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Manarola is the second of the five hamlets found in Cinque Terre, a collection of tiny fishing villages perched along the Ligurian Coast. The tiny harbor at Manarola features a boat ramp, picturesque buildings tripping down the ravine and the town's swimming hole. Although there is no real beach here, it has some of the best deep-water swimming around.

 

Perched on a steep cape of dark rock, with its small port enclosed by two rocky boulders, a village of ancient origins found by the inhabitants of the (probably Roman) Volastra settlement. Manarola, like the other Cinque Terre villages, is known for its tower-houses; the layout of the village develops around the subsurface course of the Groppo stream which marks out its main axis. From the sunken stream a series of narrow stone-paved streets lead off towards houses and vegetable gardens on both sides of the cape. Parallel to the main axis runs the Via di Mezzo (Middle Street) that used to be a particularly important byway before the stream was covered over. Above the houses there lies an interesting square in which all the religious buildings are located. Another peculiarity of Manarola is a pyramid in white cement whose peak can be seen rising between the taller houses and is used as a navigational reference point for all those at sea.

 

Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; Lens: EF17-40mm f/4L USM; Focal length: 29.00 mm; Aperture: 16; Exposure time: 30.0 s; ISO: 100

 

All rights reserved - Copyright © Lucie Debelkova www.luciedebelkova.com

 

All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.

A closer look at the C. U. Williams & Son Building located on the south side of the 200 block of E. Washington St. in downtown Bloomington. Completed in 1911, the four-story building was constructed as an automobile showroom, garage and lodge hall. Of particular note are the large second-story showroom windows designed to display twice as many cars from the street.

 

According to the McLean County Museum of History, C. U. Williams and his son Walter sold the latest models from early automakers, including E-M-F, Chalmers, Moon, Stearns, Studebaker, Willys-Overland and Woods (the latter known for its electric cars). "The manufacturers that we are representing are all old and well-established houses - there cars are long past the experimental stage," was a C. U. Williams & Son promise.

 

The McLean County Museum of History article on C. U. Williams goes on to say that Williams & Son offered not only sales and maintenance, but auto painting, "livery" service (car rentals by the hour or day), storage (when home garages were few) and even a place to charge battery-powered cars.

 

In later years an office equipment company by the name of Paxtons occupied the building. The building is now the home of the legal offices of Wylder Corwin Kelly LLP, trial lawyers specializing in medical malpractice.

 

The C. U. Williams & Son Building, along with the Castle Theatre next to it and also owned by Williams, were designed by architect A. T. Simmons. Simmons designed the Lafayette Apartments posted earlier in this series, but is probably best known for his more than 71 Carnegie libraries in Illinois and a dozen other states, along with numerous courthouses, schools, churches and other public buildings. Simmons also designed most of the houses in the Cedar Crest Historic District of Normal, Illinois, the other half of the twin municipalities of Bloomington and Normal.

 

Both the C. U. Williams & Son Building and the Castle Theatre next door are contributing architectural properties in the Bloomington Central Business District listed in 1985 on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The district includes roughly twelve square blocks of the city and encompasses 140 buildings, 118 of which are contributing buildings to the district's historic character.

 

Bloomington is the seat of McLean County. It is adjacent to Normal, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area. Bloomington is home to State Farm Insurance, Country Financial and Beer Nuts. Illinois Wesleyan University is located here, while the neighboring city of Normal is home to Illinois State University and Heartland Community College. Bloomington is 135 miles (217 km) southwest of Chicago, and 162 miles (261 km) northeast of St. Louis. The estimated population of Bloomington in 2019 was 77,330, with a metro population of 191,067.

 

Here is a young Barn Owl emerging from a tree nest a few miles from my home in the West Yorkshire Pennines. The altitude was 200m (c650 feet) above sea level which is relevant as Barn Owls are primarily a lowland owl as they are not good at surviving where there is prolonged snow-cover, like the uplands. So Barn Owls usually only appear on the high ground after a run of mild winters Historically Barn Owls could survive snow by feeding on rats and mice inside barns. But rodenticides and grain silos mean the food isn't as plentiful so their chance of survival in a snowy winter is less. I looked at the populations of the British owls on the BTO website www.bto.org/understanding-birds/birdfacts/find-a-species and it surprised me. Tawny is the commonest with 50,000 pairs with Barn Owl second at 9000 pairs. Perhaps the next commonest will surprise many as it is Long-eared Owl with 3900 with Little Owl close on its heels with 3600 pairs. Little Owl also surprised me as I expected it to be commoner than Barn Owl as it certainly is near me. Finally comes Short-eared Owl with a quoted population of 1410 pairs. But Short-eared is almost totally dependent on Short-tailed Voles as prey, which have population cycles. So in boom vole years Short-eared Owls can be common while after bust years they are rare.

 

John Ray wrote the first proper bird book in the English language in 1678 (though he published the same work in Latin two years earlier). There were earlier books that referenced birds, often with a more general natural history theme, but Ray's was the first devoted to birds. In this first bird book Ray gave three names to this species; "The common Barn-Owl, or White-Owl, or Church-Owl". So one name referred to its unique owl colour, and two referred to its habitat preferences. Interestingly Ray gave the name "Ivy-Owl" as an alternative to our Tawny Owl, and I usually find them roosting in Ivy. The next major work on birds was Thomas Pennant in 1768, though it was a more general work on Zoology. Pennant coined the term warbler used for so many of our birds, and he often led the way for the selection of the accepted British name. But Pennant backed the wrong horse in this instance and chose White Owl. Later authors were reluctant to lose Barn Owl and often kept both names, such as William Yarrell in 1843. He listed both names but in his text showed a clear preference for Barn Owl, and the BOU officially adopted Barn Owl in 1883. So that is why a bird that nests freely in holes in trees, nest boxes on posts, and a variety of old buildings, has become linked to barns. Before I leave the names, the name Screech Owl was widely used and pre-dates Ray as it was first used in 1593. And Barn Owl does indeed screech. Have a listen on xeno-canto: www.xeno-canto.org/604167 , but the name Screech Owl has been adopted for different species of owl in America.

Please view large using the new Flickr interface or Better View

 

Technical: Nikon D3x, CPL, 0.45x GND, 25s at f16, 36mm

 

This is a very special place tucked deep in the interior of Iceland and taken at "sunset", or midnight. I spent the night here and although the area is quite barren it is photographically speaking one of tremendous reward.

 

The subterranean activity of this thermal haven allows for wonderful long exposures as thermal mist seamlessly blends with the clouds leaving an impression of timelessness. At least that is my perception.

 

Conditions were extremely bizarre at the specific point I went for this shot and which make it different from a similar post At the beginning. Dancing pink hues mixed with the clouds, the steam and some reflected light. Wind speeded the movement and rising fumes heavily obscured the background. Some openings let the deep blue sky paint other areas. Such that as much as the result is intriguing it was impossible to foresee the final image as opposed to my other shot. Rewards come in different ways.

 

This picture is also an introduction to a future post, the subject of which is easy to guess. What I like about this image is the absence of any reference, be it time or place. It takes me to a place I have never known, back to Earth's fundamentals, it's Elemental nature. I have possibly dreamt of this image and associating what can not have been, found a sanctuary here after being pursued by some Tyrannosaurus Rex. I just don't know if this was a good or a bad dream.

 

Please take the time to leave a comment, an impression, a thought, always appreciated.

 

Check out the set as it grows:

 

- Iceland Set

 

- "I remember the mist of our ancient past"

 

What do you think?

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Manarola is the second of the five hamlets found in Cinque Terre, a collection of tiny fishing villages perched along the Ligurian Coast. The tiny harbor at Manarola features a boat ramp, picturesque buildings tripping down the ravine and the town's swimming hole. Although there is no real beach here, it has some of the best deep-water swimming around.

 

Perched on a steep cape of dark rock, with its small port enclosed by two rocky boulders, a village of ancient origins found by the inhabitants of the (probably Roman) Volastra settlement. Manarola, like the other Cinque Terre villages, is known for its tower-houses; the layout of the village develops around the subsurface course of the Groppo stream which marks out its main axis. From the sunken stream a series of narrow stone-paved streets lead off towards houses and vegetable gardens on both sides of the cape. Parallel to the main axis runs the Via di Mezzo (Middle Street) that used to be a particularly important byway before the stream was covered over. Above the houses there lies an interesting square in which all the religious buildings are located. Another peculiarity of Manarola is a pyramid in white cement whose peak can be seen rising between the taller houses and is used as a navigational reference point for all those at sea.

 

Camera Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; Lens: EF17-40mm f/4L USM; Focal length: 32.00 mm; Aperture: 9.0; Exposure time: 30.0 s; ISO: 200

 

All rights reserved - Copyright © Lucie Debelkova www.luciedebelkova.com

 

All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.

long stories shortened... (discarded and abandoned and intertwined short stories) well..actually they are chunks and fragmets and notes of stories that never made it

 

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a young PhD math candidate writing his dissertation on an obscure arab mathematician from the middle ages who specialized in cycles and periods in infinite series and develops a process to determine prime number density in a large number space. (which is all and good) except this makes it an excellent tool to decrypting military grade encryption, which is based on the computational difficulty of factoring large numbers into their prime components

 

the arab mathematician was ultimately censured by the religious mullahs for developing tools to rationalize the infinite, which is of course the nature of Allah and for man to attempt to place Allah into a human scale is blasphemy

 

so the arab mathematician disappears and the young phd candidate finds that his dissertation has been suspended pending review but cant get any information on who is reviewing it

 

finally another young mathematician approaches him and starts a long discussion on math and the nature of numbers and the mathematicians love of the underlying structure of reality that math represents. the phd candidate is leary of this mathematician cause he wont answer what he does or where he went to school or how he knows so many cutting edge fields in math

 

eventually, the young mathematician offers the phd candidate a position with the NSA, National Security Agency, (where all the big crypto and high math goes on) but explains that if he accepts that he will essentially disappear from his current world. his work will be classified, he will not be able to publish in academic journals or speak in public, or talk about his work to his friends on the outside, but the compensation is that he

would be able to work unfettered with the greatest math minds in the country, totally funded, free to explore any field or fancy he thought. after a few moments of thought, the phd accepts.

 

then the story will go back to the arab mathematician who is also approached my a young beared mullah, who offers him a position within his group of thinkers who do ponder and explore the nature of nature reality and Allah through mathematics, but that by joining them he would need to disappear from the world, after a few minutes of thought, he too accepts...

 

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Daniel sipped his 6th coffee (colloidal suspension for caffeine transport) while his batch jobs on ramanet, the Indian supergrid, finished their checksum verification. His chin, a bit stubbly, itched. His eyes, a bit red, were sore. The goa trance shoutcast feed had mushed into a fast cadence drone. The flat screen monitor warped and bulged with the oscillating fan blowing on Daniel's face

 

'O' glamorous larval life of a PhD student...' he jotted and doodle-circled on his notepad.

 

Daniel cracked his neck and jutted his jaw, stretching out the accumulation of kinks, as RamaNet finished the final integrity check on his dataset. this two hour round of processing on the Indian supergrid would cost about $130 out of his precious grant fund, but you couldnt beat the bargain. 120 minutes times 150,000 PCs in the RamaNet processing collective = 1,080,000,000 seconds or 18,000,000 minutes or 300,000 hours or 12500 days or 34.25 years of processing time for the price of a video game. Calculation was commoditized now. You uploaded your pre-fromatted dataset to RamaNet. the data was packeted and sent to out to 150,000 Indians who lent a few percents of never-to-be missed CPU cycles off their systems for background processing. when their alotted package was completed it was sent back to RamaNet for re-assembly into something coherent for the buyer. in return the Indians got a rebate on their net access charges or access to premier bollywood galleries or credit towards their own processing charges. a good deal all the way around. Daniel's dataset, an anthology of complex proofs from a long-dead arab mathematician, was queued with amateur weather forecast modeling, home-brewed digital CGI for indie movies, chaos theory-based currency trading algorithms, etc. the really high end, confidential jobs, like protein folding analysis or big pharm drug trials were more likely handled by the huge western collectives of several million collaborative systems, usually high-performance machines in dedicated corporate server farms. the cost there was out of Daniel's range, but you got a faster return and better promises of encryption for your buck.

 

Daniel scratched his scalp and flexed his fingers. 'two months from today i will be a doctor of mathematics...and no job. damnit. i need to find something fast.' Daniel calculated in his mind how quickly the student loans repayments would kick in and completely wipe him out. RamaNet would have done it in nanoseconds, ha! he laughed to himself. Daniel had avoided the rounds of job interviews and recommendations that passed his way. he was too absorbed in his research to look ahead, and perhaps a bit intimidated by the idea of the job hunt flea market. flexing his CV, getting a monkey suit, trying to explain his research to recruiters, who were often the same finger-counting business majors in college that made his skin crawl. Daniel always felt a bit embarrassed when he announced he was math PhD candidate. folks would immediately glaze over,

tsk tsk out a 'that's interesting', and swiftly change the subject. something will come up, he mantra'd to himself over and over, something will come up. stick with ali, there is something real in there, just a bit deeper. the real problem was his thesis advisor. dr. fuentes was not returning his calls, his secretary was not taking appointments from Daniel. he had submitted his finished draft of his thesis two weeks ago, but hadnt heard back since, except for a cryptic email saying that the review committee was having some issues with his paper and that Daniel would be hearing from him shortly. Daniel was rerunning his calculations on RamaNet to assuage the gnawing doubt that he completely botched some component of his argument and that the review committee was debating some manner of telling him to redo the entire effort. no PhD and no job. that would ice the cake. Daniel started calculating his body mass and general aerodynamic resistance relative to the height of the school cathedral to figure out if he had time to reach a terminal velocity before impact...only a failed math PhD would attempt to determine at what speed his body would smack concrete, he morbidly thought to himself.

 

ali ja'far muhammed ibn abdullah al-farisi slipped meditatively on his cup of water, thinking about his proof. he dipped a finger in the cup and held up a droplet of water under his fingertip, watching the sunlight prisimatically splay out on the mouth of the cup. 'praise be Allah and his wonderous bounty' he mumured to himself.

 

the elders had been in conference all day over his proof. though the heavy doors to their chamber were closed, he would occasionally hear muffled but distinctly angry shouts. ali sat on a divan in the anteroom, served numerous cups of tea by an obviously nervous secretary. ali knew there was deep resistance to his research, but for the life of him he couldnt figure out why. he was a simple mathematician. he came up with some unique observations. he wanted to share them with his peers...

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Overview: biotech researcher discovers a new life-extension technology and is murdered. He is cryogenically frozen for 150 years. When he is

revived he must stop a dark corporate conspiracy – and find his murderer.

