serve as a waiting area for the birds where they scan the surroundings before moving in on the food. Here is one of the regular customers, a greenfinch, surveying the scene.

One of the regular winter guests is the brambling (Swedish: bergfink), who otherwise breeds in Scandinavia and Russia. It has got rather striking colours and marking.

I use my tripod for bird photography, in particular with this new lens without built-in anti-shake, but it is still a challenge to get the focus right when the little so-and-so keeps moving all the time!

Who Are These People?

2011-02-04T20:13:00.002+01:00

I have been deep down in family history again, nostalgia. I am continuing to scan and organise my mother’s and father’s old photo albums. I have taken it upon myself to document and safeguard information which otherwise might get lost before long. There are quite a few albums, but I am nearing the end now.

Most people I recognise and identify, either through my own experience or logical thinking, deduction and a lot of staring at the same images over and over again. I look for hair styles, wedding rings and other clear indicators, who else is in the picture, which location, time of year, items in the background, notes on the back, anything printed in a corner by a professional photographer and so on. It is pure detective work most of the time.

It does not take long before you get to know somebody’s facial features, so you can recognise this person in another photo, which might be out of focus or damaged. You compare noses, eyebrows and mouths to determine relationships. Also somebody’s position in a group photo at a wedding in 1918, can determine the identity after having ticked off everybody you are sure of. Conclusion, this must be my grandmother’s only brother, for instance.

After a while I feel like I know some of these people who lived long before my time, but of course I don’t really. However, if I then come across some old letter written by one of them, suddenly this person takes on another dimension. I have found copies of letters, one of them 125 years old, regarding the death of my great great grandmother in 1885, and another from my grandparents to my grandfather's mother describing in detail what my toddler father had been up to in 1923. Quite sensational. Here he is that year on his mother’s knee.

Obviously there are many anonymous people who not even my old mother is sure of any more, some of them before her time, some before she knew my father. Then there is this very old photograph.

Who are these people? Well, they must be my relatives. My next assumption is that they most likely are in direct line, because why else would someone treasure an old photograph like that for so long? So they would then be my great great grandparents. Both sets of great great grandparents were born around 1820, and I guess they are roughly 50 years old in this picture. Then this was taken around 1870, but I could be out by 15 years easily.

Are there any clues in the way they are dressed, I ask myself? Probably not, because one of these men was a shopkeeper and the other one was a shoemaker, and one must assume they have got their Sunday bests on anyway. Does the man in the photo look six years older than his wife? If so, that would point towards the shopkeeper, whose wife was the one mentioned in the letter referred to above. My grandfather never ever met those grandparents because of the geographical distance, since they did not have a horse and cart. So did his grandparents therefore have their picture taken to send to the grandchildren? Does that sound plausible?

On the other hand, the shoemaker lived and worked in the small village of Bjellerup. My grandfather chose that to become his new surname in 1907. Is that connection why the photograph has been kept all these years. My father had it, and before he passed away five years ago, I seem to remember he told me it was the shoemaker in this picture. But I cannot be absolutely sure about it. Who can tell me? Can I phone a friend?

Macro Photography

2011-01-28T19:41:00.001+01:00

I wrote before about my new Sigma lens (300 mm), which also has a macro function. If you set it between 200 and 300 mm you can take incredible close-ups. I tried indoors the other day because it was too cold outside to stand there and fiddle with camera equipment. One reason I also had a good go at it was that I initially feared that I had damaged the auto focus before I knew how to operate the lens. I had accidentally left it in auto focus mode, and then I tried to change the focus manually. Not good!

Luckily I had not ruined my Christmas present and it focused beautifully, albeit noisily. It is not as quiet as the standard kit lenses, but I don’t mind. Like one reviewer on Amazon said, I don’t think it will scare birds in the woods too easily.

I have three examples for you, nothing fancy or pretty, just ordinary objects. The first one is of a Swedish little wooden horse, part of a Noughts and Crosses play set. The red fella is only four or five cm long approximately, but click on the picture and see how large you can make him. It regrettably reveals the dust on top of it with ease!

The second one is a detail of a vase of ordinary size. The depth of field is very shallow, so much that the string to the right is completely out of focus.

The last object is part of a candle snuffer, the bell being approximately five cm high. Again, look at the detail when you have enlarged it.

I think I will enjoy learning to work with this new lens. It does both long distance and extremely short distance. If I then set the camera to the optimal quality image, it will be possible to magnify with great detail up to poster size. But where do I find a printer that can cope with that? Only joking…

Oh Dear! Me Too …

2011-01-25T19:11:00.001+01:00

In the end I gave in, despite putting up strong resistance for several years. I did not need it, I thought. I am a blogger, although I have been far too busy of late to find time and space to both read and write.

Lately emails and phone calls have been very frequent between myself and Sweden due to events and situations in “the old country”.

On Saturday my brother said “But you are the perfect person for it, your circumstances make the ideal and optimal setting for it. If you join you will be constantly updated about what is going on. You will feel the physical distance disappear.”

So after thinking about it for half an hour, I finally set up an account and joined . Easy peasy, lätt som en plätt, as we say in Swedish. I had been advised how to find my first “friends”.

I requested to become “friends” with people I have known all my life, which sounds a bit odd actually. All of these had their own “friends”, and mutual “friends”, who in turn had other “friends”, and so it went on.

Within half an hour others had detected me and requested to become my “friend”. I started to understand how it worked. My circle of “friends” began to widen almost organically. There was an abundance of suggested “friends”, most of whom I had no knowledge of whatsoever. I recognised some faces and names, but not necessarily in combination. Names from my past appeared on the screen in front of me, and then welcome greetings started coming up on my “wall”. I also had a message from somebody with an explanation of the difference in visibility between the “wall” and my “message” box.

When I clicked on “Friends”, the whole world seemed to stream up from below onto my screen. It would not take much to get really silly and try to make everybody my “friend”. I actually thought of the old song “Everybody Is Trying To Be My Baby”, as sung by The Beatles once.

I soon realised that I had to be selective and restrict myself, not to go into overdrive and try to break some record. I really just needed another means of communication with, in the first instance, my family.

I have not explored all features of Facebook yet, only really just opened my account, but I already know so much more of what is going on in some people’s lives, all those little things you get to hear when you bump into each other at the supermarket. I believe Facebook is trying to transform the whole world into a small market square. The trick is, I suppose, to find a balance between the advantage of virtual proximity and one’s need for some privacy.

Christmas Aftermath

2011-01-14T20:37:00.001+01:00

It is always wonderful and uplifting to visit Sweden, to see relatives and friends, in particular my two grandchildren. They give so much joy, but also unpleasant reminders. I seem to catch one cold or other every time I see them. They are used to, and possibly immune to, a wide range of germs, bugs and bacteria, but I am not. Their nurseries are like crucibles of everything contagious. The children act like little middle men, like bridges, like carrier pigeons of colds and other curses. It took me over two weeks to get rid of this last nasty cold. And this came at a time when I work more hours than I normally do.

Outside it does not look like Christmas anymore. The snow has gone and we had 12 degrees today. It is dark, wet and windy. The extra light reflected off the snow has been replaced by some dark matter, which does not lift your soul exactly.

On the other hand I have just received a belated birthday and Christmas present from my wife. I ordered it from Amazon in the UK, but since it has to go through the military sorting office in London, it normally takes another five days to get here. It is a third lens for my Nikon camera, a Sigma 300 mm lens, which is both heavy and looong. I will be needing my tripod for it when it is fully extended in order to get sharp images. This is particularly important since there is no built-in vibration reduction (anti-shake) mechanism.