  

Summer 2015 - Hot genius free-lance biotech researcher unravels the key component of a radical life-extension gene therapy that will ensure 300 years of robust life to its recipients. The researcher is murdered shortly after he hides the critical component. His distraught friend has him cryogenically frozen. 150 years later, the researcher is revived by the same major bio-med corporation for which he had originally been working.

Quickly he realizes that their motives are less than altruistic: his modification of the gene therapy is needed to resolve an unforeseen debilitation now creeping up in the recipients of the life-extension process. The recipients, now nearing 125 years off added life, are decompensating into psychotics. The researcher at first tries to remember and reconstruct what he did with the hidden critical component, but stops in disgust when he learns that in the past 150 years the life-extension therapy has been reserved solely for the ultra-affluent and has created an extreme and cruel global gerontocratic elite. He voices his disgust to his corporate minders, who cease being beneficent and show their true colors as trying to gain control of this critical technology in order to control the elites.

 

In the process of dealing with the corporation, he learns about his murder and begins investigating.As he comes closer to the identity of his murderer, he uncovers a wider conspiracy and is the target of more murder attempts.

 

He was killed by a friend in 2015. The friend was the CEO of a small bio-gen firm that the researcher was doing the LET work for. The CEO, a biz-head with a genetics academic background, took the researcher’s work and exploited it as his own, in the process growing his small firm into a bio-med powerhouse and him into one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

 

The CEO also was the first recipient of the LET and is now 190 years old, but doesn’t look a day over 45. Smart, urbane, ruthless, the CEO used his wealth and position to start the cabal of Ultras. It is a faction of the top 50 smartest and wealthiest people in the world who have ‘ascended from the world’ (faked their demise) and control the global economy with their vast coordinated wealth. Perhaps they will call themselves ‘The Ascended’. We need to decide how the cabal lives. Are they sequestered on a luxurious island compound, or do they live in the open, surgically re-sculpted after each faked death, or do they live in the open.

 

Also we need to figure out what the world will look and feel like in 150 years.

 

As the ultras decompensate into psychosis, the CEO orders the researcher to be revived in order to find a cure. The CEO had the researcher’s lab notes decrypted and figured that the he was close if not successful in finding the missing component to stabilize the LET.

 

Tiberius Syndrome: the decline into cruel psychosis experienced by the ultras, named after the roman emperor Tiberius’ degenerate behavior after he sequestered himself on Capri.

 

The ironic twist might be that there is no cure, no stabilization. The psychosis is not the result of the LET alone, but also due in part to the unfettered ego/wills of the ultras. Absolute power corrupts…

  

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a brazilian hacking syndicate was subcontracted by a st petersberg crew to run interference on a hit on SWIFT, the global currency clearinghouse notification network. The UniFavela clan was going to run a multi-flank raid. They specialized in fast propagating virii and had created a custom mail-in virus that exploited a few microsoft vulnerabilities that they had discovered and kept mum. Their target was a Latin American PR spokesman listed on the corporate web site for press queries. The PR flak would be just the sleepy guard on the wall for their virus to slip past. 30 minutes after opening an inocuous spoofed email from a French e-trade publication requesting clarification on the SWIFT-Indentrus partnership. the virus would port scan and map its entire site LAN, salmoning its way up the router paths till it found the deep waters of the main corporate campus network in Brussels. Shortly, the internal LAN at Brussels would be suffering switch and router buffer overflows and traffic would gasp, ack, and sputter. UniFavela would then towel whip out a vanilla DDOS on the main company web site, any INTERNIC-registered addresses, and any other system in the IP block reserved for SWIFT that had previously port scanned as interesting, or ,even, as nothing. Mongols charging the village gates and tossing flaming torches on thatched roofs. IT Operations would be running to and fro, trying to figure out the internal bandwidth crunch and if there was a bleedout causing the external net problems.

 

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The Post-Human Story of Minos:

 

the CEO of a powerful commercial combine is bore an illegitimate son by his indiscreet wife in retaliation for his own dalliances. the son has a hideous deformity but is fantastically brilliant - brilliant enough for the father overcome his own repulsion of the child - as a bastard and a freak. the father sequesters the child in an elaborate virtual domain. the child, a hacker savant, is used to breach competitor nets. but as his power in the digital realm expands, the child transforms into the tyrant-monster. using the nets, he lashes out at people who have caused him pain, then evolves into enjoying the taste of terror and fear. He becomes the Minotaur.

 

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'there was a mad scramble amongst all the big spook governments, dark side corporations, and the privacy maccabees once it was determined that quantum computation had left the tidal pool of academia, grown legs and air-breathing lungs, and was headed for the nat sec intel highlands. all previous encryption models were rendered obsolete, and worse, exposed. QC became an undefiable xray spotlight, laying bare any encrypted secret with a ease of opening a mathematical candy wrapper. And for a while it swung the advantage back to the state in the digital Boer War against the freecon partisans.'

 

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The Oort, to the Intras, looked as one people. Extra-stellar hillbillies, ekeing out a subsistance existence on extracted organics from the frozen crud comets and other planetesimals of the Oort Cloud that slung around the solar system in a 1K AU circuit. To the Oort there was no Oort. Each station, each kampong was distinct and seperate. Seperate dialects, traditions, norms, goals. Some were scientific collectives, some were tired mining operations, some were intense sectarian cults - they shared little between themselves beyond necessary trade links for scarce commodities.

 

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A young prince is disgraced in an internal court scandal and sent into a quasi-exile on a worthless mission. On his travels he builds the wisdom and learns the skills necessary to be a just and effective leader.

 

His exile was a gambit by his patriarch to remove Genji from the arena of pointless court intrigues and develop him as a real leader. The patriarch dispatched a team of loyal praetorians to discreetly follow and protect Genji on his odyssey.

 

Genji was sent as an emissary to the Oort system. He must pass through the Martian-Saturnine corridor, populated with industrial trading guilds and their private militias.

 

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Genealogy becomes paramount in a closed culture; hierarchy by heredity. Reference the roman patrician class’ death-grip obsession with lineage, or the medieval Japanese imperial court’s strict intra-elite caste system.

 

But in an era of extreme genetic engineering, how can bloodlines retain their importance? Perhaps this is the wrong question. Perhaps in an era of extreme genetic engineering, authentic bloodlines can only retain their importance. The longevity of an unchanged gene line demonstrates success in evolutionary competition. Over time however, the fitness of a rigidly enforced and ‘sequestered’ gene line will degrade. Consider the hemophilia of the European royal strata.

 

I would not want the imperial court of the inner system to be pure blue bloods, eschewing genetic manipulation. Rather I would have them take the opposite tack – and embrace genetic engineering in the pursuit of perfecting particular socially valued or distinctive attributes; a roman nose, elongated refined fingers, even the possession of certain ‘noble’ afflictions (for ex., the aforementioned hemophilia as a sign of noble lineage).

The elites should pursue genealogy with the same passion and gusto as horse breeders; studs and mares and percentages of bloodlines, enforced and suppressed gene expressions, surrogates, and gene modes des saisons.

 

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a bum finds a the wallet and keys of a man who jumped from a bridge

he goes to his townhouse to find something to eat or steal

is impressed and overwhelmed with the man's townhouse

showers, eats, gets cleaned up, finds some clothes

is ready to leave when he helps a woman wrestling with groceries at her door

she thanks him, but looks stunned.

‘are you the man in #560? umm..i have lived here for 3 years and have never actually seen you. you seem to leave so early in the morning and get

home so late and keep to yourself.’

they spend 30 minutes talking, having a generally warm friendly encounter.

‘well, I am so glad to have finally met you. Hope to see you soon.’ As she closes her door, the bum turns to leave but pauses and thinks for a moment, then goes back into the man's townhouse

he pours through the man's papers and keepsakes and learns that the man has no family that he speaks with, no friends, lives off a well-endowed trust fund

 

and

 

the bum moves in and takes over the mans identity

he brings warmth and sincerity to the man's identity

 

what makes a hermit tick? what lengths do they go to to remove themselves from society? does it become a game to avoid contact, trying to become a shadow, a phantom? does society dissolve away as a mental force in their thoughts, atrophy away or does it become an amputated impression?

 

what divsion line stands between a hermit and convict in solitary? the hermit, by and large, chooses their isolation, the convict has it enforced upon them. at what point does the human need for society or socialization collapse? is there anything left that we can inspect and evaluate? a hermit, however, is able to maintain walls against the Great Other, which would imply that they are seeking refuge from the world. a schizo or an autistic will be physically surrounded by others but unable or incapable of making contact.

 

when does the will to contact die? what is left over? do humans require contact to retain our humanity? can you love and sacrifice in a vacuum?

what defines humanity? oooh, a big question...

  

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genetic engineering will continue to deconstruct the human species

 

there will be catastrophic disasters: gene sequence specific viruses engineered to attack 'types' of people. Der Genkampf

petroleum will be replaced- hydrogen-powered locomotion and green power (in the wealthy states). the poor states will continue to be held hostage to oil politics

 

(cultures and civilizations do not move forward uneringly. they spasticly jerk forward and fro, in clumps andgrains, never ever as a lemming death drive.)

 

developed economies will be netized. a new state structure will be needed to manage and dsitribute resources. the corporate structure, the commercial backbone of the capitalist democracy, will replace the republic. it is flexible to markets and political forces, insistent on accountability, it provides a sufficient compromise between individual representation and republican government. they will begin their political evolution as projects in community development. assurances of an educated workforce by charter education. assurances of uninterrupted utilities by running their own power/water etc. net-based marketplaces create corporate agoras. employees are in fact de facto citizens of the corporation. citizenship, or regular employment, will be a reward for merit, stock shares will count towards suffrage.

 

great corporate collectives will arise. housing, education, security...all the needs of the middle class will be absorbed in the corporate state. the tradtional state will cede roles and responsibilities to the corporate state as their resources dwindle. a few isolated violent reactions (military or legal)by the republics against the corporate states, but they will fail over time. against, or more so, in conjunction with the homogenized corporatsists wil be the diasporae, non-corporates will glom to other modes of networked alignment, ethnic allegiance will become stronger over time - as the chinese, indian, and jewish disporaestrengthen as a formula for a successful competition against/with the corporates.

 

the american state, succored by its overwhelming techo-military supremancy, loses its mission, its vision - substitutes will to dominate for will to excel - and falls into the deep narcotic, insulated slumber of the unassailable. GE, nano, and the banknote net weaken the mythic cohesion of the american spirit. we are no longer united by common experience (mass-mediated or otherwise) the promise of science to make us stronger, smarter, near immortal is held like a manifest destiny or a divine IOU for services rendered to humanity.

 

Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia about how the Tatoosh Range (pictured here) was named:

 

“Tatoosh means "breast" in the Chinook Jargon,[2] in reference to the two large rock outcrops on the south face of Butter Peak.“

 

So this is basically the Boob Mountain Range. While these mountains aren’t huge, and as a matter of fact are quite small, they are still wonderful. I think most folks don’t discriminate about how big or small they are… mountains of any size are pretty awesome to see. However, if you’re inclined to not be too interested in Tatooshes, I can always post a desert pic of a large sandstone monolith named Long Dong Silver (I’m 100% serious). I try to cater to everyone’s preferences.

 

I’m as mature as I was when I was 13 years old.

 

As always, thanks for scrolling far enough to see my dumb little picture. If you are interested in learning how I create my dumb little pictures, reading my dumb stories or seeing more dumb photography, you can head to www.ryandyar.com or check out the link in my profile. Email subscribers get free video tutorials monthly. ❤️

Here is my photograph of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) aka “The Green Comet” which I captured on January 30, 2023—a soul-crushinginly cold night with temperatures around -25°C—in the Skull Valley desert, Utah, United States. With so many cloudy nights this winter, I thought I would miss this one. But circumstance gave me one good opportunity as long as I was willing to brave the cold. Did you know that touching metal after hours outside at these temperatures enables it to somehow “burn”?

 

This image was created using 175 separate 30-second exposures (longer and the comet actually streaks relative to the stars due to its movement), combining of the comet image separately from the stars, and then re-combining the two. As a bonus, you can multiple galaxies in the image.

 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), called the “green comet” in various news coverage, is visible in the night sky right now, although less impressive than 2020’s Comet Neowise.

 

ZTF will be hard to see under moonlight with heavy light pollution, but easier to see with no moon and binoculars. With little light pollution it is much easier to see. (Apparently it was quite striking to see when my mom checked it out under her crazy-dark Wyoming skies!) This comet’s “near pass”—the closest point in its orbit to the earth—was on February 2nd. While still visible, it is now traveling farther away from earth, growing fainter day-by-day. If it survives its journey, it will return again in around 50,000 years. Something for the kiddos to look forward to!

 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), at the time these photos were captured, featured two prominent ‘tails’:

 

The blue-tinted tail (extending frame right) is the ion tail, which is created by ultraviolet radiation ejecting electrons off particles in the coma (a cloud of gases surrounding the comet’s nucleus). The appearance of the ion tail can change rapidly (e.g. even between short exposures) due to interplay with and fluctuation of the solar wind (a continuous flow of charged particles ejected from the sun).

 

The warmer, fainter, larger “tail” is the dust tail, formed by solar radiation vaporizing volatile compounds in the comet, which stream out and carry dust with them. This reflects sunlight directly.

 

How do you end up with the name “Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)”? Breaking it down, “C” represents a non-periodic comet: it takes more than 200 years to orbit the sun. It was discovered in 2022. “E3” represents the time period of discovery, with “E” represents the fifth half-month of the year, and “3” representing the third comet discovered in that half-month. “ZTF” stands for who discovered it! In this case, the Zwicky Transient Facility, which is a wide-field sky astronomical survey running through the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California. What about 2020’s “NEOWISE”? In that case, it was discovered by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

 

Why are articles calling this “The Green Comet”? Mainly, I expect, because very cool or very terrifying things love to have a name of some sort in media coverage, and “The Green Comet” got to stick. “ZTF” is not so catchy, to be fair. Comets typically present with a clear blue-green glow around the nucleus. It is rather prominent on this comet, relative to other signal, but not a unique characteristic of this comet. So why this color? Sources frequently cite that this color comes from Cyanogen (CN) in the comet, but this is not correct. As best I can determine, the most likely explained by a combination of “Swan Bands” of Carbon (C2) emissions—which is to say, some blending of prominent light emissions is responsible for the color we observe. This was probably discussed in early interviews and got to stick.

 

Edited in PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop. For full details on post-processing, reference the link at AstroBin or the processing notes in this text document:

tinyurl.com/JP2022ZTF

The title is in reference to the focus of lens and bird's eye here!

Taken this morning at Hunter Wetlands Centre (Shortland, NSW; Australia) during a shoot with great friend and fellow flickr tog Joe Micallef.

I decided to tote my big lens around today - I need the exercise!! :-))

This Nankeen Night Heron has taken up temporary residence here on its own; but the water levels are critically low - so don't know for how much longer.....

The BG is actually the dam which is fully covered by a thick brown weed - matches well with the birds colorings!!

Hope you like this - worth viewing LARGE on Black!!

Thanks again for any comments, views or favorites!

Have a wonderful day and week folks!

www.ywt.org.uk/reserves/kilnsea-wetlands-nature-reserve

  

This new nature reserve has been created to compensate for habitat being lost nearby on the eroding Holderness coastline.

 

Update: Footpath works from the Kilnsea Wetlands car park to the hide are due to start week commencing the 11th July. These works are being conducted by Environment Agency to improve the surface of the path. The intention of the works is to test a small test area to see how the additional material binds, if satisfactory the works will continue along the rest of the path. The footpath will be closed for approximately 5 days from Monday 11th July.

   

Kilnsea Wetlands is intended to provide refuge for passage and wintering roosting waders that leave the adjacent Humber mudflats at high tide to roost. Golden and grey plovers, knot, dunlin, sanderling and bar-tailed godwit should all benefit from this safe refuge. A variety of habitats will provide the conditions needed to support these birds, but this will take a number of years to reach its full potential.

 

Freshwater and saline pools with islands and spits and wet grassland with seasonal scrapes will provide this site with roosting and feeding locations, but also hopefully he right conditions in the spring for breeding oystercatcher, ringed plover and lapwing.

  

Top Tip:

  

A visit in autumn or winter will give you a chance to see large numbers of roosting waders which this site has been specifically designed for. Check the tides to coincide your visit with high tide and you’re likely to see greater numbers.

  

Engineering is only the start of this process – the nature reserve is to be managed in a sustainable manner using local livestock. This location is one of the driest parts of the UK, and without the ability to bring water on to the site from surrounding areas, functionality of the habitat will rely very much on rainfall and groundwater levels.

 

Farmland birds including corn bunting and tree sparrow may well use the nature reserve as it develops. In time the grassland should become established and we hope this will provide some botanical value and interest, in turn supporting a host of insects including dragonflies.

 

Salt-tolerant plant species such as spiral tassel weed may well find a home here too.

 

A hide, viewing screen, and off road parking, long with a footpath route through the nature reserve leading to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Blue Bell Cafeé in Kilnsea mean this site is ideal for a visit

   

Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife

 

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife book, which has detailed information on all of Yorkshire Wildlife and Sheffield Wildlife Trust’s reserves, is available to buy now from our online shop.

  

Public Transport

 

The Spurn Ranger bus from Hull stops in Kilnsea.

  

Directions

 

Approach Kilnsea on Easington Road. The car park is on your left just after you go over the left hand bend which rises over Long Bank and before you reach Kilnsea village.

  

Other information

 

There is a dipping platform available for arranged visits. Please do not walk along Long Bank to the north of the nature reserve to avoid flushing the birds. Paths are unsurfaced. Toilets are located in Kilnsea.

  

Reserve information

 

Location

Easington Road

Kilnsea

East Yorkshire

HU12 0UD

 

Map reference

TA 405 167

  

Great for...

 

a family day out

birdwatching

overwintering birds

  

Opening Times

 

Open at all times.

  

Facilities

 

Cafe

Toilets

  

Size

 

35.00 hectares

  

Access

Yes

 

Contact the Trust for disabled access information. Toilets are located in Kilnsea.

 

Walking information

Paths are unsurfaced.

 

Parking

yes

 

Dogs

Dogs must be on lead

 

Grazing animals

The nature reserve is to be managed sustainably using local livestock.

 

Reserve manager

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Tel: 01904 659570

info@ywt.org.uk

To view more of my images, of Sheringham Hall & Park please click "here"

 

I would be most grateful if you would refrain from inserting images, and/or group invites; thank you!

 

Sheringham Park is a landscape park and gardens near the town of Sheringham, Norfolk, England. The park surrounds Sheringham Hall, lying mostly to its south. The freehold of the hall is owned by the National Trust and is privately leased on a long leasehold. Visitors to this historic building must contact the leaseholder directly for an appointment. The plantations of Sheringham Park are in the care of the National Trust and open to visitors. National Trust members and guests have no rights of access across the park and farmland surrounding Sheringham Hall. Access to these areas is solely at the discretion of George Youngs (Farms) Ltd which farms the Sheringham estate, as laid out in the 1953 agreement between that farming company and the then freeholder. Access to the plantations of Sheringham Park has become an important aspect to locals of Sheringham and visitors alike and reference to this can be found in the Domesday Book, page 56. The park was designed by Humphry Repton (1752–1818) who presented his proposals in July 1812 in the form of one of his Red Books. He described Sheringham as his "favourite and darling child in Norfolk". Abbot and Charlotte Upcher bought the estate in 1811, and successive generations of the Upcher family did much to develop the estate, the hall and the park, as well as building a school. There are fine mature woodlands and a large variety of rhododendrons and azaleas. In the early 20th century, Henry Morris Upcher obtained rhododendron seeds of various types from plantsman Ernest "Chinese" Wilson. Plants from this source which can found at the garden include Rhododendron ambiguum, calophytum and decorum, among others. Many other species of tree and shrub are represented in the garden, including fifteen kinds of magnolia, large specimen pieris. Among the other trees are maples, acers, styrax, eucryphia, pocket handkerchief tree davidia involucrata and a fine example of the snowdrop tree. Several overlook towers provide good views over the plantations, and of the nearby coast and surrounding countryside. A garden temple was constructed in the park in 1975 to the designs of James Fletcher-Watson. The Park is located 2 miles south west of the coastal town of Sheringham, 5 miles west of Cromer and 6 miles east of Holt. The main entrance is at the junction of the A148 Cromer to Holt road and the B1157 road to Upper Sheringham. The Norfolk Coast Path passes through the property. A car park, cafe and visitor centre are near the main entrance. Waymarked paths through the estate link the gardens and visitors centre to the coast, and to the Weybourne station on the North Norfolk Railway, a preserved steam railway. Pedestrian access to the park is from the village of Upper Sheringham, which is adjacent to the park. The visitor centre is located within Wood Farm Barn at the southern end of the park, the barn also houses an exhibition of the history and the wildlife of Sheringham Park. Together with a reception desk and information kiosk. From the reception there are hearing loops available. Wheelchairs and powered mobility vehicles available at no charge although it is necessary to take a small test before use. The refreshment kiosk is also at Wood Farm Barn. The exhibition area explores the life and work of the landscape architect Humphry Repton and also of the Upcher family who owned the park. There are several examples of Humphry Repton's red book of plans for the designs of the park. Part of the exhibition area has an area dedicated to the wildlife and nature of the park with identification games and interactive displays.

 

Sheringham Hall. The Regency, Grade II listed building is finished in grey, gault, Lincolnshire brick was designed and built by Humphry Repton and his architect son, John Adey Repton. Due to the Norfolk coast's glacial winds, Repton chose a south facing site in the lee of a wooded hillside. In July 1813 the Upcher family laid the foundation stone and the family hoped to move into the house in the summer of 1817, but the owner of the estate Abbot Upcher fell ill and died in 1819 at the age of 35. The hall remained empty for 20 years until Henry Ramey Upcher completed the house in 1839. The hall's lease was offered for sale in 2008 and the lease was further extended at that time.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

  

"Construcción Vacía", Donostia, Guipúzcoa, España.

 

Pese a que esta obra del escultor vasco Jorge Oteiza (1908 – 2003) se conoce simplemente como Construcción Vacía, tiene un nombre original mucho más largo: Construcción vacía con cuatro unidades negativo – positivo. Un título muy propio de la corriente artística en la que podríamos enmarcar la obra: el constructivismo. Si bien por sus líneas simples y la economía de medios en su forma, también tiene mucho del miniamilismo.

 

El caso es que esta enorme escultura que alcanza los 6 metros de altura y que está realizada en acero corten fue adquirida por el Ayuntamiento de San Sebastián en 2002 para ser colocada en el Paseo Nuevo que recorre toda la zona de la Playa de la Concha. Pero la obra es fruto de un trabajo mucho anterior. Concretamente de la propuesta que hizo Oteiza en el año 1957 para la Bienal de Arte de Sao Paulo, Brasil.

 

Sin embargo, varias décadas después se instaló aquí, en la ciudad donde un año después moriría el escultor guipuzcoano. Y precisamente en el otro extremo del Paseo Nuevo haciendo contraste con la obra El Peine de los Vientos de Eduardo Chillida, ubicada en la otra punta de la bahía de San Sebastián. De alguna forma, era el modo de que la ciudad rinda tributo a los que están considerados como los escultores vascos más prestigiosos del siglo XX. Los cuales por cierto también coincideron mucho tiempo antes trabajando en el emblemáticos Santuario de Arantzazu.

 

Esta obra plasma algunos de los planteamientos artísticos que convirtieron a Oteiza en uno de los creadores más revolucionarios de su tiempo. Siendo un referente para muchos escultores. Si bien es cierto que no se trata de un artista fácil para el gran público, dado que plantea a veces conceptos demasiados complejos y densos.

 

Esos conceptos a veces, para la gran mayoría no son muy reconocibles en sus obras. Y para terminar de comprenderlos hay que recurrir a los muchos escritos que nos dejó con sus reflexiones artísticas y filosóficas. Por ejemplo respecto a sus conclusiones sobre este concepto de construcción vacía escribió: «Todos quieren decir algo por ocupación, yo quiero no decir nada, dejar la huella del vacío, de esto que uno no debe decir. Siempre pasa nada solamente una desocupación pasa y algo ha ocupado un sitio vacío».

 

Ciertamente no es muy fácil de comprender, pero lo que es indudable que las obras que Oteiza hizo en los años 50 han tenido una enorme repercusión en la escultura de vanguardia y actual. Tanto en lo referente a la forma como en cuanto al proceso creativo, ya que lo más destacado de su legado, es que con él se comenzaron a realizar las series escultóricas concebidas no desde la forma, sino partiendo de una idea totalmente abstracta.

 

Although this work by the Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza (1908 - 2003) is simply known as Empty Construction, it has a much longer original name: Empty construction with four negative - positive units. A title very typical of the artistic current in which we could frame the work: constructivism. Although for its simple lines and the economy of means in its form, it also has a lot of minileness.

 

The fact is that this huge sculpture that reaches 6 meters high and is made of steel corten was acquired by the City of San Sebastian in 2002 to be placed on the New Promenade that runs through the area of ​​Playa de la Concha. But the work is the result of much earlier work. Specifically of the proposal made by Oteiza in 1957 for the Art Biennial of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

 

However, several decades later he settled here, in the city where a year later the Guipuzcoan sculptor would die. And precisely at the other end of the Paseo Nuevo, contrasting with the work El Peine de los Vientos by Eduardo Chillida, located on the other side of the San Sebastián Bay. In a way, it was the way that the city paid tribute to those who are considered the most prestigious Basque sculptors of the 20th century. Which by the way also coincided a long time before working in the emblematic Sanctuary of Arantzazu.

 

This work captures some of the artistic approaches that made Oteiza one of the most revolutionary creators of his time. Being a reference for many sculptors. While it is true that it is not an easy artist for the general public, given that sometimes poses concepts too complex and dense.

 

These concepts sometimes, for the great majority are not very recognizable in their works. And to finish understanding them we must resort to the many writings that he left us with his artistic and philosophical reflections. For example, regarding his conclusions about this empty construction concept, he wrote: "Everyone wants to say something for occupation, I want to say nothing, to leave the trace of emptiness, of this that one should not say. It always happens nothing but an unemployment happens and something has occupied an empty place ».

 

It is certainly not very easy to understand, but what is certain is that the works that Oteiza did in the 50s have had a huge impact on avant-garde and current sculpture. Both in terms of the form and the creative process, since the highlight of his legacy, is that he began to make sculptural series conceived not from the form, but starting from a totally abstract idea.

Landing in San Diego is difficult. SAN is listed as one of the worlds 10 most extreme / difficult airports to land at (depending on which list you find).

 

You have to fly over this hill (Balboa Park), then get the plane down before you run into the next hill (Point Loma).or before you run off the end of the short runway. So the runway is in this sort of valley, and it can be VERY difficult for pilots at times. It is a very difficult approach because of the steep angle required over the hill. There are no jumbo jets regularly flying in here like at other major airports ie LAX, JFK, DFW.

 

I love flying aircraft, I love aviation, so therefore, I posted this video. It is really amazing and incredible to get this kind of footage of a plane landing in San Diego.

 

I previously wrote about how exactly I got this video including some of the difficulty involved. But I decided to be more discreet, to edit out that part, to leave you guessing.

 

You can imagine the 'powers that be' discourage a lot of looky-loo's from hanging around the approach end of runways.

 

I suppose a fascination with the machines of transportation has long been a human thing. I remember when I was a kid, I would take my younger brothers by bicycle to the local Hicksville train station to see the mighty train engines up close. That was a regular part of our Sunday routine. First stop was church, then afterwards to the train station, last stop was Baskin-Robins for ice cream.

 

Church and ice cream make sense. But the train station? Why did we go there? I remember so vividly for some reason the elevated platforms of the Hicksville train station. For some reason it was just an interesting place to hang around for a kid.

 

I'd say it's about fascination with the machines of transportation.

 

Trains and Planes. Big fancy machines that move people from point A to point B. But fascinating for some reason in how they do it.

 

So fascinating I suppose, that I even managed to make a career out of the business. And what form of human transport could be more fascinating that a flight in a hot air balloon? Going only where the wind carries you? No steering, just riding with the wind! What a concept.

 

So to tie it all together, landing a balloon is difficult, extreme, and fascinating. And it all started out because my father made me take my brothers to church, and for entertainment afterwards we would go check out the trains. Go figure. Like this could really all be tied together, but perhaps.

 

I did not really have a key point to make with all this. It is just a sort essay on my thoughts as to why I got this video of the plane landing. I hope someone reads this and enjoys it. Maybe I'll get my brothers / sister / mom to read this since they come here sometimes, they might appreciate the references to life growing up and the Hicksville train station

Although titled "Blitz" and dedicated in honour of those firefighters who gave their lives in the Defence of the Nation 1939 - 1945. not all the women firefighters listed, (and presumably men as well), actually died during the war or even as a result of firefighting.

 

Daisy L Adams

 

Name:ADAMS, DAISY LILY

Age:34

Date of Death:26/06/1944

Additional information:Firewoman, N.F.S.; of 17 Stanley Road. Daughter of William H. F. Adams. Died at 17 Stanley Road.