I am hoping to be able to take better close-ups of for instance birds, and also to experiment with macro photography. It is possible to achieve pictures with great detail. So hopefully I can show some examples of that once I have practised a little. I just need to hold my breath and steady my hands.

Signing off with two pictures of days now long gone.

Happy New Year Everybody!

2011-01-05T16:45:00.001+01:00

Well, December was apparently the coldest in the UK since the Met Office started monitoring the weather a long time ago. But we went to Sweden to spend time with relatives and friends, and the coldest temperature the car thermometer registered was –22 degrees.

The whole country was covered in masses of snow. You needed your long-johns and thermals, that’s for sure, and woolly hats and gloves …. but it created some beautiful scenes for free…

…and some funny ones as well.

In Stockholm my grandchildren could not go on the swing …

… although some kids played outside in Malmö …

… my two little darlings had to play indoors most of the time…

While the snow caused some people problems …

… others took the opportunity …

… but most of all, it was beautiful!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

2010-12-16T15:23:00.001+01:00

Happy Holidays, Everybody!

See you next year

Don’t You Just Love That Hat?

2010-12-07T18:30:00.002+01:00

My mother is still going, not strong perhaps, but she is going. Yesterday she turned 88. Sadly I could not be there, but I will see her in two weeks’ time.

I was in fact frantically scanning old photo albums so I can return them when we go for Christmas. That’s when I came across this wonderful almost 69-year-old picture of her and her best friend at teacher training college. She was still 19 years old that summer when she graduated. I believe this photo is from early spring 1942. So elegant, a real class act! (She is the one on the left by the way.) The hat might be dated, although beautiful, but the rest of her outfit would have done a modern business woman proud. What a good dresser she was!

Winter Came Early

2010-12-02T17:27:00.002+01:00

All of a sudden we had the first snow, on the last day of November, and then much more today.

Since it got cold I have noticed the birds having a greater appetite. Add snow to that and they start getting more aggressive, in particular the Greenfinches.

The Great Tit had to wait for its turn. But this Blue Tit was luckier, the female Spotted Woodpecker had her own food supply. Is that the same Great Tit waiting up there?

Some flowers had not even had time to fall off the shrubs before the snow settled.

Foggy Photos

2010-11-16T18:01:00.001+01:00

The fog has us in its grip. Airports have closed. Motorways are slow. No proper daylight all day, only cold, thick fog.

So I thought this morning, what an opportunity to practise some black and white photography (and some colour)! Said and done, winter jacket and gloves on.

I just wandered around in the woods, the fields and also paid a visit to our military cemetery (Rheindahlen). I think the thick fog gives these pictures another dimension, the grave stones look positively ghostly.

(Please click on them to get a better view.)

Three Stolpersteine

2010-11-12T19:57:00.001+01:00

Almost two years ago I blogged about Stolpersteine (please click and read). Some time ago I came across three more. They are next to each other for obvious reasons.

I tried to avoid writing about them, but then these three people just would not leave my mind. For a long time I have had this picture as a thumbnail on my screen reminding me, prompting me to look into this issue again.

If you read my earlier post you will see that it is a German artist who has devoted himself to this cause.

From the information on these Stolpersteine, metal cobbles, and some internet research (just google “Chelmno” and you will see) I have come to the following conclusion:

Fanny Levison was born Leubsdorf in 1878. At the age of 28 in 1906 she gave birth to Reinhold (my educated guess). In 1941, when she was 63 years old and Reinhold was 35, they were picked up by the Nazis from where they lived in Düsseldorf and deported to the growing ghetto in Lodz, Poland. The Nazis had established this ghetto from which they systematically transported people to the nearby extermination camp in Chelmno.

Using three specially adapted Renault vans the Nazis murdered, gassed, 150,000 to 300,000 Jews, gypsies and others before they tried to get rid of all incriminating evidence of their evil activities.

11,700 Jews were deported from Lodz to Chelmno between 4 and 15 May 1942, among them Fanny Levison. But before her gruesome death in one of those gas vans, she will have experienced having a granddaughter, Chana, for roughly two months.

The little baby succumbed to starvation or some decease (another assumption) about one month after her grandmother had been murdered. Reinhold, the father, lasted another two months and a week in the horrible conditions in Lodz.

What happened to granddad? Who was the mother? What happened to her? These three sad cobblestones cannot tell us, but you do not need much imagination to understand what terrible tragedy they are evidence of.

When will mankind ever learn?

Our Rural French Haven

2010-11-09T16:46:00.002+01:00

I am still here, yes, but I have not had much time for the blogosphere lately. I will not bore you with what I have been up to in great detail, so I have assembled a few photos from a week in Normandy where I recharged my batteries. I will soon get my blog mojo working again, but for now I leave you to a few minutes of contemplation. Just click and relax!

A picture slideshow by Smilebox

Went for a Walk Yesterday

2010-10-11T14:54:00.002+02:00

It was a beautiful autumn day with wonderful sunshine without a cloud in the sky. The little roads and paths were brimming with life; people of all ages took advantage of the opportunity to walk or cycle. You met people in the remotest corner of the forest and we all said our polite “Guten Tag” to each other, making it even more enjoyable. How very civilised!

My camera accompanied us and I snapped a few here and there, trying to catch some interesting light. After two hours’ walking this was my best attempt.

Girls Girls Girls!

2010-10-06T14:28:00.001+02:00

I have posted many photographs here but not any Pic of the Week for a long time. But here is one I could not resist putting up. It is not one of outstanding beauty, but a funny one.

I am still in Brussels, La Grande Place, the main square where people gather and lots happen. There is music and giant puppets walking about, people having a relaxing drink and then all the tourists taking pictures of all those fascinating buildings I mentioned in a previous post.

On this car-free Sunday the square was very crowded and some girls in their early teens put big smiles on many faces with their antics. What they did? They moved like a lightning-quick snake positioning itself behind people snapping the imposing buildings with their backs to the centre of the square. The girls also walked behind people copying their every movement, like some delayed ripple effect. Extremely funny.

I have never seen so many (at least ten of them) in such a well-choreographed action. It only took them a few seconds to get in line behind this man, the only one actually with a camera in his hands. Good, clean fun!

How Likely Is That?

2010-10-03T16:18:00.001+02:00

When we were in Brussels a couple of weekends ago we stayed in a B&B where one other guest was a young Russian, who was there for some conference, and then there were two Belgian women.

At breakfast on Saturday we chatted like one does, and the topic of the state of the Belgian motorways was introduced (by me). I explained with my standard joke “How do you know you are travelling through Belgium? It goes bumpety bumpety bumpety.”

One of the ladies said to the other “You have to tell your boss that!” It turned out that one of them worked for the Minister of Transport. Ooops!

Another unlikely meeting took place in one of Brussels’ many excellent restaurants. Since Brussels is a city of two official languages, French and Flemish (Dutch), you are not quite sure how to start a conversation. Mrs S spoke French, since neither of us speak Flemish, and the waitress replied in fluent French, of course. But it turned out that she actually was French.

Mrs S continued to tell the waitress that we had a holiday home in Normandy, and she wondered where. Before Mrs S had finished her geographic explanation the young French waitress said with a broad smile that she came from a town not far away from there, and that as a young girl she had often been with her mother to the swimming pool in our nearest little town, the very same pool Mrs S regularly frequents on our holidays. How about that for a coincidence?