Reporting Authority:CROYDON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3149122

 

This was as a result of a V1 attack which landed at 3.57am and would claim 4 lives.

www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V1_worst_week.html

 

The other three victims are:-

Name:HENDERSON, NELLLE MILLER

Age:56

Date of Death:26/06/1944

Additional information:of 25 Stanley Road. Daughter of the late Alexander and Helen Watt; wife of William Cranston Henderson. Injured at 25 Stanley Road; died same day at Mayday Hospital.

Reporting Authority:CROYDON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3149483

 

Name:SLATER, DONALD LESLIE

Age:13

Date of Death:26/06/1944

Additional information:of 17 Stanley Road. Son of Cyril Leslie and Winifred May Slater. Died at 17 Stanley Road.

Reporting Authority:CROYDON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3149782

 

Name:SMALL, JAMES IRELAND

Age:52

Date of Death:26/06/1944

Additional information:at 23 Stanley Road.

Reporting Authority:CROYDON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3149783

 

The first V-1 was launched at London on 13 June 1944, one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied landing in Europe. At its peak, over a hundred V-1s a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied forces.

 

Approximately 10,000 were fired at England; 2,419 reached London, killing about 6,184 people and injuring 17,981.[The greatest density of hits were received by Croydon, on the southeast fringe of London.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_(flying_bomb)

  

Elsie W Baker

 

Name:BAKER, ELSIE WINIFRED

Age:31

Date of Death:13/02/1945

Additional information:N.F.S. Daughter of George Henry and Louisa Baker, of 19 George Road, Chingford, Essex. Injured 1 February 1945, at York Road; died at Chase Farm Hospital.

Reporting Authority:ENFIELD, URBAN DISTRICT

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3143045

 

Ellen RSQ Blackford

 

Name:BLACKFORD, ELLEN RITA ST QUENTIN

Age:26

Date of Death:11/09/1944

Additional information:Firewoman, N.F.S. Daughter of Ellen Lydia Stirrup, of 36 Albany Place, Dover, Kent; wife of Leonard Blackford, Merchant Navy. Injured September 1944, at Dover; died at Hurstwood Park War Emergency Hospital, Haywards Heath.

Reporting Authority:CUCKFIELD, URBAN DISTRICT

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3152577

 

Ellen is buried at DOVER (ST. JAMES'S) CEMETERY, Kent

www.doverwarmemorialproject.org.uk/Casualties/CWGC/WWII%2...

 

Dover suffered a resurgence of long-range shelling in September 1944, as the Germans took a last chance to fire before being forced back out of range. Its probable that Ellen died as a result of one of these incidents.

www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/19/a3358019.shtml

 

Mary O Cane

 

Name:CANE, MARY OLIVIA

Age:40

Date of Death:25/09/1940

Additional information:Driver, A.F.S., of 10 Earl's Terrace. Daughter of the late Arthur Beresford Cane, C.B.E., and Lucy Mary Cane, C.B.E., of 66 Elm Park Gardens, West Brompton. Died at 10 Earl's Terrace.

Reporting Authority:KENSINGTON, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3132123

 

Night Operations - 24th/25th September 1940

At 1930 hours, raids started coming out of Le Havre making for Shoreham and London. These were followed by a sequence of other raids on the same course which were not, however, as numerous as usual. At about the same time, raids from the direction of Holland crossed the North Norfolk coast and for the most part remained in East Anglia except for two which penetrated more deeply Westwards. None of these raids appeared to proceed to the London area.

At about 2230 hours, there was a temporary lull and after 2300 hours owing to returning friendly bombers, it became difficult to distinguish hostile tracks. However, enemy activity in the London area continued and appeared to increase after 0300 hours. The approach was mainly from the South Coast but a few raids flew in from East Anglia.

In the London area, activity further increased after 0400 hours and only at 0538 hours had the last raid recrossed the coast.

Home Security Report

 

During the night London was again the chief target and was continuously bombed from nightfall onwards. Many fires were started and hits obtained on railways. A certain amount of indiscriminate bombing was observed in Essex and Surrey, but these particular raids do not appear to have caused much damage or casualties.

 

oLondon Area

Kensington: At 2100 hours IB fell on the Sunbeam-Talbot Motor Works, the offices of which were damaged by fire but production is not likely to be affected. It is reported that Warwick Road is blocked and Earls Court Railway Station closed.

Westminster: Bombs are reported near the West End Central Police Station - fires at Boyle Street and Saville Row. It is also reported that the Hungerford Bridge and Signal Box is on fire, together with St Margaret's, Westminster.

Battersea: Bombs dropped on the SR track at Broughton Street, and the line from Battersea to Clapham Junction is blocked.

Lambeth: Major damage is reported at No 10 Platform Waterloo Station, involving approximately 30 casualties.

Edmonton: IB are reported to have fallen on the West Wings of the North Middlesex and St David's Hospitals.

Ilford: At 2115 hours HE slightly damaged Plessey & Co's. There were no casualties, but effect on production is not yet ascertained.

City: Major damage at 0217 hours on the 25th was reported at Blackfriars Station, 'Times' Office, Queen Victoria Street, and Upper Thames Street.

Further bombings are reported at Hammersmith, Wood Green, Hendon, Tottenham, Wimbledon, Hornsey, Wandsworth, Richmond, Barnes, Southall and Ealing.

www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/september24.html

 

Raids on London on the night of the 25th/26th don’t appear to have started until after midnight.

www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/september25.html

 

There are a few papers from Arthur Beresford Cane (1864 – 1939) in the National Archive.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?...

His cases also seem to pop up in older legal textbooks.

 

He received his CBE in the 1920 New Years Honours List

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Necrothesp/Honours_Lists/1920_...

 

Jessie Carter

 

No trace on CWGC, and no female with the surname Carter who is listed as a either a civilian or in the Army on the CWGC would seem to have been a fireman. May have been a post-war casualty.

 

Audrey M Fricker

 

Name:FRICKER, AUDREY MARIE

Age:18

Date of Death:24/01/1945

Additional information:Firewoman, N.F.S. Daughter of M. E. Fricker, of 132 Glenview, Abbey Wood, Woolwich, and of the late William George Fricker. Died at Post Office, Stockwell Street.

Reporting Authority:GREENWICH, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3128920

 

There is a picture of the damage suffered by the post office here

postalheritage.org.uk/blog-images/69-Post118-1500.jpg/ima...

catalogue.postalheritage.org.uk/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqServ...

 

Sarah L L Gane

 

Name:GANE, SARAH LORNA LILIAN

Age:21

Date of Death:30/11/1940

Additional information:A.F.S.; of 57 Regents Park Road. Daughter of Joseph Tom and Ethel Kitty Gane. Died at 57 Regents Park Road.

Reporting Authority:SOUTHAMPTON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3112221

 

Name:GANE, JOSEPH TOM

Age:57

Date of Death:30/11/1940

Additional information:of 57 Regents Park Road. Husband of Ethel Kitty Gane. Died at 57 Regents Park Road.

Reporting Authority:SOUTHAMPTON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3112220

 

Name:GANE, ETHEL KITTY

Age:60

Date of Death:30/11/1940

Additional information:of 57 Regents Park Road. Wife of Joseph Tom Gane. Died at 57 Regents Park Road.

Reporting Authority:SOUTHAMPTON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC: www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3112219

Name:GANE, DORA GLADYS MAY

Regiment/Service:Civilian War Dead

Age:27

Date of Death:30/11/1940

Additional information:of 57 Regents Park Road. Daughter of Joseph Tom and Ethel Kitty Gane. Died at 57 Regents Park Road.

Reporting Authority:SOUTHAMPTON, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC: www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3112218

 

Southampton suffered badly from large-scale air raids during World War Two. As a large port city on the south coast, it was an important strategic target for the German air force (Luftwaffe). There were fifty seven attacks in all, but nerves were frayed by over 1,500 alarms.

 

Of the 57 Air Raids, by far the worst were on 23rd and 30th November and 1st December and these attacks are generally referred to as Southamptonton's Blitz.

Southampton ablaze

It was a cold clear night on the 30th November when the drone of German aircraft engines were heard approaching Southampton. Raids were nothing new; people were used to the routine of seeking shelter and trying to lead as normal a life as possible. This one though was different; this raid was to level most of the city centre, kill over a hundred people and damage or destroy thousands of buildings. The approach of the enemy bombers was the start of the worst wartime weekend in Southampton with unprecedented destruction that would change the city forever.

 

Over 100 aeroplanes had approached high and began to dive down over the city. Just before 6pm the warning siren was sounded and minutes later the flares that bombers would use to light their targets began to land by parachute, making no sound. They lit the town making a mockery of the blackout. A local resident recalls 'Chandelier flares lit up the whole town around, just like daylight'. This allowed bombers to drop their heavy explosives, including two mines of nearly 2000 kg. These were then followed by thousands of incendiary devices, setting fire to buildings and further marking out the city for the bombers. Up to 9,000 incendiaries were dropped causing hundreds of fires.

The fire caused the most damage. There was no water to fight the blazes, reservoirs were low and water mains were cracked. The fire raged completely out of control at the bottom end of the High Street, at one point 647 fires were burning at the same time across Southampton. One man recalled the firestorm for the Southampton Oral History Team, 'It sweeps everything in front of it, it'll draw you into it if you're not careful... ...It was so hot that if you stood with your boots you could hear them sizzling with the heat from the pavements'. Despite over 2000 extra firefighters being drafted to the city, it was still burning brightly enough to light the way for the second attack a day later. German pilots reported that the glare of Southampton burning could be seen from the North of France.

 

www.plimsoll.org/Southampton/Southamptonatwar/southampton...

 

The Kelly’s Street Directory for Southampton for 1940-41, lists a Joseph Tom Gane at this address.

www.plimsoll.org/images/1940%20Streets%20Morland%20Road%2...

 

In the same directory for 1946, the odd numbered houses side of the Road goes from 51 to 61. I assume the 4 houses in-between were nothing more than a bomb-site.

 

Yvonne MD Green

 

Name:GREEN, YVONNE MARIE DUNBAR

Age:30

Date of Death:17/04/1941

Additional information:Driver, A.F.S. Daughter of Forbes Sutherland and Jeanne Tachereau Sutherland, of Montreal, Canada; wife of Lieut. Leonard G. Green, Canadian Army, of 34 Old Church Street. Died at Petyt Place.

Reporting Authority:CHELSEA, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3126946

 

There are numerous references to damage to the Church and the nearby church rooms in Petyt Place during “1941”, while the nearby Royal Hospital on Kings Road was definitely bombed on the 16th April 1941.

www.athomeinnchelsea.com/cheynewalk.htm

 

London does not appear to have been a target for a raid on the night of the 15th/16th April 1941, but was on the night of the 16th/17th, looking at the RAF claims and losses records.

 

Minnie L Hallett

Name:HALLETT, MINNLE LILLIAN

Age:53

Date of Death:21/07/1944

Additional information:Firewoman, N.F.S.; W.V.S.; of 56 Morden Hall Road, Morden. Wife of Frederick Clarence Hallett. Injured at 56 Morden Hall Road; died same day at Nelson Hospital, Merton.

Reporting Authority:MERTON AND MORDEN, URBAN DISTRICT

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3150860

 

The first V-1 was launched at London on 13 June 1944, one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied landing in Europe. At its peak, over a hundred V-1s a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied forces.

 

Approximately 10,000 were fired at England; 2,419 reached London, killing about 6,184 people and injuring 17,981.[11] The greatest density of hits were received by Croydon, on the southeast fringe of London.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_(flying_bomb)

 

Meg M A S Hargrove

 

Name:HARGROVE, MEG MABEL AGNES STRICKLAND

Age:33

Date of Death:08/03/1941

Additional information:A.F.S. W.V.S. Daughter of Lt. Col. Bryan Cole Bartley, C.B.E., and Mrs. Bartley, of Monterey, P.O. Sandown, Johannesburg, S. Africa; wife of Frank Hargrove, of Kiama, Little Marlow Road, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Injured at Cafe de Paris, Coventry Street; died same day at Charing Cross Hospital.

Reporting Authority:WESTMINSTER CITY

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3123160

 

The Times of Monday 10 March 1941 carried the news of the bombing of the Cafe de Paris that had occurred on the previous Saturday night. But you had to dig deep to find the story, and indeed to be able to relate it to the incident itself. Wartime reporting maintained a balance between news and maintaining morale, so at first glance the story (see right) seems a little confusing.

Described as 'the bright moonlight of Saturday night', the story seems almost romantic in its style, and referring to one of the biggest raids of The Blitz as 'a noisy night' seems to understate things a little. However, some deaths are referred to in the second paragraph.

It is then that the Cafe de Paris story is introduced, although masked as 'dancers and diners in a restaurant'. The only clue to the location in London is given in the song title, Oh Johnny, which many must have recognised as a favourite played by Ken Snakehips Johnson and The West Indian Orchestra. The band had a residency there, so if you knew the tune was associated with them, you could probably work out which club had been hit. The description of the aftermath, 'dust and fumes, which blackened faces and frocks' is obviously much changed from the reality of what was left, as evidenced by eye-witnesses after the war.

The idea that 'there were many wonderful escapes' again introduces an almost romantic notion of what it was like there. Needless to say, everyone pulls together and does their best to get the injured to hospital.

The final paragraph of the part that refers to the Cafe de Paris continues with the 'spririt of The Blitz'. A night club had been blown up, with over 30 dead and 80 injured, and yet 'people living nearby made tea, and passers-by contributed handkerchiefs'. The cabaret girls mentioned in the report were in their dressing room at the time, waiting to come on for their part of the show, and so were shielded from the main blast of the bomb.

The report then goes on to describe other incidents that occured the same night. By 6pm on the evening of Sunday 9 March, the London Civil Defence Regional Report showed that 159 people had been killed and 338 seriously injured in 238 incidents on the Saturday night. One of the other bombings that went unmentioned in Monday's Times was at Buckingham Palace, where the North Lodge was demolished, resulting in two fatalities.

www.swingtime.co.uk/Reviews/kenjohns/kentimes.html

www.nickelinthemachine.com/2009/09/the-cafe-de-paris-the-...

In 1939 the Café was allowed to stay open even though theatres and cinemas were closed by order. People gossiped their way through the blackout and the Café was advertised as a safe haven by Martin Poulson, the maitre d', who argued that the four solid storeys of masonry above were ample protection. This tragically proved to be untrue on March 8th 1941 when two 50K landmines came through the Rialto roof straight onto the Café dance floor. Eighty people were killed, including Ken 'Snakehips' Johnston who was performing onstage at the time and Poulson whose words had come back to haunt him. Had the bomb been dropped an hour later, the casualties would have been even higher.

www.cafedeparis.com/club/history

Fleur Lombard

 

Fleur Lombard QGM (1974 – 4 February 1996) was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peacetime Britain

Fleur Lombard was one of only eight women among Avon's 700 firefighters. On graduating in 1994, Lombard received the Silver Axe Award, for most outstanding recruit on her training school. On 4 February 1996, when she was 21 years old, she was fighting a supermarket fire in Staple Hill, near Bristol, when she and her partner, Robert Seaman, were caught in a flashover. She was killed as a direct result of the intense heat and her body was found just a few yards from the exit. Lombard was the first woman to die in peacetime service in Britain.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleur_Lombard

www.independent.co.uk/news/jail-for-killer-of-fleur-lomba...

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/73464.stm

 

Dorien L Pullen

 

Name:PULLEN, DORRIEN AISNE

Age:29

Date of Death:25/04/1944

Additional information:N.F.S.; of 30 Armadale Road. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. C. H. Thair, of 62 Grove Road; wife of L.A.C. Harold James Pullen, R.A.F. Died at 30 Armadale Road.

Reporting Authority:CHICHESTER, MUNICIPAL BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3152523

 

During World War II there were 3 bombing raids on Chichester. Bombs were dropped on Basin Road in 1941, on Chapel Street and St Martins Street in 1943 and on Arndale and Green Roads in 1944.

www.localhistories.org/chichester.html

 

In the same raid Rosina Cox and her son Derek, aged 4, died at 34 Armadale Road, Ada Field, (aged 25) died at 41 Armadale Road, Elsie Gee (aged 28) would die at 32 Armadale Road and there is a Geoffrey Hearn recorded as dieing on the 26th.

 

Helen Sussman

 

Name:SUSSMAN, HELEN

Age:25

Date of Death:19/06/1944

Additional information:Firewoman, N.F.S.; of 12 Clydesdale Road. Daughter of Morris and Eva Sussman. Died at 12 Clydesdale Road.

Reporting Authority:KENSINGTON, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3132450

 

Name:SUSSMAN, EVA

Age:48

Date of Death:19/06/1944

Additional information:of 12 Clydesdale Road. Daughter of the late James Harry and Gertrude Soloway, of 13 Chepstow Road, Bayswater; wife of Morris Sussman. Died at 12 Clydesdale Road.

Reporting Authority:KENSINGTON, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3132449

 

Name:SUSSMAN, MORRIS

Age:60

Date of Death:19/06/1944

Additional information:of 12 Clydesdale Road. Husband of Eva Sussman. Died at 12 Clydesdale Road.

Reporting Authority:KENSINGTON, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3132451

 

June 19.The first V1 to hit Notting Hill killed 20 people along Westbourne Park Road and in Clydesdale Road and Mews,

www.historytalk.org/Notting%20Hill%20History%20Timeline/t...

 

Dolcie I A Taylor

 

Name:TAYLOR, DOLCIE ENID AMY

Age:33

Date of Death:23/11/1940

Additional information:A.F.S. Telephonist; of Bursay, West End Road, West End. Daughter of J. H. Carter, and of Amy Dawkins Carter. Died at Bursay, West End Road.

Reporting Authority:WINCHESTER, RURAL DISTRICT

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3113022

 

Name:CARTER, AMY DAWKINS

Age:69

Date of Death:23/11/1940

Additional information:of Bursay, West End Road, West End. Wife of J. H. Carter. Died at Bursay, West End Road.

Reporting Authority:WINCHESTER, RURAL DISTRICT

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3113000

 

Name:CARTER, WINIFRED EMMA DAWKINS

Age:38

Date of Death:23/11/1940

Additional information:of Bursay, West End Road, West End. Daughter of J. H. Carter, and of Amy Dawkins Carter. Died at Bursay, West End Road.

Reporting Authority:WINCHESTER, RURAL DISTRICT

 

CWGC: www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3113002

 

Other casualties at West End on this day include David Stephens, aged 2, of 12, Shales Flats, and Jane Ware, aged 77, of Westwood, West End Road.

 

See Sarah Gane above for details of the Southampton Blitz. Southampton suffered particularly heavy raids on the 23rd and 30th November 1940. The village of West End, to the NE of Southampton may well have suffered as a result.

 

Evelyn Torr

 

Name:TORR, EVELYN

Age:43

Date of Death:12/08/1943

Additional information:Firewoman, N.F.S.; of 24 Craigmore Avenue, Stoke. Daughter of Mary Torr, and of James Torr. Died at 24 Craigmore Avenue.

Reporting Authority:PLYMOUTH, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3103029

 

Name:TORR, JAMES

Age:70

Date of Death:12/08/1943

Additional information:of 24 Craigmore Avenue, Stoke. Husband of Mary Torr. Died at 24 Craigmore Avenue.

Reporting Authority:PLYMOUTH, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3103030

 

Nothing seems to be reported in the mains records – RAF command, or local history sites. Other casualties include

Leonard Davey aged 46.

 

Firewatcher; of 17 Melville Road, Stoke. Son of Henry and Emma Davey, of 16 Hanover Road, Laira. Injured at Union Street; died same day at Prince of Wales Hospital, Greenbank.

www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3102309

Arthur Dent aged 42

 

Fireman, N.F.S. Son of Arthur Richard and Minnie Louisa Dent, of 18 Selborne Avenue, Manor Park, London. Died at 104 Hotspur Terrace, North Road.

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3102339

 

Beryl Dibley (aged 14) and Patricia Dibley (aged 3) who died at 100 North Road

Thomas Donovan who died at 21 Portland Villas

Elsie Hancock, (aged 43) died at Welbeck Avenue

Kate Hancock , (aged 73) died at 31 Welbeck Avenue

Frederick Harris, (aged 49), died at 37 Glenmore Avenue, Stoke

Marjorie Harris, (aged 38), died at 31 Welbeck Avenue

Cyril Joy, (aged 44) and his wife Sarah (aged 37) who died at 17 Melville Road

William Joy, (aged 46) who died at 104 Hotspur Terrace

George Kellond, (age 69) who died at 102 Hotspur Terrace

Charlotte Langdon, (aged 77) who died at James Street

Edith Ley, (aged 55) who died at 8 Ryder Road

Gladys Maxwell, (aged 29) and her sons Roger, (aged 3) and Paul, (aged 18 months) who died at 1, Victoria Lane

Blanche Morrell who was injured at 25 Craigmore Avenue, Stoke on the 12th and subsequently died of her injuries on the 14th

Sidney Murrin (aged 65), died at Millbay Station

Jean Sanders, (aged 12) died at 35 Welbeck Avenue

Beatrice Sayer, (aged 57) and her brother Thomas, (aged 64), died at 28 James Street

Elizabeth Shute, (aged 73) injured at 35 Welbeck Avenue on the 12th and succumced to their effects on the 24th.

George Thomas (aged 41)

 

Fireman, N.F.S. Son of Harriet Grace Thomas, of 7 Fairfield Road, Ongar, Essex, and of the late Edmund Haviland Thomas. Died at 104 North Road.

www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3103016

 

George Tucker, (aged 57) who died at 38 Glenmore Avenue, Stoke

Ernest Watts, (aged 34) who died at 104 Hotspur Road

Louisa Williams, (aged 64) who died at 26 Craigmore Avenue

 

A photograph of two Plymouth firewomen can be seen here

www.devonheritage.org/Places/Plymouth/Plymouth5JtoL.htm

  

Dorothy S Watson

 

Name:WATSON, DOROTHY SMITH

Age:39

Date of Death:30/06/1944

Additional information:N.F.S. Daughter of Elizabeth Catherine Watson, of 385 Brompton Road, Bexley Heath, Kent, and of the late Frederick Watson. Injured at Connaught House, Aldwych; died same day at Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street.

Reporting Authority:HOLBORN, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3131109

 

The V-1 fell in the middle of the street between Bush House and Adastral House, the home of the Air Ministry, at 2:07 p.m., making a direct hit on one of the city’s main loci of power, the site of the Aldwych holy well, directly on the London ley line.

Brilliant blue skies turned to grey fog and darkness.

The device exploded some 40 yards east of the junction of Aldwych and Kingsway, about 40 feet from the Air Ministry offices opposite the east wing of Bush House.

 

The Air Ministry’s 10-foot-tall blast walls, made of 18-inch-thick brick, disintegrated immediately, deflecting the force of the explosion up and down the street. Hundreds of panes of glass shattered, blowing razor-sharp splinters through the air. The Air Ministry women watching at the windows were sucked out of Adastral House by the vacuum and dashed to death on the street below. Men and women queuing outside the Post Office were torn to pieces. Shrapnel peppered the facades of Bush House and the Air Ministry like bullets.

 

When the counting was done, about fifty people were killed, 400 seriously wounded, another 200 lightly injured.

secretfire.wordpress.com/the-aldwych-v-1-blast-june-30-1944/

www.westendatwar.org.uk/page_id__10_path__0p2p.aspx

www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/32/a7019732.shtml

 

Joan E B Wilson

 

Name:WILSON, JOAN EMMA BESSIE

Age:24

Date of Death:08/03/1941

Additional information:Women's Auxiliary Fire Service; Daughter of Mrs. M. Wilson, of 8 Northcourt Avenue, Reading, Berkshire. Died at Cafe de Paris, Coventry Street.

Reporting Authority:WESTMINSTER CITY

  

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3123851

 

See Meg Hargrove above for more details on this incident.

 

Not on the memorial, but on one of the site listed above Alice Jessica Gifford, aged 21 is recorded as a Firewoman in the NFS.

www.devonheritage.org/Places/Plymouth/Plymouth5GtoI.htm

However CWGC database lists her as a civilian.

Name:GIFFORD, ALICE JESSICA

Date of Death:03/07/1944

Additional information:at Plymouth.

Reporting Authority:PLYMOUTH, COUNTY BOROUGH

 

CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3102436

   

Dilmun is associated with ancient sites on the islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, the Cradle of Civilization.

 

Dilmun (sometimes transliterated Telmun) is associated with ancient sites on the islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Because of its location along the sea trade routes linking Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley Civilization, Dilmun developed in the Bronze Age, from ca. 3000 BC, into one of the greatest entrepots of trade of the ancient world.

 

There is both literary and archaeological evidence for the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley (probably correctly identified with the land called Meluhha in Akkadian). Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify.

 

A number of these Indus Valley seals have turned up at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites. "Persian Gulf" types of circular stamped rather than rolled seals, known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, and Faylahkah, as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration of the long-distance sea trade. What the commerce consisted of is less sure: timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, and luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from the Persian Gulf, shell and bone inlays, were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, olive oil and grains. Copper ingots, certainly, bitumen, which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia, may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and domestic fowl, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia - all these have been instanced.

 

Mesopotamian trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to Meluhhan trade date from the Akkadian, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and Isin - Larsa Periods (ca. 2350 - 1800 BC), but the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2600 BC). Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin - Larsa Period, Dilmun monopolized the trade. By the subsequent Old Babylonian period, trade between the two cultures evidently had ceased entirely.

 

The Bahrain National Museum assesses that its "Golden Age" lasted ca. 2200 - 1600 BC. Its decline dates from the time the Indus Valley civilization suddenly and mysteriously collapsed, in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. This would of course have stripped Dilmun of its importance as a trading center between Mesopotamia and India. The decay of the great sea trade with the east may have affected the power shift northwards observed in Mesopotamia itself.

 

Evidence about Neolithic human cultures in Dilmun comes from flint tools and weapons. From later periods, cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals, pottery and even correspondence between rulers throw light on Dilmun. Written records mentioning the archipelago exist in Sumerian, Akkadian, Persian, Greek, and Latin sources.

Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living" is the scene of a Sumerian creation myth and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Ziusudra (Utnapishtim), was taken by the gods to live for ever.

There is mention of Dilmun as a vassal of Assyria in the 8th century BC and by about 600 BC, it had been fully incorporated into the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Dilmun then falls into deep eclipse marked by the decline of the copper trade, so long controlled by Dilmun, and the switch to a less important role in the new trade of frankincense and spices. The discovery of an impressive palace at the Ras al Qalah site in Bahrain is promising to increase knowledge of this late period.

 

Otherwise, there is virtually no information until the passage of Nearchus, the admiral in charge of Alexander the Great's fleet on the return from the Indus Valley. Nearchus kept to the Iranian coast of the Gulf, however, and cannot have stopped at Dilmun. Nearchus established a colony on the island of Falaika off the coast of Kuwait in the late 4th century BC, and explored the Gulf perhaps least as far south as Dilmun/Bahrain.

From the time of Nearchus until the coming of Islam in the 7th century AD Dilmun/Bahrain was known by its Greek name of Tylos. The political history for this period is little known, but Tylos was at one point part of the Seleucid Empire, and of Characene and perhaps part of the Parthian Empire. Shapur II annexed it, together with eastern Arabia, into the Persian Sassanian empire in the 4th century.

 

Unlike Egyptian and Mesopotamian tablets and cylinders, the Dilmun legacy has been discovered on circular seals. The primitive forms of images carved on the seal indicate they were used as charms or talisman. Carved on wood, soapstone shells or metal, these images clearly define a complex society. Temples in the center of the agrarian village, towns, city-states, religious, and economic cultural life. All facets of the emergence of an evolutionary society are reflected in the inscriptions about the seals.

 

Impressions found on pottery and property is a probable usage of the seals. Burying them with the dead was probably to avoid misuse. Tiny fragments found impressed, suggest identifying property. Clearly there was an intrinsic value; each seal tells a story, has an identity.

 

Seals depict Enki, God of wisdom and sweet water. Gilgamesh as a massive and heroic figure, the 'Bull of heaven' hat. Ladies of the mountains 'Inanas' servants wearing her triangle signs depicting space for her power. 'Nana' is the moon god who was also named 'sin'. Symbol was the bull of heaven head. Inana, goddess of immortality.

From the dreams of Gilgamesh, to the philosophy of life. Seals depicting a harmonious life with nature and god are painted here in the colors and form I hope you enjoy. The colors naturally excite and stimulate, often sexually. Indisputably the ancient myths of immortality and resurrection influenced Dilmun beliefs and are abundantly supported in the seal designs, represented by gods of the sun and moon.

The Mesopotamian texts described Tilmun as situated at the 'mouth' of two bodies of water. The Sinai peninsula, shaped as an inverted triangle indeed begins where the Red Sea separates into two arms - the gulf of Suez on the west, and the Gulf of Elat (Gulf of Aqaba) on the east.

 

The texts spoke of mountainous Tilmun. The Sinai peninsula is indeed made up of a high mountainous southern part, a mountainous central plateau, and a northern plain (surrounded by mountains), which levels off via sandy hills to the Mediterranean coastline. Sargon of Akkad claimed that he reached as 'washed his weapons' in the Mediterranean; 'the sea lands' - the lands along the Mediterranean coast - 'three times I encircled; Tilmun my hand captured'. Sargon II, king of Assyria in the eighth century BC, asserted that he had conquered the area stretching 'from Bit-Yahkin on the shore of the salt Sea as far as the border of Tilmun'. The name 'Salt Sea' has survived to this day as a Hebrew name for the Dead Sea - another confirmation that Tilmun lay in proximity to the Dead Sea.