Guess Where I Have Been

2010-09-21T14:22:00.002+02:00

Yes, right answer, Brussels. We went there for the weekend, and it was quite an experience. We did manage to locate the real little boy statue on a corner as well.

The symbol of Brussels (?), Manneken Pis, is a bit like the Mona Lisa painting in that it is much smaller in real life than many people think. These days they dress him up in different outfits, and we were lucky to see a change-over, or at least the first half of it.

We walked a lot, since that is the easiest way of getting round the centre of this rather small capital city (approx. 1 million). But many locals used their cars, and HOW they used them! Many streets were very narrow and junctions were often complex. Getting this insight into Brussels traffic I understand much better why the motorways we use to get to France on a regular basis are so hazardous sometimes.

It was far easier to count the drivers who used their seat belts than those who did not. Many were using their mobile phones while driving with one hand, and this hand often let go of the steering wheel to pip the horn at the shortest of delays. Patience was at a premium. It was like the Wild West!

Sunday, on the other hand, was a car-free day and all the streets changed character dramatically; now you had to look out for cyclists who swarmed like locusts. Boys, inevitably, made the streets somewhat unsafe, but mostly it was families with small children who enjoyed the freedom. In crowded places they had to dismount and try to push their bikes through pedestrians.

Apart from the famous boy letting water, we saw for instance the lavish and exuberant Grand Place where most of the buildings had some connection with the old guilds. It was completely over the top, as if they had tried to outdo each other.

Most of the time we just strolled down the streets and my camera was in action nearly all the time. It was very colourful.

Tintin, other cartoons and murals were everywhere …

… but my favourite image of that day is the one of a little girl who was out strolling with her older sister, who was trying out her roller blades. There was only time to get one shot, and here it is.

Sneaky Pics

2010-09-15T14:07:00.002+02:00

Well, I am not sure sneaky pics is an accurate description of what I sometimes take, but I do like to take pictures of people who are unaware of my presence and therefore behave naturally. Like I have mentioned before I am fascinated by people and find them interesting, no not just beautiful women, but all people regardless of age, gender and character.

When I am in a crowd my camera often hangs from its strap on my stomach. I have a firm grip of it with my index finger ready, but I try to look as casual and cool as possible. Speed is often crucial in order to get an image of somebody or something passing by in a second or two, so I have my camera on auto setting and shoot from, not my hip, but my stomach.

I do sometimes ask if it is ok to take a photo, or I at least give them a friendly smile as a thank you, should they spot me in action. One thing which I would like to point out is that I always have the best intentions. I never publish a picture with ridicule in mind. I always treat my objects with respect.

Despite popular belief and custom, smiling at the camera is not the best idea for a good portrait. Experts always advise you to ask your “model” not to smile. That’s why I use stealth as my preferred method, because if people realise that they are being snapped, they sometimes wave and smile at you, unless they show that they object to the idea one way or other.

This summer I had the opportunity to take many photos of people. Like this old man in need of a rest on a bench in a busy market.

Or this shot on an off-chance in a very crowded street. Just look at all the eyes, in particular the eyes of the enamoured young couple on the left. Aren’t they sweet?

Then you have the opposite, a bored couple waiting for the rain to stop in Cologne last weekend.

In a French market place I took some pictures of two Police Municipale, and when he discovered that I was pointing my camera roughly in their direction, he asked me if I wanted to take a picture of him and his colleague. He was more than willing to pose for me, and a passing lady said something about him (or possibly them) being oh so handsome.

Here is one I took earlier, and if I wanted to, I could come up with all sorts of suggestive captions! But I won’t.

All these images and many more will be added to my photo website in the coming days. Please come and visit me there.

Washing Machine on Fire?

2010-09-07T18:39:00.001+02:00

Is that possible? Well, first I have to say it is nice to be back. It has been almost two months since I last blogged, and the reasons for that are many; guests, holiday (will blog about that later) and lots of other practicalities of the boring kind, which I will spare you. But last nights event needs a mention.

We were just preparing to go out for our regular start-of-the-week-treat-yourself meal at a small restaurant when the smoke alarms went off. They sound terrible! I was upstairs and rushed down only to find Mrs Swenglish also wondering what the reason was for the emergency. Normally it is the cooking that gets the alarm on the ground floor going if the door to the kitchen is not shut, but we were going out!

All of a sudden we realised that the smoke came up from the cellar, and we had forgotten that there was an alarm there as well. It smelled of paper burning, but how was that possible? We have a cellar under the whole house, so it took what seemed ages to find out where it came from.

In the laundry, which incidentally also is where the heating system is located, the smoke was quite thick. There were no flames anywhere, but since the only fuse that had tripped was the one for the washing machine, we homed in on this proud representative of white goods from Hoover.

It still looked all white and shiny but very hot. Mrs S had put in some washing at 90 degrees and something had gone desperately wrong. This was too hot!

A quick call to the fire station’s non-emergency number and a request for “someone to come and have a look at it” resulted in a fire engine and another vehicle with wailing sirens pulling up in front our house. Concerned neighbours came out and I felt almost embarrassed. Firefighters in full gear with portable extinguishers and oxygen tubes on the back were preparing themselves to enter the cellar where we just before had been running around trying to fan the smoke out with flattened Bran Flake boxes from the recycling pile!

They quickly established that the engine or the heating element had overheated and burnt some covering made of greasy paper, hence the smell of burnt paper. According to them it was “kaputt”, and they unceremoniously carried it upstairs and plonked it down in front of the house. The chief said “If there is smoke there is fire”, which will come in handy when we claim on the home insurance.

After having had a negative answer initially the insurance guy rang back later and apologised for his earlier assessment and said that since there actually was a fire, not just a mechanical or electrical fault, he would now class it as Fire. Just get some proof, report or so, and we will process it.

So, does it sound just a little bit weird perhaps if I say that I am in a way glad that the washing machine caught fire? I mean, rather than just dying on us?

Yes, washing machines can catch fire.

And Then There Is Food Of Course

2010-07-11T15:57:00.002+02:00

I Am Your Mother After All ...

2010-07-10T19:51:00.010+02:00

... and I know best!

First you need to drink some water in this terrible heat ...

... and then you need a bath!

Good boy, good boy!

¡Adiós Diego!

2010-07-04T17:44:00.006+02:00

First of all I have to say why I have not blogged or visited blogs for so long. It's the usual thing really, work, visitors and then a change-over between telecoms and an unwanted situation of no phone and no internet. Although I do not write about football a lot, I love the game and watch just enough not to upset the equilibrium at home, if you see what I mean. It's a fine balancing act.

But I just had to put up this post today. We were in Duesseldorf yesterday and the city was dressed in the German colours with vuvuzelas to go with it. It was an absolute carnival atmosphere, and this was before the game had ended. If you are at all interested you might know by now that a young German team beat Argentina (managed by Diego Maradona) 4-0. Some of the most skillful and best-known footballers in the world were beaten comprehensively by some youngsters.

As we were walking along to our favourite restaurant we walked past another one, and that's when I spotted this sign. I don't know how many customers it attracted, but we were quite a few who took photos of it. How is this for wonderful German humour?

I Believe I Can Fly ...

2010-06-22T18:10:00.001+02:00

As I was washing up I spotted this unlucky creature on the lawn, a magpie without tail feathers looking rather sad. One can only speculate how it had lost its rudder like that. Those feathers must be there for a very good reason, the design has been perfected over generations, so how would it cope I wondered.

But all of a sudden it took off and headed for the neighbours' garden. So, yes, it could fly, but I wonder about the landing. Maybe it crashed and rolled over. I will never know. (It is somewhere in the middle, slightly blurred.)

Spring/Summer Animal Watch

2010-06-18T18:32:00.001+02:00

Not only do I keep pen and paper near me or on me for when some writing ideas come up, but this time of year there is a lot going on in the garden, so my camera is never far away either.

When I wake up in the morning I often hear how young birds are calling for more food, now! They congregate by the feeders under our bedroom window. Since we are in mid June now, all fledglings have left their nests and ventured out into the big unknown, and it is fascinating and rather sweet to see how some of them are still trying to understand how to get to the food. They can see others eating from the feeders and those fatty balls full of yummy seeds.

This young greenfinch could not figure out how to approach and land safely to get some food, but ended up on the ground looking slightly bewildered.

This juvenile great tit is getting some help though.

Not only birds are hungry but also this female squirrel is in need of replenishing her energy levels. She is pretty agile and acrobatic!

When the great spotted woodpeckers fly in, the crowd of smaller birds disperse in a flash, and you cannot avoid hearing the young ones calling for food. In these pictures a male adult is feeding a young one.

Since I started supplying water I have also realised that birds do not only have a bath every now and then, but most of all how often they need to drink, and it is not only birds who come to drink. I have many times seen birds repeatedly visiting the water bowls between sessions on the feeder perch. When everyone else has gone to bed the hedgehogs appear.

No wonder I always keep both camera and tripod close at hand. Like yesterday when a jay turned up all of a sudden. I have never before seen one in the garden, only in the woods.

Last Week I Slept with ...

2010-06-10T12:46:00.001+02:00

... a note pad and pen next to my bed. Why? To record my dreams? No, but that sounds like a fascinating idea. To help realise my dream of finishing my book that I am hoping to publish some time? Yes!

Often when I wake up too early, especially when on holiday, my brain kicks into action, and I often find myself thinking about plot ideas, expressions and words. I might even be half asleep, but my brain seems to go into a creative mode automatically.

I have many times cursed myself in the past for not remembering those thoughts later in the day, just like with dreams. So this is where the note pad and pen come into the picture. I found it very useful last week, especially since our French country house has several Velux windows (roof windows), and the ones in our bedroom lack blinds. If it is a sunny morning the room gets very bright.

It's funny how it works. Sometimes when you sit down and try hard to think, to be imaginary, creative, nothing comes out. But when you're more relaxed and just let your mind float freely, you're rewarded with even the odd eureka moment.

Early one morning in that bright bedroom I had a particular idea, which I used in my writing. I noticed that the light that was shining through one of those roof windows created an image on the opposite wall, and this projected image then moved with the movement of the sun.

The sun was shining through a big birch outside and projected the movements of the foliage onto the wall, just like a fuzzy black-and-white film.

I really should carry pen and paper all the time, because you never know when the writing muse strikes next. Or maybe I simply should go on holiday more often?

I managed to take a few photos as well, and I leave you with a solitary poppy in a crop field.

Visiting Tutor

2010-05-27T16:33:00.001+02:00

Well, that's the peculiar job title for the work that I do at a boarding house for teenage children of British military personnel. The visiting part of the title might refer to the fact that I don't reside there, just stay overnight when I am on duty. The tutoring bit involves neither teaching nor tutoring as such, since I basically supervise the boarders, in particular the boys. (As a male member of staff I am not allowed in the girls' wing at all.)

There are clear rules about the most important issue, which is their "Health and Safety". Every time they leave the building they have to sign out in a book by the entrance, both time and destination, and then sign back in again on their return. Staff must at all times have a record of every boarder's whereabouts. That's our responsibility.

Then there are meal times, roll call, prep (two hours' homework) and bedtime to adhere to. We all eat the same food, although some boarders tend to buy and eat rubbish from the nearby supermarket. On weekend mornings it is possible to order one's own full English breakfast, which I only eat in the boarding house. At roll call after dinner there is also the daily opportunity to share information. I think I still hold the record for the fastest roll call, reading out roughly 60 names and getting answers.

Then comes one of the, sometimes, stressful periods, prep. For two hours boarders are expected to stay in their individual rooms and study, unless they have signed up to use the computer room. You can easily imagine that some of them come up with all sorts of reasons to leave their room; toilet visit, asking a friend about something, borrow something from somebody, get help from somebody, to print something off in the computer room, which all has to go through me as a VT. They should always ask permission before they go anywhere else. Since I have two floors to keep an eye on, the really "good boys" find me first. Mostly I am stationed on the lower floor where the younger ones are (14-15 yr old), since some of them are among "the more mobile" ones. As soon as they stick their heads out, I am there with a face saying "And where are you going?" But I have to admit that I am a sucker for a clever answer. As long as they sound believable I like to give them the benefit of the doubt, until the day they let me down that is. My idea is to teach them to be open, honest and truthful.

Bedtime is the other somewhat stressful and energy-sapping event, which tests your patience and composure. Any parent will understand easily, just multiply by 35! No, not all of them are tricky to usher into their own rooms, but you have to develop your own style and set your tolerance levels. As any good teacher will know, it never works shouting at them, because that's a sure sign you have lost. Some kids like to wind you up as well, so don't fall into that trap, that's all I can say.

Before they can settle they need to have some bedtime entertainment, no not me reading a bedtime story, but they watch videos, films, listen to music, play video games on their expensive little machines (some still actually read books!). So there is a heck of a lot of swapping, borrowing and negotiating regarding these items before calm is restored. Imagine having 35 of those dog leads that are extendable. One by one you have to pull them in.

The younger ones obviously go to bed first, so the whole procedure has its own repetitive nature, but in the end you get them there, into their own rooms. More than once (every night really) have boarders hidden in another boarder's room, behind the desk, in the wardrobe etc. Normally you gently talk them out, but if they are really silly and stupid they will be gated the following night.

I mentioned "Health and Safety" earlier and that is something I, as a Visiting Tutor, need to keep in mind always. I must for instance keep the door open at all times when I need to speak to a boarder, I cannot close the door behind me and be on my own with a single boy. I never close the door even if there is more than one boarder in the room. I always leave a dragging foot to prop the door open, which otherwise would shut automatically. It is about my safety as well, not leaving myself vulnerable to any kind of suspicion. Even though I have worked in this boarding house for six years, I still have to be vetted and checked upon for criminal activities on a regular basis. I am subject the the most rigorous checks available. And so it should be.

When it comes to the girls I am even more conscious of the demand for absolutely correct behaviour on my part, in particular since some of the older girls really are young women.

I realise that what I have written so far possibly might sound as if the work was not enjoyable, but it often is. As always when you work with young people, and in this case in a role somewhere between a parent, a teacher and an adult friend, you have all those positive moments when you are just another person to whom they can connect. You can share a joke, have an interesting conversation and sometimes give them some of your "collected wisdom", just be there.

So, after a long duty it is time even for the VT to go to bed, something which one boarder thought I never did because I was always there when he popped out of his room, but I have never ever slept particularly well in that room. It could depend upon the fact that I am on duty while asleep, but it just might have something to do with the sad old military bed that I have to sleep in. Good night!