 

The cradle of civilization is sometimes referenced by the name Dilmun, or Tilmun. Here, it was said, the god Ea and his wife were placed to institute 'a sinless age of complete happiness'.

 

Here too animals lived in peace and harmony, man had no rival and the god Enlil `in one tongue gave praise'. It is also described as a pure, clean and `bright' `abode of the immortals' where death, disease and sorrow are unknown and some mortals have been given `life like a god', words reminiscent of the Airyana Vaejah, the realm of the immortals in Iranian myth and legend, and the Eden of Hebraic tradition

 

Although Dilmun is equated by most scholars with the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, there is evidence to suggest that a much earlier mythical Dilmun was located in a mountainous region beyond the plains of Sumer.

 

But where exactly was it located Mesopotamian inscriptions do not say; however, the Zoroastrian Bundahishn text and the Christian records of Arbela in Iraqi Kurdistan both refer to a location named Dilamƒn as having existed around the head waters of the Tigris, south-west of Lake Van - the very area in which the biblical Eden is said to have been located.

 

Furthermore, Ea (the Akkadian Enki) was said to have presided over the concourse of Mesopotamia's two greatest rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates - which are shown in depictions as flowing from each of his shoulders.

 

This would have undoubtedly have meant that the head-waters, or sources, of these rivers would have been looked upon as sacred to Ea by the cultures of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent.

 

- Zecharia Sitchin The Stairway to Heaven

 

Dilmun was allegedly a magical land, the birthplace of the gods and the place where the arts of civilization where said first to have been transmitted to men. It was the subject of many legends told by the Sumerians, the people of southern Iraq; it was famed as a land where death and disease were unknown and men and animals lived at peace together.

 

It was the home of the Sumerian king who was the origin of the myth of Noah, the immortal survivor of the Great Flood, a story retold in the Qu'ran and the Bible.

 

The first great hero of world literature, Gilgamesh the king of Uruk, journeyed to Dilmun in search of the secret of eternal youth.

 

He found it deep in the waters of the Persian Gulf, off Bahrain, but lost it when the flower which restored the youth of those who sought it, was stolen by a snake, lurking in a pool as Gilgamesh returned to his kingdom; this is the reason why the snake sloughs his skin.

 

Symbolism - All is Myth and Metaphor in our reality

 

* water: flow of consciousness - creation

* restore to youth: move out of the physical body and return to higher frequency forms of sound, light, and color

* snake: DNA - the human bio-genetic experiment in time and emotion

* kingdom - Leo - Lion - King - Omega - closure

 

Dilmun was also the center of the most important trade routes of the third and second millennia BC. The most important commodity was copper for which Dilmun was famous and the dates for which Bahrain was always celebrated, from ancient times until the present day.

 

Because Dilmun was so sacred a land, there were many temples built there, the impressive remains of which can be seen today. The largest and most splendid temple surviving in Western Asia is at Barbar on Bahrain's northern shore.

 

The most famous of all Bahrain's rich archaeological heritage are the 200,000 grave mounds which are a feature of the landscape in the northern half of the island and which, by their size and quality of construction, show how prosperous Bahrain must have been in ancient times.

 

Dilmun continued to be the most important center of trade in the Gulf region throughout its history.

 

After the Sumerians, the Babylonians, Assyrians, even the Greeks, settled on the islands, because of their strategic importance in the movement of merchandise, north and south, east and west, by sea and by the land routes to which the seas gave access.

 

The records of their diplomatic relations with the kings of Dilmun, some of whose names are known from the records, testify to the importance of the islands throughout antiquity.

 

All left evidence of their presence, preserved today in the Bahrain National Museum and in the immense archaeological sites in which Bahrain is particularly rich.

 

Bahrain is an open-air treasure house of the past, a unique heritage from the earliest times when men first began to keep records of their hopes, fears and achievements.

 

It is the contemporary of ancient Egypt with Sumer and the peoples who succeeded them, of the great cities of the Indus Valley.

  

Source: www.crystalinks.com/dilmun.html

in the chilly hours and minutes,

of uncertainty, i want to be,

in the warm hold of your loving mind.

 

to feel you all around me,

and to take your hand, along the sand,

ah, but i may as well try and catch the wind.

 

when sundown pales the sky,

i wanna hide a while, behind your smile,

and everywhere i'd look, your eyes i'd find.

 

for me to love you now,

would be the sweetest thing, 'twould make me sing,

ah, but i may as well try and catch the wind.

 

when rain has hung the leaves with tears,

i want you near, to kill my fears

to help me to leave all my blues behind.

 

for standin' in your heart,

is where i want to be, and i long to be,

ah, but i may as well try and catch the wind.

 

--donovan

will you still love me, when im no longer young and beautiful... listen.

 

**

 

quite a few different things going on here recently! firstly, i dont often reference music in my photos, but that line from lanas song immediately inspired me and ive wanted to create this image for months. i actually find aging to be quite beautiful, but with all the value placed on youth in our society there is certainly a lot to be said about losing that and trading in fresh skin and a perfect waistline for a certain beauty of the soul that only time can bring. beyond that, ill let the photo do the talking. :P

 

this was also only the second time ever i got to shoot in a studio environment with lighting equipment and everything - i was so incredibly excited! the first time was when i extremely new to photography, and i was so clueless that the whole experience was just rather frustrating. i think because of that, i was always turned off from the whole idea. who woulda known that 2 years later id feel so fulfilled from a day shooting in the studio. ;) i think its totally awesome to challenge yourself and always be trying new things. for a while ive been kinda stuck in the same ol' same ol' and sometimes that routine makes it difficult to truly feel inspired to create. i think its all fine and dandy to be doing what you -know- will work with your clients, because youve done it so many times before - just gotta be careful not to lose yourself and your ability to grow in the process.

 

anywhoooo i have one other shot that i posted up on facebook yesterday if you care to peek!

 

model is the incredible and breathtaking laura hess.

Jama Masjid, Delhi

 

The Masjid-i Jahān-Numā, (the 'World-reflecting Mosque'), commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is the principal mosque of Old Delhi in India. Commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, and completed in the year 1628 AD, it is the largest and best-known mosque in India. It lies at the origin of a very busy central street of Old Delhi, the Chawri Bazar Road.

 

The later name, Jama Masjid, is a reference to the weekly Friday noon congregation prayers of Muslims, Jummah, which are usually done at a mosque, the "congregational mosque" or "jāmi' masjid". The courtyard of the mosque can hold up to twenty-five thousand worshippers. The mosque also houses several relics in a closet in the north gate, including an antique copy of the Qur'an written on deer skin.

 

The foundation of the historic Jama Masjid was laid on a hillock in Shahjahanabad by fifth Mughal Emperor of India, Shahjahan, on Friday, October 19,1650 AD, (10th Shawwal 1060 AH). The mosque was the result of the efforts of over 5,000 workers, over a period of seven years.[1] The cost incurred on the construction in those times was 10 lakh (1 million) Rupees, and it was the same Emperor who also built the Taj Mahal, at Agra and the Red Fort, which stands opposite the Jama Masjid, which was finally ready in 1656 AD (1066 AH), complete with three great gates, four towers and two 40 m-high minarets constructed of strips of red sandstone and white marble. About 25,000 people can pray here at a time. The mosque has a vast paved rectangular courtyard, which is nearly 75 m by 66 m. The whole of the western chamber is a big hall standing on 260 pillars all carved from Hindu and Jain traditions. The central courtyard is accessible from the East. The Eastern side entrance leads to another enclosure containing the mausoleum of Sultan Ahmed Shah.

 

The mosque is about 22561 feet (8058m) long and 258258 inch feet (549 m) wide, and its roof is covered with eight domes with repated stripes of purple and white marble, with its lowermost parts covered with loasd. Two lofty minarets, 130 feet (41 m) high, and containing 130 steps, longitudinally striped with white marble and red sandstone, flank the domes on either side. The minarets are divided by three projecting galleries and are surmounted by open twelve-sided domed pavilions. On the back of the mosque, there are four small minarets crowned like those in the front.

 

Under the domes of the mosque, is a hall with seven arched entrances facing the west and the walls of the mosque, up to the height of the waist, are covered with marble. Beyond this is a prayer hall, which is about 61 meters X 27.5 meters, with eleven arched entrances, of which the centre arch is wide and lofty, and in the form of a massive gateway, with slim minarets in each corner, with the usual octagonal pavilion surmounting it. Over these arched entrances there are tablets of white marble, four feet (1.2 m) long and 2.5 feet (760 mm) wide, inlaid with inscriptions in black marble. These inscriptions give the history of the building of the mosque, and glorify the reign and virtues of Shah Jahan. The slab over the centre arch contains simply the words "The Guide!"

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama_Masjid,_Delhi

Chuck is one of the greatest shows on TV these days. Not a lot of people watch it, but its fanbase is a loyal one. The show is very heartfelt, hilarious, has great action, great soundtrack, fantastic plot, and it's sexy without being smutty. I especially love their sly pop culture references (e.g. Reginald VelJohnson, who played Sgt. Al Powell in the original Die Hard, recurring his role as Al Powell on an episode with a Christmas hostage situation... or their constant naming bad guys after villains from classic movies). It's been my family's favorite show since it premiered in 2007. It's a show that really just makes you feel good all over when you watch it. It never fails to please, and we would be devastated if it went off the air. But thanks to DVR's (and a great chunk of Chuck viewers are technology nerds, so it's to be expected), Nielson ratings are down, and the show IS in danger! So, Zachary Levi, star of the show, has started a campaign to save Chuck! Subway is Chuck's biggest sponsor. They even sneak the $5 Footlong jokes into the show whenever they can. So Zachary is asking everyone to go to Subway (biggest sponsor!!!) this Monday and order a $5 Footlong. It's a great, cheap, healthy lunch... so even if you're not a fan... why not go get one? Do it for me! And while you're there, drop a note in the suggestion box thanking Subway for sponsoring Chuck and asking them to help keep the show around! Also, if you can, please please please watch the Finale LIVE (NOT an hour later on DVR.... really, truly LIVE) this Monday night! And lastly, if you are a big fan, like me and my family, take the time to write some letters to the people in charge of it all.Now that you've read my summary of the situation, here are the details from www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vemFjaGFyeS1sZXZpLmNvbS8yMDA5...:

  

To Participate in the Finale and Footlong campaign I’m asking that fans…

1. Get the word out on this program. Lots of people want to help

Chuck, but may not have the time or inclination to write letters, but

the network will listen closer if we’re talking dollars.

2. Still, if you can…write letters to NBC & Universal telling

them why you think Chuck is great (Ben Silverman is Co-Chairman of NBC

and Angela Bromstad is with Primetime Programming). In that letter be

sure to mention that you’re going to be supporting Subway, one of

Chuck’s key sponsors by purchasing a $5 Footlong the evening of the

finale and that you’re spreading the word to convince more fans to do

the same…this is a way for non-Nielson fans to show their love of the

show by directly supporting one of Chuck’s key advertisers.

3. Write a thank you letter to Subway, letting them know what the fans

are trying to do here and thank them for their product placement spots

on Chuck.

4. Convert as many new fans as you can before the finale…we need the numbers.

5. On April 27th be sure to BUY A $5 FOOTLONG from Subway

and if possible, drop a note in the comment box at the franchise

letting them know you’re participating in the Finale and Footlong

campaign to save NBC’s Chuck, of which Subway is a product placement

sponsor.

6. Watch the finale LIVE if possible.

If you do nothing else…do the last two items on the list.

Again…the intent is to let the network and their sponsor know that

we’ve received their message. This is something a Nielson box can’t

do…this is a translation of fan loyalty into real dollars that NBC

& Subway can measure. Thanks for listening.

Addresses:

Bill Schettini

Subway - Chief Marketing Officer

325 Bic Drive

Milford, CT 06461

Ben Silverman

Co-Chairman NBC/Universal

3000 W. Alameda

Admin Building

Burbank, CA 91523

Angela Bromstad

President of Primetime Series NBC

100 Universal City Plaza

Bldg 1320, 4th Floor

Universal City, CA 91608

Sample Letters can be found HERE and HERE.

Big thanks to Wendy Farrington for this campaign!

Dear Margareta,

Its odd to think that our paths are crossing in and around a suitcase. To sift through the sheets of text you left behind in the case is quite a different experience from seeing images of them on John's blog. On the screen, the words are loose, their meanings hard to discern. In my hands, they come to life in a cryptic kaleidoscope of meanings. I've being trying to shuffle the sheets and put the words in order so as to build the narrative of what you left behind. But, of course, the stories defy me. Sometimes you break into a language I don't know, that must be yours, and mostly you keep me searching.

In strange, unseizable flashes, though, the meanings and references of what you indicate explode before me. All those words around airports and immigration I've known them all my life. So many flights, so many landings, so many departures and so many arrivals, so many tense, interminable pauses at immigration. While the officer looks closely at you and the papers you present. As if they must surely be fake. The colour of you skin, your hair and eyes all tell him so there are about a billion of you all wanting to come here from one country alone, arent there? And so he or she asks why you wish to live in the UK or how it is that you got your right of residence or how long you plan to stay or why you have not applied for naturalization as yet. As if everyone who wishes to live in the UK would have naturalized themselves by now! But for a split second your fears turn wild and you begin to doubt the authenticity of your own documents. Like when the sniffer dogs come round and graze your shin or when they ask you to wait on the side, seated on a sofa, or worse still, take you off to a separate room, one with glass walls that appear as mirrors on the outside, so no one can know that you are inside, and then take your passport and go off without saying why. Then... that moment of relief when the stamp comes down and he or she gestures asking you to move on. I have arrived! It’s only then that you dare text home to say you’ve landed. But still you wonder about those three Tamil guys you sat next to in that strange room and what happened to them.

So many other thoughts come tumbling out too. I recall that other man I once met on a border, who had no papers and got stopped. Who then lived for two and a half years in a makeshift camp for people like him. The illicit ones. The conversation with him was so predictable. Without papers. I want a better life. Stateless. Nowhere to go. What next? The same old story over and again. What else could we have talked about? He asked me to help him and I could not. Sister, do something, please help me if you can. I want to work. Make a good life. I could not. I could not help. You see, I didn’t bring myself to tell him. We were on two different sides of the border. Legal versus illegal. Who said when you went back to see him in a desperate bid to ease your conscience, ‘They give us food. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. But still I’m hungry. I’m always very hungry. I feel I haven’t eaten for two years because my food is rice. Here they give me only bread.’