My Garden

2010-05-24T19:23:00.001+02:00

I will try, despite my previous post, to write about animal life in the garden. Thanks to some encouraging comments I have decided to blog about all the topics I mentioned, and I take the easiest option to begin with.

I never thought that I would turn into somebody being teased by his wife for observing and learning about the birds and other animals who visit our garden. Since we moved here over six years ago and I started feeding the birds, I have spotted approximately 30 different species. There have been everything from one-offs like a sparrow hawk to the ever-present greenfinches. Since our garden backs onto a copse, once part of a large mixed forest, we get a great variety of birds.

Before we moved here I had never knowingly seen a greenfinch, but I know them very well by now. One immediately noticeable characteristic is the aggression they show, in particular towards each other. I have blogged about this before, but they never cease to fascinate me.

They are also the only species who stay on the feeder peg and keep munching away at the seeds. Others, like the great tits, long-tailed tits, blue tits, crested tits, black caps, nuthatches and even robins, pick their seed and fly off to a nearby branch and start trying to crack the seed open.

Some other birds are happy to patrol the ground under the feeders to look for seeds discarded by other birds with a much more acquired taste. So there is room for everyone.

As soon as I see a new bird I try to photograph it and identify it using my European bird book. In doing so I have learnt a lot over the years, their names in both English and Swedish and also something about their habits.

I have in the past blogged about sunbathing birds (getting quite a few search hits), but since I have introduced water I have seen many birds both drinking and taking a refreshing bath.

I even saw a jackdaw clumsily landing to get a drink.

Then of course there are the red squirrels, very agile, quick like lightning and rather unafraid. I have posted many times before with squirrels in the leading parts. Sometimes you see them at their playful best, chasing each other up an down and round our big conifer trunk trying to outwit each other. The other week I managed to catch some of them in full flight across the lawn. Rather special don't you think?

I Have Nothing to Write About

2010-05-19T16:10:00.001+02:00

Well, that's how it feels at least. I just can't get started. I find it difficult to focus on material for this blog. Self doubt has started to creep in.

I could write about the goings-on in the garden, the in-fighting greenfinches, the cheeky squirrels, the blackbird splashing in the bath, the new bird feeder stand in black metal and preying cats, but I don't.

I could write about the progress of the book I am trying to write (in Swedish), currently at around 100 A4 pages after a lot of editing (deleting mostly), how I struggle sometimes to write anything for long periods of time, the joy of actually achieving something, but I don't.

I could write about my part-time work at a boarding house where I sleep in an uncomfortable bed, supervise spotty teenagers and drink lots of tea, but I don't (partly because of confidentiality).

I could write about how I invigilate GCSE and A-level exams, but that would be plain boring, so I don't.

I could write about life as a civilian dependent in a NATO community in Germany, the imminent relocation of half of this community to the UK, the many second-hand cars in the main car park people are trying to sell before they leave, the anxiety of many colleagues because of an uncertain future, knowing the whole garrison will close in a few years' time, but I don't.

I could write about our own situation, where to move next, where to settle and eventually retire, Sweden (where only I have lived), France (where we only have a holiday home) or the UK (where both of us have lived), but I don't.

I could write about my health and the complication of doctors trying to establish which type of diabetes I have got, type 2 or 1.5 (LADA), but I don't.

I could write about the joy of still having my mother (87), my son and two grandchildren, other family and friends, but I don't.

Why don't I?

Via Elections to Düsseldorf Medien Hafen (Media Harbour)

2010-05-10T19:07:00.001+02:00

After having missed out on voting in the UK general elections due to the simple fact that we have not had our postal voting documents yet, we ran into other election preparations in Düsseldorf on Saturday. (I could use a never-ending string of foul language to describe how I and my better half feel about the missing documents, but I will abstain since the odd under-age reader might take offence.) As some of my readers know, we live in a British NATO community in Germany, and we are dependant on the military postal services. Efficient they ain't!

We had gone to the lively, pulsating and cosmopolitan Düsseldorf just down the motorway. As always we had strolled along the main shopping street into the old town and had our regular meal in Fischhaus, a very popular fish restaurant. To stretch our legs afterwards this time we continued walking along the river further than we usually do.

We had seen some political banners etcetera and quite some police presence, but we did not think much of it. But when we had just passed under a bridge across the Rhine the place was swarming with media people and we realised what was going on. We were in fact standing next to the North Rhine Westphalia parliament building (Landestag), the seat of power for Germany's most populous state, and on Sunday 9 May elections would be held. Angela Merkel's coalition was under threat from the red-green alliance. (Exit polls indicate her coalition parties have lost it.) So in the end we experienced some, almost, first-hand election excitement.

But it got better! We continued along the river walk towards some buildings we had seen from afar and knew might be interesting. And boy, they were! We had to walk past the Rheinturm, which I wrote about in a post in 2007, to get there. We had at last made our way to the old harbour, now transformed into a modern place to work and live. In Wikipedia you can find some more information.

There were some weird and wonderful buildings. Guided tours were everywhere, there were people with maps and brochures and cameras kept clicking. I had held back so far, but now I had to give in to my instincts and I pulled the camera out, delaying our walk by quite a few minutes. Many features from the old working harbour were kept to give some sort of balance to all the ultra-modern buildings. I know I need to go back there earlier in the day because the light was dying as I took these pictures, and it was also overcast. But it was a truly exciting place. This was the first, but not the last time. I'll be back!

It Has Been a Looong Time

2010-05-05T20:36:00.001+02:00

First there was the Easter Holiday, which had to be cut short because I had to go to Sweden for family reasons. Then other real life events have got in the way of blogging, so I will simply put up some photos until I can come up with some proper blog post material, maybe about the UK general election tomorrow and my missing ballot papers!

Happy Chocolate Easter

2010-03-31T16:59:00.001+02:00

There are all sorts of museums all over the world, and in Cologne there is one for chocolate.

This time of year a big brother bunny, in what looks like golden foil, poses majestically above the entrance. Inside you find smaller, more common versions.

It is a chocolate heaven on earth for chocoholics. They even have a display of a chocolate waterfall behind bullet-proof glass(?), otherwise people might have been too tempted to sample it I guess.

We didn’t have time to go through the museum itself, but we were happy just to visit the shop and make some modest purchases. Is that cheating?

Fairy Tale Goose

2010-03-30T17:05:00.001+02:00

This week’s picture turned out to have something magical about it. Dusk was setting in and I also underexposed it somewhat. But the total effect was that parts of the bird were highlighted as was the water that its feet disturbed and set in motion.

One’s eyes are immediately drawn to the centre of the image, and with all the dark water and wall of trees in the background, I think it makes the scene look like a fairy tale illustration. Maybe I should write the book to go with it now?

BTW - Since I spend so much time and take such care to display some of my photos here, like this beautiful bird on the lake, I have started to embed info about copyright and ownership, and I also digitally mark the very best ones so they are traceable on the net. Would you like to use it as desktop background, please just ask me nicely in an email or comment and I might just send you a full-size copy.

Love Is But a Dream - Love Padlocks / Liebesschlösser Revisited

2010-03-29T13:51:00.001+02:00

In October last year I wrote about the padlocks on the Hohenzollern bridge in Cologne, a post that has been found by quite a few searches from all over the world. I have been back, and now on the southern side where most of them are.

You see people, who walk across the bridge, stopping regularly to look at padlocks and read the inscriptions. And there are tens of thousands to look at, in particular on the southern side of the bridge.

One couple, who secured their love padlock on New Year's Day this year, has already lost two of their four ladybirds for luck. Does that mean luck is running out already for Katharina and Bernhard? Who knows?

Some cynic or sad loser who has not found love yet, has painted a message on the footpath in German:

"Liebe ist nur ein Traum" - "Love Is But a Dream"

Others are displaying some strong feelings, including handcuffs. Or is that possibly a bit kinky?

How about this one then? Did the maker of that padlock design it in complete innocence or was it meant to look slightly rude? Is that a sex god? Well, it is a love padlock after all, I suppose!

China - Dictatorship's Dubious Internet Activities

2010-03-25T18:08:00.001+01:00

China, with 400 million internet users, has set up a new wall, The Great Firewall of China. The government is trying to oppress its citizens in new ways, but people still find ways around it with clever thinking and ingenuity. We have all heard and read about it, the whole Google-in-China saga.

I found this very interesting article in The Guardian (UK) today about Chinese censorship. It is well worth a read, and then you can thank your lucky star that you are not one of China's netizens, but can use the internet as you like.

Then I found another China-related article in the same online paper, this time about how Chinese hackers are hacking Gmail accounts. The article also tells you how you can check if your Gmail account has been hacked, if there has been unusual activity. It is somewhere down in the small print at the bottom of the page. Read about how to check and also set it to alert you if something suspicious has been detected.

Who is using your email account? Well, don't panic, but it is worth checking out. And it is always useful to learn something new, isn't it? Stay in control!

This One Is Not about Birds - Promise!

2010-03-21T21:47:00.001+01:00

But when you look at the picture you might be forgiven for thinking the opposite.

Out on a photo walk not long ago I spotted a few of these mysterious, wooden objects on tree trunks. A piece of cheese under a right-angle roof? A nesting box for some hitherto unknown extremely small bird? Has somebody just tried out a new drill and different-size drill bits and proudly put it up in the forest? Is it a practice-piece of wood for young woodpeckers? Is it a post box for holding military covert carrier pigeons' little scrolls? Nursery chambers for some insect?

Can somebody please help me? What on earth is this?

Nest Building - Hurry, hurry!

2010-03-19T17:54:00.001+01:00

How many of you have been desperate to get the nursery ready in time? You know, decorate, buy a cot, get clothes and nappies in neat piles at an arm's length, make sure the blinds work ..., there's no end to it.

Well, this female blackbird is doing all that at the moment; perhaps not clothes and nappies, and the blinds, mm... that's the leaves on the shrub I suppose. And all this while the male blackbird is sitting on high branches at a comfortable distance, making sure she does it all.

This female blackbird worked really hard today, so hard that she had to break for some food and drink, and also have a cooling bath in a pot (I have put out recently for the birds). At regular intervals she came flying in very fast with her bill full of grass, by the sheaf-full. Then I could see the leaves and branches of the shrub move as she added the latest load to the nest. And then off again!

Since I had my camera mounted on a tripod to get the best possible pictures of her entering and leaving the nest, I never got a picture of her feeding on the ground or drinking out of and taking a splash-bath in this pot that used to hold an outdoor candle.

It was absolutely fascinating to observe her labouring, and the lazy husband supervising it all. But that's nature I suppose. (No human comparison intended!)

Spring is definitely on its way. We actually had 18 degrees C in the afternoon. Will it last I wonder?

Have a beautiful weekend!

Hawfinch!

2010-03-15T15:47:00.001+01:00

For the third time ever I saw a hawfinch this morning. This time I recognised it instantly, and I remembered the name in both English and Swedish (stenknäck), which was more of a surprise to me actually.

I consulted my European bird book and decided it was a male in spring/summer colours. When you look at the bill you can see it has a dark lead-grey colour, which they do not have in the winter. Last winter (08/09) I saw one in December, and the bill was different. So, it is officially spring!

In particular the Swedish name is very descriptive since it roughly translates as "stone cracker". It can crack open cherry stones among others. You would not go "Pretty Polly, who's a nice bird then?" and stick your finger too close.

You would in fact not get very close since they are very shy and very rarely visit gardens. So I was very pleased to see one again, and luckily I had the right lens in the camera. Have a look, isn't he pretty?

Song Thrushes

2010-03-11T17:36:00.001+01:00

After not having seen almost any in six years, in recent days I have seen plenty. Where do all the song thrushes come from? Is it the prolonged freezing conditions that has driven them out into the open? Could it be that the lovely sunshine that we enjoyed for several days, has softened the ground and thereby made the earth worms more active?

That was a lot of questions, but the fact is that I have seen this very specific behaviour on display at the bottom of the garden where the lawn has not been overrun by moss.

When the song thrushes move around among the dead leaves of last year, they are very well camouflaged. Against the green grass, in particular if they are moving, they are much easier to spot.

At first I thought they all behaved like young birds, a little lost, not knowing what to do, but then I realised what they were up to.

After a few quick steps they stand still, then move quickly before another stop. It is a constant stop-start with mostly long moments of standing absolutely still.

When I enlarged some of the pictures that I took, I had proof of what was happening. They were feeding; listening for worms in the ground and then pulling out their wriggling reward.

Oh No I Hadn't, But I Have Now!

2010-03-11T17:33:00.001+01:00

When I wrote my previous post I thought I had nearly finished updating the design of Pictura Digitalis. Oh no I hadn't, but I have now!

I discovered new features and functionalities of my web design software, which I now have taken advantage of. Now I have really revamped the structure and navigation of the site. I hope it does not look too home-made. Any additions will be much more easily carried out. So I hope I have saved some future time by spending quite a few solid hours on it now.

But knowing me, I am sure I will find something else to investigate and fiddle with, improving and refining the site as such, and of course uploading more photographic efforts!

Here is an example...

I Take Too Many Photographs

2010-03-05T22:59:00.001+01:00

Or do I? I seem never to be able to catch up and put the best ones on my photo web site Pictura Digitalis. Not only are there many images, but I have also realised that I needed to re-design the navigation slightly to make it easier when numbers grow. I am in the process of doing that now.

Once I understood how to use the web-building software it did not seem to take a lot of time, but I think I now have found a way of making it easier for the future.

Creating new galleries is rather time-consuming though. That is why I have not had much time to blog, and even less time to read other blogs. But now I have almost caught up and the site is more or less up to date.

To make up for my absence I post some new images that also will be found on my photo website.

Please visit. I would love to hear what you think.

After The Storm

2010-03-01T16:18:00.001+01:00

All of western Europe was battered by a storm in the last 24-36 hours. The French Atlantic coast was particularly badly effected with floods as well as falling trees. The storm continued in a north-easterly direction and came past us here in Germany as well. There was structural damage and sadly also deaths, mostly from falling trees.

At the back of our garden there is a copse of different kinds of trees, and most of them are quite tall and thin. When the storm was at its strongest yesterday the trees behind us behaved like wheat straws rather than wooden trunks. I heard today that there were gusts of up to 160 km/hour. I can believe that, because I have never seen the trees around us move like that.

The branch where I hang my bird feeders was being bashed against the shrub next to it at a 90 degree angle! It broke, and is now hanging at a very sad angle pointing at the ground. Our neighbour's trampoline was picked up, tossed over the fence and landed upside down in another neighbour's garden. On the other side of the copse a big tree is now resting on top of somebody's garden shed.