Margareta, your words spark journeys. Real, imagined, broken ones. The road is never straight. It is scattered. Broken. Splintered… like our selves.

 

[Text by Parvati Nair, © 2008]

 

Try it here!

I had no idea what to do for today's SP....well, actually I didn't have much time for creativity... This morning I woke up to a car that wouldn't run... At first it looked like I need to replace the alternator...at $350+... I am also dealing with transmission problems. So the place that was looking into the alternator problem took the van over to the transmission place. At this time I do not know what the situation is with the transmission... but I do know that the alternator is alright... whew! But, let me tell you about my van... it is a 98 Dodge Caravan. I have had it since my son was 2 months old...he will be 8 next week... nearly 8 years I have had this van. In that 8 years this van has taken myself and my kids on a round trip vacation from Tennessee to Utah... and then it moved myself and my kids back to Utah in March of 2005 (wow, it is so hard to believe that it has almost been three years since I moved back to Utah). I don't recall exactly how many miles the van had on it when I bought it... something like 60,000... It now has 210,000+ miles on it. It has been a good van. A pretty reliable form of transportation. Many people ask me why I, a mother of only 2, drive a van. Well at the time I purchased it I actually had 4 kids in my family... I had 2 stepsons... we needed the space. Before I purchased my van, my oldest stepson would ask me what my dream car was...my answer was "a minivan". Seriously, it was my dream car... From the time I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter I wanted a minivan. So, yeah, my van has served its purpose and has served me well. In recent years I have put at least $2,000 dollars in it and I have said that if the transmission goes it will be time to say good bye. So today, without knowing the state of the transmission, I did go ahead and test drive some cars. I drove an Explorer (my current dream car) and a Fusion. I love both. I love the feeling of driving an SUV... the feeling of sitting higher... I do not care for the feeling of driving a car... that is until I drove the Fusion. My friend Greg just recently bought a Fusion, and I have thought it was nice to ride in...but wow! What a treat to drive one.... I love it. I do not feel like I am driving a car. The better gas mileage is a major plus...as is the fact that I can buy a newer (2007) Fusion with 5 year warranty for the same price that I can buy an older (2004) Explorer. Anyhow, I was able to drive the Fusion home for the next 2 days and get a real feel for it. Tomorrow I should hear about the transmission. If things are somewhat alright (meaning I can still drive it for a while longer before it completely goes out) I have the decision of whether to go ahead and get rid of the van or drive it to its death.... hmmm, a new car sounds so nice!

 

The title of this SP, "someone to look up to" is in reference to my mother. She has always been such a help to me... a major help in the past few years. When I called her and told her I was leaving my ex, she flew out to help me move...and let me tell you, if you need someone to help you move (especially in a hurry), it's my mom... she figured out ways to pack every square inch of that van... she stuffed clothing in empty spaces EVERYWHERE!!! She is there when I need her. I am very independent but it is nice to know that I can receive help from her when I need it. And today, she was able to come help me after school with getting around and going to the car dealership to look at cars. So this is to mom.... I love you. You are the greatest, you have gone through a lot in life and have never given up! I appreciate everything you are and everything you do. When I grow up, I want to be like you!

 

My mom is the smartest woman in the world in my eyes LOVE's to you MOM!!!

♫ A Fitting Tune ♫

  

Millie squinted as the sun's rays shot into her eyes. Tying off the man's hands, she whirled her horse about, reaching to pull the .44-40 Winchester from it's scabbard. Looking back, she watched the lawman look at her from the corner of his eye, as he began pleading for his life.

 

"Millie, you aint a bad sort. We've known each other a long time girl. Listen Millie, she's crazy! Aint there something we can do here. I could help you two girls! I could! Millie...Millie please! Talk to her dammit!"

 

Taking a draw from her cigarrette she pulled the lever back to chamber a bullet then looked back over at the Sheriff through her squinted eyes.

 

"Aint a damned thing I can do Sheriff. Besides, if what she says is true, then you're a horse thief. More than that, you pulled your gun on my friend and for that alone, I just as soon blow your head off as to take the time to hang your sorry ass."

 

She trotted her horse a few more feet away and spun the gelding around, still puffing on her cigarette.

 

"Naw Sheriff, I aint gonna do a damned thing, but sit here and watch you hang."

 

The man pulled at the rope that bound his wrist and when he did the burro he was sitting on took a step forward and snorted. The Sheriff's eyes widened with terror as he looked over at Ella.

 

"Ella! Don't do this! I was just foolin' about. I didn't mean it!"

 

Ella stared coldly at the man as she pulled the nickel plated Colt from it's holster and aimed it at the Arizona sky. Turning to look over at Millie, she said nothing, and gave the gunslinger a nod. Millie responded with a nod of her own. It was high time this affair was over. There was no turning back now and although Millie had once shared a bed with the handsome law man, he'd done what he'd done and nothing could change that. Besides, once Ella Dunn had her mind set on a thing there weren't much a body could do.

 

Sheriff Roscoe Prescott looked blankly watching the sun glare off the Colt's silver barrel, his face suddenly white with fear and the absolution that he was about to die. Desperately he tried once more to beg for his life.

 

"Please don't Ella! For God's sake Ella, I'll do whatever you want. I got kids Ella! Ella!"

 

The Colt's blast startled not only the donkey that held the sheriff inches from death but Millie's horse. Steadying the bay, she watched as the burro bucked it's way free. Roscoe didn't die immediately as his neck wasn't broken, and watching him kick and gag, the old worn rope cutting into his neck, she felt a little sorry for the man. Up until then they'd had little to no trouble out of Sheriff Prescott and were able to come and go and do as they pleased. He'd made a big mistake, a mistake he paid for with his life. But Millie couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was they who'd made the bigger mistake today as she watched the last ounce of life escape the man's body.

 

Gazing over at Ella she uncocked her rifle, sliding it back to where it belonged and pcked up on her reins.

 

"Well it's done Ella. Hope it was worth it."

 

Ella cast a hard glaring eye over at her friend as she reached for her hat and mounted the big stud.

 

"He took my horse Millie. What was I supposed to do?"

 

Millie looked across the open plains thinking for a moment, still squinting as the dust and sun burned her eyes. Turning her gaze back to Ella she grinned and shrugged.

 

"I suppose just what you did. That's all you could do. Now lets get to the saloon and get something to drink. I'm thirsty you highfalutin bitch!"

 

This made Ella laugh as it was just Millie's way and it was in reference of her coming from wealth.

They were killers but they were also pals and the day's events hadn't changed that.

 

Before they left Roscoe there hanging from the old tree, Ella nudged her horse toward him. Within inches of the body she pulled a piece of wood with a string attached to it she'd made with her knife. Millie watched as Ella hung the sign around the man's neck then gave her one last knowing smile as they both rode off.

 

As the dust cleared an old Mexican man eased his way from behind some rocks and watched the two bandits disappear into the horizon. Roscoe Prescott's lifeless body swung in the wind that rolled across the open grassland. The old man turned to look up, squinting and holding his hand up over his eyes. He tried to read the sign around the dead man's neck, but he couldn't make it out.

 

Vultures had already begain to circle above the man's corpse as the sun sunk behind the distant hills. So not being able to read the sign anyway, the old man took his burro's lead, shaking his head as he walked away into a large dust bowl that rolled across the desert floor.

 

A few months later, when poor Roscoe's body had decayed and nothing much else remained other than bones and the sheriff's sun bleached clothes, John Horton Slaughter rode up on the corpse.

 

"Well, lets just see what you did my friend." he said as he reached for the wooden sign hanging around the skeleton's neck. Wiping some of the dust off, he tilted his head a bit and read it aloud. "Hung for horse thievery"

 

Slaughter let go of the sign and looked at Roscoe Prescott's skull which had been pecked hundreds of times by vultures and crows. He gazed up at the sun, taking his wide brimmed hat off to wipe his brow then pulled the Stetson back in place.

 

"Well friend, if that's true I guess you got what you deserved."

 

With that, John Slaughter rode back to his herd and his men, continuing his drive to Charleston, where stood one of Ella Dunn and Millie Keller's safe houses.

  

We had a lot of fun doing this one. This was Harper Blackwood's creation and her story. This part of the story is written from my character Millie Keller's perspective. That said, I'd like to thank both she and Don Marcus for posing with me. You can view both thier versions of the same scene. Harper's vision and Don's vision

 

The XR-10 is a utility helicopter in service across Ayascara's armed forces. The helicopter uses two intermeshing, counterrotating rotors, powered by twin nacelle-mounted engines and connected via external driveshafts. First introduced by Kettle Autogyro Corporation in 1947, the helicopter was not an immediate success. Kettle was already struggling when it built the first XR-10 prototype, and many naysayers predicted the complex control systems for the interlocking blades would fail. However, despite two nasty crashes and a painfully long development cycle, Kettle somehow kept scraping together enough funds to keep the program going. With traditional autogyros rapidly becoming obsolete, the board knew they needed a revolutionary success to stay in business. Kettle was days away from bankruptcy when AAAF finally declared them the winner of the contract, by default, since no other manufacturers had submitted entries.

 

In this photo, a helicopter pilot has gotten lost and landed on the salt flats to ask for directions from four local militiamen. Also, John Travolta is here, since we watched Grease last night and I got too into building this and forgot to sleep. The reference photos for this came from Noa, and the cockpit came from a tablescrap Errin threw together last week, but this was essentially a one-night build.

This is the Southern Air Temple from Avatar The Last Airbender, and The Legend of Korra. Reference Picture

 

It is about 26 studs deep at it's thickest, and about 114 studs tall.

It was a long process building and refining this model, so special thanks to those tagged and many others who looked at my wips and gave helpful suggestions.

If you're interested, I do have some extra shots of the build linked bellow:

 

Side View

 

The Tower

 

The Base

 

Behind the Scenes

 

I also built the Northern Air Temple last year, if you haven't seen that already, you can check it out Here

 

The common candy-striped spider (Enoplognatha ovata) is called that way because the female has a longitudal pink stripe on a white and oval abdomen.

 

This one is a male, shot here on the white wallpaper in my bedroom where I found it and just looking at him, it is a bit hard to understand the name.

 

In Swedish, this is an äggspindel - an egg spider - named for that white and oval abdomen. The scientific name "ovata" literally means "oval", but the connection to "ovulate" and "ovary" points to the egg association there as well.

 

Shots of the spider after I had let it out here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52402577568/

 

and here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52412449862/

 

I also snapped a shot of it next to my finger as a size reference here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52610458011/

 

A shot of a female showing part of that candy-stripe here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/39083449845/

www.ywt.org.uk/reserves/kilnsea-wetlands-nature-reserve

  

This new nature reserve has been created to compensate for habitat being lost nearby on the eroding Holderness coastline.

 

Update: Footpath works from the Kilnsea Wetlands car park to the hide are due to start week commencing the 11th July. These works are being conducted by Environment Agency to improve the surface of the path. The intention of the works is to test a small test area to see how the additional material binds, if satisfactory the works will continue along the rest of the path. The footpath will be closed for approximately 5 days from Monday 11th July.

   

Kilnsea Wetlands is intended to provide refuge for passage and wintering roosting waders that leave the adjacent Humber mudflats at high tide to roost. Golden and grey plovers, knot, dunlin, sanderling and bar-tailed godwit should all benefit from this safe refuge. A variety of habitats will provide the conditions needed to support these birds, but this will take a number of years to reach its full potential.

 

Freshwater and saline pools with islands and spits and wet grassland with seasonal scrapes will provide this site with roosting and feeding locations, but also hopefully he right conditions in the spring for breeding oystercatcher, ringed plover and lapwing.

  

Top Tip:

  

A visit in autumn or winter will give you a chance to see large numbers of roosting waders which this site has been specifically designed for. Check the tides to coincide your visit with high tide and you’re likely to see greater numbers.

  

Engineering is only the start of this process – the nature reserve is to be managed in a sustainable manner using local livestock. This location is one of the driest parts of the UK, and without the ability to bring water on to the site from surrounding areas, functionality of the habitat will rely very much on rainfall and groundwater levels.

 

Farmland birds including corn bunting and tree sparrow may well use the nature reserve as it develops. In time the grassland should become established and we hope this will provide some botanical value and interest, in turn supporting a host of insects including dragonflies.

 

Salt-tolerant plant species such as spiral tassel weed may well find a home here too.

 

A hide, viewing screen, and off road parking, long with a footpath route through the nature reserve leading to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Blue Bell Cafeé in Kilnsea mean this site is ideal for a visit

   

Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife

 

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife book, which has detailed information on all of Yorkshire Wildlife and Sheffield Wildlife Trust’s reserves, is available to buy now from our online shop.

  

Public Transport

 

The Spurn Ranger bus from Hull stops in Kilnsea.

  

Directions

 

Approach Kilnsea on Easington Road. The car park is on your left just after you go over the left hand bend which rises over Long Bank and before you reach Kilnsea village.

  

Other information

 

There is a dipping platform available for arranged visits. Please do not walk along Long Bank to the north of the nature reserve to avoid flushing the birds. Paths are unsurfaced. Toilets are located in Kilnsea.

  

Reserve information

 

Location

Easington Road

Kilnsea

East Yorkshire

HU12 0UD

 

Map reference

TA 405 167

  

Great for...

 

a family day out

birdwatching

overwintering birds

  

Opening Times

 

Open at all times.

  

Facilities

 

Cafe

Toilets

  

Size

 

35.00 hectares

  

Access

Yes

 

Contact the Trust for disabled access information. Toilets are located in Kilnsea.

 

Walking information

Paths are unsurfaced.

 

Parking

yes

 

Dogs

Dogs must be on lead

 

Grazing animals

The nature reserve is to be managed sustainably using local livestock.