When I went for a short walk I discovered that the tree which I have written about before (with a mysterious bike wheel rim around the trunk), had now been brought down by the strong winds. It still had the rim around its lower part.

I am eternally grateful that the very big, rotten and unsafe tree, that stood outside our front door before, was taken down completely in December. That was the best Christmas present; I dare not think what our roof otherwise would have looked like now.

Water Reflection

2010-02-28T11:33:00.001+01:00

Initially it looked nothing like this to me as I was walking along the river Mayenne in France last week. First of all, when you walk along a road or path you look at the opaque surface in front of you and your eyes adjust to that optically, if you see what I mean. If you then let your eyes move sideways to look at the water, you tend to focus on the surface just like you did on the ground. Sometimes in order to see the reflection you have to refocus, something the brain does somehow, as if there is another layer under the water surface.

Still my eyes could not pick up the vibrant colours like the camera did. Perhaps my eyes are getting old, or it may be that I am just human, but the camera eye is far superior to any human eye. I was very pleased that I interrupted the walk to take this photo once I saw it on the camera display. I was even more surprised when I saw it in full on my computer screen.

Nothing Much Happened

2010-02-24T20:04:00.001+01:00

Our week in France was dominated as ever by walks, reading, my photography, log fires and lucky weather. We also managed to see friends and go for a restaurant meal.

The weather steadily and slowly got warmer, so we ended up with a feeling of spring almost. I never had to use the snow shovel, which I had put on top of all the luggage, just in case. The car journey was comfortable and uneventful, helped by the iPod on full random! It's really great to have sudden switches between music styles, from Mozart to ZZ Top for instance.

On our walks I always carry my camera, and once I actually carried my tripod with the mounted camera, because I had seen nature photographers do that on TV, on your shoulder like any other long-shafted tool. I thought I would get sharper pictures if the camera with the long lens was not in my sometimes unsteady hands.

I anticipated finding myself short of time when the target was moving, since it takes a few seconds to spread the legs of the tripod and put it down, but it was not too bad. I even managed to capture two French jet fighters thundering over our heads. I found to my great surprise that it was not too heavy either.

I won't show you the jet fighter pictures, but I leave you with some others.

As we started to heat the house, and before it had dried out, we had quite a lot of condensation on the windows.

The rising temperature indoors made this beauty turn up, totally out of season.

Outdoors we came across a flock of lapwings taking off in their typically chaotic way.

And then there were signs of spring.

(Some of these images might appear later on my photo website Pictura Digitalis.)

Now I just have to work a little on the rest of the pictures and update Pictura Digitalis.

Do You Feel Like This?

2010-02-12T10:44:00.001+01:00

I could not resist posting this before I take a week-long break from blogging. This fluffy, feathery ball is a male bullfinch trying to save energy and keep warm. (Taken yesterday in our garden.)

Sunny Normandy

2010-02-12T09:51:00.001+01:00

Later today we're off to Normandy. Our neighbours sent us this picture from yesterday of our house, all dressed in white and bathing in sunshine. I bet it feels warmer outside than inside, so when we get there we have to turn on the electric radiators, stuff the woodburning stove and have a roaring fire to expel the damp air and dry out the stone walls, and THEN it will be cosy. Good thing we had these four stères (cubic metres) delivered just before we left last time.

As always we have plenty to read, and I always pack my netbook as well as my camera so I can transfer my photos there and then. I can of course also use my netbook to do some e-book reading and some writing. But we have no TV, phone line or internet.

I have considered getting mobile broadband, but I have been told it is rather expensive in France. I wish there was a European network so I could use the same dongle in more than one country without having to pay ludicrous sums of money for it. Does anybody have any ideas?

The Internet And Home Security

2010-02-08T17:46:00.001+01:00

A blogger friend of mine said that she and her husband were going on an extended weekend trip somewhere, mid-week! So more like between two extended weekends then? I thought it was a rather funny way of putting it. This coming weekend I myself am going to France to burn up a lot of firewood in the wood-burning stove and just chill out. That would constitute two extended weekends AND the days in between.

Have you noticed how I have not mentioned who this blogger friend is? I have done that out of consideration for her security. One should not let the whole world know when one's house is empty so web-surfing burglars can plan their activities and serve up a surprise for when you return. That seems to be common-sense advice in most people's minds.

However I have a somewhat different situation, living on a NATO base. It is populated by military and attached civilians of various kinds, among them teachers. Security is high, as you might expect, and burglary is almost unheard of. Although the roads actually are German public roads, the armed guards at the gates require you to identify yourself and state the purpose of your visit.

There is a German bus service which terminates here. The front of the bus displays "Hauptquartier", so it is no secret what this funny place is, but every bus passenger has to be questioned by the guard who walks down the aisle checking IDs.

Every time I return to base (ha ha), after having been into Germany proper, I have to produce my special ID or my passport. Sometimes the guard says "Boot 'n bonnet, sir!" Which means I have to personally open and show I am not hiding anything dangerous. Likewise all delivery vans have to be searched for obvious security reasons.

Both German police and British Military Police patrol the area, as well as a security force whose vehicles regularly come down even the smallest side street. So we should be able to feel extra safe and protected. Therefore I don't mind mentioning that I am going away, being under the protection of armed guards!

So even if you should forget to close your front door properly, the only real concern would be stray animals having taken up residence in your house while you've been out.

In Winter Shroud

2010-02-05T12:20:00.001+01:00

The snow has all but gone now, so I thought I'd better put this picture up to represent the unusually long spell of wintry weather we've had here.

Many of the children in particular have never seen so much snow before, and not just for a brief spell, but for a prolonged period. There was more earlier, but most of it disappeared before we had this top-up.

Children have made snowmen and igloos in many gardens. They have had snowball fights on their way to, and especially coming from school, our Italian neighbour mum exchanging snowballs with her oldest son, both laughing and shouting, ducking and diving.

People have actually started wearing proper winter clothes, yes, even Brits! But many of them are still reluctant to treat their cars with winter respect. Some still pour hot water down their windscreens; others nip out midway through their morning routines to start the car engine and leave it running to do the snow and ice clearing job for them. They'll do anything to avoid clearing the ice and snow with scraper and brush. So it's not unusual to see people on their way to work in "igloos" with a little peep hole to look out through. Dangerous!

Otherwise I think this picture is one of tranquility. That soft white snow mutes all sounds and brightens up the landscape and it also creates natural harmony and beauty, even in our somewhat monotonous neighbourhood.

My Grandchildren - The Duracell Bunnies

2010-02-01T19:56:00.002+01:00

Get up and go!

My son, Boy H (17 mths) and Girl A (4 3/4 yrs) have been and gone back to Sweden. In just one magic moment our house was turned into a playground, an obstacle course and a food outlet.

The newly bought bucket of LEGO (4 yrs+) was very popular, the two carpeted flights of stairs proved to be perfect training for Boy H and both ate with a good and healthy appetite. My machine-baked bread disappeared at a good rate.

I wonder where they get their energy from? Some preferred to use up some more of it while others were charging up with power naps. After a picnic snack it was back to base and more fun.

A household with children never stands still, as all parents know. It's one thing after another. You just manage to empty the dishwasher in time to put in the next lot. And before you know it, it is time to eat again. Exhausting!

But just to see two smiling faces coming down the stairs in the morning to see if "the old people" on the sofa bed are awake, makes it all worth while, kick-starting you and getting you into gear. A new day awaits, full of fun and exciting stuff.

Spag Ball

2010-01-22T16:32:00.001+01:00

One day when I had formatted the camera memory card to make space for new images, I took a photograph just to check that all was OK. Normally I just hold the camera in front of me, which means I get a picture of my desk with the PC screen on it.

This time however I aimed at the floor next to me by the wall, and this is what it looked like.

And I thought, what a mess! How the heck do I know which is which, where do they go and where do they come from? Do I need them all?

Somehow I know them all, even without having labelled them, and should I forget, I just follow them with my fingers. They are all needed for the PC, phone, PDA, iPod, cameras, headphones etc. Is there a better way? Is it possible to organise this ball of spaghetti differently? What does yours look like?

Hopefully one day we won't be needing a physical conductor of signals and electricity at all; everything will be done by Bluetooth, infrared or something even more sophisticated and advanced. I can't wait!

Then I thought, life is a bit like this too, isn't it? But that's another issue all together. Have a wonderful weekend!

Ooi! Give Us Your Handbag!

2010-01-19T19:48:00.001+01:00

Mugging in the making? Are these two guys trying to rob the young woman on the left? She seems to be desperately holding on to her handbag, isn't she? Did I happen to catch a crime on film? Like in the 60's film Blow-Up?

Just look at them; shaven head, sunglasses, swelling muscles and an aggressively pointing finger! No?

Well, if I un-crop the image slightly, you will see that the two menacing-looking men have a woman in tow, perhaps not out to rob vulnerable women after all. How easy it is to be prejudiced.

If I produce the full picture (pun intended) it is obvious nothing sinister is afoot. Another man is leaning casually against the railing of a bridge in Cologne next to the walking woman and the approaching group of three. It is in fact Weltkindertag (World Children's Day) in Cologne and I am standing by the river Rhein among thousands of people celebrating this day full of innocence and fun.

Shame on you if you thought so badly about two men out to celebrate a children's day in female company. Of course the guy who spends so much time in the gym must take the opportunity to show his hard-earned muscles on a sunny September day. The sunglasses are necessary to protect the eyes, and also making it possible to look at other woman without anybody noticing. Don't tell me you've never done it!

My Top Five Blog Posts – Statistically

2010-01-16T18:35:00.001+01:00

Do you keep an eye on your stats? I do, mostly to see if I’ve had a visitor for the first time from a country, so I can add the flag to my little collection in a special flag folder on my PC. At the moment I have had visitors from 93 countries. Will I ever get to 100? Who knows?

The stats also reveal searches, both for text and for images. I am still amazed at how many elementary or primary school teachers search the web for work sheets on Pippi Longstocking, whom I wrote about a long time ago.

People all over the world also seem to be very concerned about their pulmonary health.

An increasing number of Brits are interested in finding out about Fougères Castle in Brittany.

The love padlocks (Liebesschlösser) on Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne pull in visitors from all corners of the world.

Then of course my blog post about Ryanair and their questionable policy on fining their passengers has a fast-growing number of hits. I am definitely not the only disgruntled (ex-) customer.

The List

1 Pippi Longstocking (lazy teachers)

2 Smoker’s Lungs (worried smokers)

3 Ryanair (frustrated passengers)

4 Love Padlocks (romantic people)

5 Fougères Castle (history nerds or holiday makers)

How History Made Me Swedish

2010-01-14T23:48:00.001+01:00

This fat king on his fat horse, a quote from an old friend's (Mikael Wiehe) song when he turned 55, actually made sure I was born Swedish and not Danish.

It is very appropriate to mention him now in this cold weather because in January 1658 he (or rather his generals) took his army across the ice between some Danish islands and secured victory. They had come from Poland, where they had been fighting earlier, and attacked the Danes from the least expected direction. He was Karl X Gustav.

They had arrived when the water was open, but decided to try the ice when it just kept freezing. Nearly all the army made it across, only a couple of German squadrons fell through the ice and drowned, but what the heck.

That cunning plan surprised the Danes, who had to fight the enemy coming from behind. The peace treaty that ensued gave the southern parts of the Scandinavian peninsula to Sweden, and this statue stands in the main square in Malmö, my home town, to commemorate this historical event.

By the way, I am sure I would have been happy to be Danish as well!

Intriguing Bottles

2010-01-13T11:18:00.001+01:00

On New Year's Day in Sweden we went for e refreshing walk through a small village. The footpath took us not only past people's gardens, but through them. All was quiet and peaceful and I was hoping for some photo opportunities; beautiful houses and views, that sort of thing.

Then I caught sight of this snow-covered garden table with a couple of strange-looking bottles. They had been left out in the cold and had probably been standing there for some time.

What are they? I never examined them closely, did not lift them up or touch them at all. Is there a hole in the bottom where you put a candle of some sort? Can you remove the beautifully shaped cover? It looks like some cotton thread round the neck of the bottle. Or is it metal? If there is a candle involved, how do you light it?

Maybe it is something completely different? I don't know. What do you think?

Clueless Brits

2010-01-11T16:00:00.001+01:00

I am still fascinated by the lack of knowledge and understanding of all things wintry and cold among some Brits.

First I have to defend and excuse people in the UK for not being winter-wise, since most winters there are relatively mild and free of snow. However they do happen, and most adults ought to have experienced sub-zero temperatures and snow in their lives.

It has to be said that the authorities are much better prepared these days. There are snow ploughs, gritting lorries etc., but perhaps not enough of them. Neither is there any "winter tyre culture", most people use the same low-profile, shallow-groove tyres all year. Also the rubber on those tyres are less effective below 7degrees C even on a dry surface.

On the UK news you can see desperate drivers trying to get out of some snow, just letting the wheels spin wildly, slowly packing the snow harder and harder. No technique to ease their way out of it.

You also see news reporters walking down a snow-covered pavement, not even thick enough to make the shoes disappear, talking about "treacherous conditions". Rather pathetic.

And people don't even put gloves and hats on. No wonder they feel cold.

Then of course we have the old housing stock, which does not seem to be fit for purpose in the winter; single window panes, those draughty sash windows, lack of insulation and central heating. The list could be made much longer.

And to economise, some people, especially old and fragile people, are in the habit of turning off the heating in some rooms, not realising that that is not very cost-efficient.

Watching the BBC Breakfast show this morning, another striking example of lack of understanding of basic principles made my jaw drop.

Sian Williams (the female presenter), who normally gives a very sharp and intelligent impression, questioned the idea of placing radiators below the window, since "all the heat just disappears straight out through the window" as she put it. I nearly sent a text message to explain, but several others got there before me.

A few minutes later she quoted one of them, explaining how the rising heat creates a protective wall preventing the cold coming in from the outside. "I suppose we have to trust him, he's got a PhD" she added.

So there is still hope.

Tractor Tobogganning

2010-01-09T19:17:00.002+01:00

The snow keeps coming down, and will continue tomorrow according to the weather forecast. The other day when we were returning from a refreshing walk we saw some lights moving slowly in the distance. I guessed it was a tractor, but the light was too faint (or my eyes too bad) to establish what it was. I could not resist the temptation to hone my low-light photo skills though and got the camera out.

It was not until I got home and transferred the photos to my PC that I realised what the spectacle had been. It turned out to be an unusual tractor-cade; a farmer on a tractor pulling four toboggans or sledges. Who said Germans don't have a sense of humour and fun? Great fun!