 

Reserve manager

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Tel: 01904 659570

info@ywt.org.uk

If you would like to view some of my earlier shots of Echinacea, please click "here"

 

Echinacea is a genus, or group of herbaceous flowering plants in the daisy family. The Echinacea genus has nine species, which are commonly called purple coneflowers. They are found only in eastern and central North America, where they are found growing in moist to dry prairies and open wooded areas. They have large, showy heads of composite flowers, blooming from early to late summer. These flowering plants and their parts have different uses. Some species are cultivated in gardens for their showy flowers. Echinacea purpurea is used in folk medicine. Two of the species, E. tennesseensis and E. laevigata, are listed in the United States as endangered species. Echinacea species are herbaceous, drought-tolerant perennial plants growing up to 140 cm or 4 feet, in height. They grow from taproots, except E. purpurea, which grows from a short caudex with fibrous roots. They have erect stems that in most species are unbranched. Both the basal and cauline (stem) leaves are arranged alternately. The leaves are normally hairy with a rough texture, having uniseriate trichomes (1-4 rings of cells) but sometimes they lack hairs. The basal leaves and the lower stem leaves have petioles, and as the leaves progress up the stem the petioles often decrease in length. The leaf blades in different species may have one, three or five nerves. Some species have linear to lanceolate leaves, and others have elliptic- to ovate-shaped leaves; often the leaves decrease in size as they progress up the stems. Leaf bases gradually increase in width away from the petioles or the bases are rounded to heart shaped. Most species have leaf margins that are entire, but sometimes they are dentate or serrate. The flowers are collected together into single rounded heads at the ends of long peduncles. The inflorescences have crateriform to hemispheric shaped involucres which are 12–40 mm wide. The phyllaries, or bracts below the flower head, are persistent and number 15–50. The phyllaries are produced in a 2–4 series. The receptacles are hemispheric to conic. The paleae (chaffs on the receptacles of many Asteraceae) have orange to reddish purple ends, and are longer than the disc corollas. The paleae bases partially surrounding the cypselae, and are keeled with the apices abruptly constricted to awn-like tips. The ray florets number 8–21 and the corollas are dark purple to pale pink, white, or yellow. The tubes of the corolla are hairless or sparsely hairy, and the laminae are spreading, reflexed, or drooping in habit and linear to elliptic or obovate in shape. The abaxial faces of the laminae are glabrous or moderately hairy. The flower heads have typically 200-300 fertile, bisexual disc florets but some have more. The corollas are pinkish, greenish, reddish-purple or yellow and have tubes shorter than the throats. The pollen is normally yellow in most species, but usually white in E. pallida. The three or four-angled fruits (cypselae), are tan or bicolored with a dark brown band distally. The pappi are persistent and variously crown-shaped with 0 to 4 or more prominent teeth. x = 11. Like all members of the sunflower family, the flowering structure is a composite inflorescence, with rose-colored (rarely yellow or white) florets arranged in a prominent, somewhat cone-shaped head – "cone-shaped" because the petals of the outer ray florets tend to point downward (are reflexed) once the flower head opens, thus forming a cone. Plants are generally long lived, with distinctive flowers. The common name "cone flower" comes from the characteristic center "cone" at the center of the flower head. The generic name Echinacea is rooted in the Greek word ἐχῖνος (echinos), meaning hedgehog, it references the spiky appearance and feel of the flower heads.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Iowa Interstate 6988, aka the "Iowa Bolt" in reference to it's new paint job, thunders through "Rattlesnake Hollow" in Hopewell, Illinois. This was the second of five excursions out of Chillicothe on IAIS's Peoria Branch on the first day of the 2019 steam excursions. 6988 is one of two Chinese-built QJ-class 2-10-2 steam locomotive that Iowa Interstate acquired in 2006. Although it's dry here at this time, the clouds are already moving in and in a few hours, long-duration rains would turn the gentle creek here into a raging torrent. This day began a series of heavy rains that would eventually cause a washout along the Peoria line later in the month, in addition to the already wet Spring that would force most Midwest farmers to delay their planting season until the end of June.

Zafra castle

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About

 

Finally some new work!

 

Today I spent the morning with some good friends, shooting some new locations. The weather was looking OK, we knew we'd get some rain, it was a matter of when not if.

 

Dark storm clouds were forming just as the tide was turning.

 

Enjoy.

 

- Canon 5d MK II

- ISO 100, f18, 18 seccods, 20mm.

- Canon 17-40 f/4 L lens.

- Hoya ND 400, and Cokin p121 Grad.

- Tripod.

 

Processing

 

- Contrast and Saturation in Lightroom 3.0.

 

Video

 

See a short video from the shoot this morning. Filmed by local photographer Matthew Stewart. www.youtube.com/user/matthewstewartphoto/

 

About the Tide

 

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth.

 

Most places in the ocean usually experience two high tides and two low tides each day (semidiurnal tide), but some locations experience only one high and one low tide each day (diurnal tide). The times and amplitude of the tides at the coast are influenced by the alignment of the Sun and Moon, by the pattern of tides in the deep ocean and by the shape of the coastline and near-shore bathymetry.

 

Most coastal areas experience two high and two low tides per day. The gravitational effect of the Moon on the surface of the Earth is the same when it is directly overhead as when it is directly underfoot. The Moon orbits the Earth in the same direction the Earth rotates on its axis, so it takes slightly more than a day—about 24 hours and 50 minutes—for the Moon to return to the same location in the sky. During this time, it has passed overhead once and underfoot once, so in many places the period of strongest tidal forcing is 12 hours and 25 minutes. The high tides do not necessarily occur when the Moon is overhead or underfoot, but the period of the forcing still determines the time between high tides.

 

The Sun also exerts on the Earth a gravitational attraction which results in a (less powerful) secondary tidal effect. When the Earth, Moon and Sun are approximately aligned, these two tidal effects reinforce one another, resulting in higher highs and lower lows. This alignment occurs approximately twice a month (at the full moon and new moon). These recurring extreme tides are termed spring tides. Tides with the smallest range are termed neap tides (occurring around the first and last quarter moons).

 

Tides vary on timescales ranging from hours to years due to numerous influences. To make accurate records, tide gauges at fixed stations measure the water level over time. Gauges ignore variations caused by waves with periods shorter than minutes. These data are compared to the reference (or datum) level usually called mean sea level

 

While tides are usually the largest source of short-term sea-level fluctuations, sea levels are also subject to forces such as wind and barometric pressure changes, resulting in storm surges, especially in shallow seas and near coasts.

 

Tidal phenomena are not limited to the oceans, but can occur in other systems whenever a gravitational field that varies in time and space is present. For example, the solid part of the Earth is affected by tides.

We were in the Arctic Circle for six nights, but by the third night we had pretty much resigned ourselves to returning home without any photos of the Northern Lights. The forecast was bleak, and even on the one night that we caught some breaks in the clouds, the aurora activity was pretty low. I know some people in my group were disappointed, and that was true for me as well. I mean, the landscape in the Lofoten Islands is amazingly beautiful, but the Northern Lights would have been the photo/life experience icing on the cake.

 

Well, on the last night, with a 5:30am departure time looming and some visible breaks in the clouds, three of us (half of the group) set out at 10pm to find and shoot the lights. We tried a few spots we had shot during daytime, but the lights were faint and the compositions were unsatisfying. Eventually we found a spot that would allow us to take advantage of some great natural features AND water reflections. As the night wore on the sky continued to clear, and pretty soon we were enjoying the most incredible spectacle of nature I've ever seen, and we were doing it with an amazing mountain backdrop overlooking the calm waters of a fjord. Bright, intense green rivers of light flowed across the sky, occasionally punctuated by coronal auroras, where the light appeared to shower down from one spot in the sky. At other times we saw the lights take the shape of curtains, even undulating the way real curtains do in a gentle breeze. And sometimes the lights were so intense and fast-moving that we had to quickly adjust our camera settings to compensate.

 

It was a special night for sure. If you've never seen the Northern Lights it may be difficult to understand how magical and majestic they can be. I've tried to convey it with this photo, although seeing them in person should be on everyone's bucket list. No matter what, a photo will never convey the full experience. I thought the Northern Lights I saw this past summer in Michigan were impressive, but I had NO IDEA how absolutely amazing a full-on wintertime northern latitude aurora event could be. As far as our departure schedule was concerned, we were collectively starting to get nervous about making the 45-min drive back to our cabin AND have enough time to finish packing our bags for the trip home. But every time we decided we were packing up, Mother Nature would send another salvo of lights across the sky, almost as if she was trying to keep us from leaving. At 4am we finally packed up and quickly sped back to meet the rest of the group back at the cabin for the ride to the ferry back to the mainland. We made it and I even had time to down a cup of coffee before leaving for the ferry.

 

I think this may be the longest photo description I've ever posted, but it was an unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime experience, and if that doesn't deserve a few hundred words, what does?

 

-Lorenzo

 

p.s. For reference, here's what the aurora looked like from much farther south this past summer: www.flickr.com/photos/22461382@N00/9769137855

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Thank you for stopping by. In case you got here as a result of a search for HDR and/or Nikon D800 photos:

  

> All my HDR photos can be found here.

  

> All my D800 photos are right here.

  

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There are a few things going on this image which may not be immediately apparent to the viewer, but having been so intimately involved in the process of creating this photograph, I have some insight on to share. If you are a regular follower of my feed, you'll likely know I do a lot of long exposure work. As in, super long. Typically I work with at least a 9 stop ND filter but often combine it with a second or go to a standalone 15 stop ND. Over the years, and thousands of photos, I have learned that film responds in some unusual ways when such strong ND filters get combined. Color film is not terribly IR sensitive, so the fact that my filters don't have IR-blocking coatings on them seems less like the issue. My working theory is that these filters pass more UV light than visible light and color film does have sensitivity that dips into the UV end of the spectrum. So in a sense I am getting some degree of UV over-exposure. The non-technical way of describing this is that my super long exposure color photography can get some funky colors to it. At first I worked to correct this back to "normal", with "normal" of course merely being the subjective benchmark I applied based on how my eyes and brain saw the world. Over time though I became less interested in normal. Part of that is because I don't need the photos to show me normal. I can see that with my own eyes. Rather, I enjoy seeing the alternative perspectives. What does the world look like if one can see a bit farther into UV, for example. The second thing going on is I am using a new color film put out by Silberra. I have not shot much of this film, so its behaviors and qualities is still unexplored ground for me. And I do like my unexplored ground. And lastly, I am always a bit fascinated at our own brain's ability to adapt to changing color temperatures and filter them back to what we call normal. This image was made late into sunset, and while the clouds were getting painted with some nice light, the beach itself had descended into a deep blue dusk. I couldn't see this blue of course because of the aforementioned workings of my brain. In fact, the beach looked more like it does in this photo, with a neutral sandy color, but reference photos made on my phone with the white balance set to daylight showed me the blue.

 

That is the backdrop for this photo. Once scanned I started doing some light processing to it, mostly cleaning up dust marks or the occasional film scratch. I balanced the exposure across the scene a bit but largely didn't touch the color too much other than some global corrections. And this image is the result. The colors that came out are a bit surreal. It is a subtle surrealism for sure, no crazy juxtapositions going on here, but one I enjoy.

 

Hasselblad 500C

Silberra Color 50

As with Wiltshire in the UK, Kilmartin Glen in Scotland, and Almendres in Portugal, the small fishing village of Carnac in Brittany's sheltered Bay of Quiberon is a worldwide reference for when people and place gathered in an uncomfortably empty term - 'Prehistory': here active and present between 7000 and 6000 years ago.

 

There are a number of questions that are carried along the procession of greater Carnac and Morbihan sites like banners of demands:

 

What were the alignments for, and why were they put here in this specific geography - over 3000 standing stones in around a square kilometre.

 

Why so many giant cairns (long barrows), and what was their function in their history and culture? The local examples of Saint Michel (125m x 50 x 10m), Gavrinis (pictured in this section) 50m diameter and 7m high, and 'du Ruyk' (across the water from Gavrinis) and 100m x 60 x 15m. And on the second claw to the entrance into the Morbihan bay the 50m diameter Cairn Petit Mont.

 

Why are there so many long dolmens (allée couverte) and what was their relation to the giant cairns?

 

Why such similarity, and why the great variety between specific examples?

 

And, what were the pertroglyphs of Gavrinis representing and communicating? - pictured in this post.

 

Whilst this short section of posts looks at the smallest glimpse of the greater 'Carnac' area, I will try to answer the questions from the point of view of my research, so issues of 'Transport Dragons' and 'havans' will shock the new and nod the weary. Rushing to 'hold all' explanations that employ causal vague concept simplicities like 'religion', 'burial', 'shaman', and 'violence' will be avoided, even if the infuence of each word does have a measure. All of these markers split page after page of texts on prehistory and the reader is welcome to compare and contrast.

 

Whilst I have been lucky enough to spend time visiting sites in the UK and other regions of France, most of my research work circles me around the Pyrenees mountains, and most of my ideas come from these regular field trips. Many of my memories of Carnac are from repeat summer weeks as a child in Kerlescan pulling on school plimsoles and playing between the alignment stones with other children from adresses like 'here' and 'there'. These years certainly made me greatly relaxed around megaliths, even if todays dedicated research came from another source.

 

The reader will judge for themselves, and I hope that the beauty of the original and manicured Neolithic works will stand alone from my modest photography.

 

AJ

I had a sensation of time lapse as this massive cloud formation lumbered overhead in the wake of a strong thunderstorm. It wasn't so much the speed of motion, but the feeling of inexorability. Sort of like standing on the banks of a rain swollen river, realizing that nothing is going to stop the water from going where it is going. The best time lapse videos always include something stationary to provide a point of reference. As I stood here, I realized I was the stationary object, at least for a few moments. There was an eerie quality to the whole experience. That feeling overcomes me sometimes when I realize that I am witnessing something that seems much larger than me, and particularly when I'm in some desolate location totally alone. It's exciting but simultaneously scary. The inevitable metaphor here was the passage of time, and it's becoming an ever increasing concern for me. Days pass into weeks, then months and it's all becoming a blur. Like when warp drive kicks in during a space film and the individual points of light emitted by stars become streaks. August was a prime example; it seems to me the shortest month. Due in part because its the last full month of summer and I realize that warm weather and the long daylight are slipping away. Another birthday looms around the corner, and they've become decidedly less celebratory and more worrisome. The moment of darkness (both in thought and reality) was broken as the clouds began to part to allow a glint of the setting sun. The contrast was exquisite.

Most spiders don't enjoy the indoor climate here very much. It is generally way to dry for them and even though they might be drawn to the warmer temperatures, the low humitidy will kill them (with some exceptions).

 

The common candy-striped spider (Enoplognatha ovata) like this male are definitely better off outside so when I found him on a wall inside I swiftly relocated him to the garden - and took a couple of shots of course!

 

The "candy stripe" part of the name is a reference to the female which is a paler colour with a pinkish-red stripe along the abdomen.

 

Part 1 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/52402577568/

My Photo Site

  

If you've listened to any music in the last fifty years, anyway.

 

There may be other reasons to visit ... a meal or stay at the stately La Posada Hotel comes to mind... but Winslow was certainly put on the map by the reference in the Eagles' song "Take It Easy" in 1972.

 

Here's the corner, complete with the reflection of the girl "in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me". There is a red Ford actually parked on the street, but the "reflection" is really a mural. It's called "Standin' On the Corner Park" and it opened in 1999; a 2004 fire destroyed most of this building, but the front of it was saved. Earlier photos showed four windows on the second floor (instead of the two seen here, although edges for the other two are faintly visible) and an eagle in the now-missing one on the far left. Not sure if that was destroyed in the fire or not, but it's clearly no longer here.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standin%27_on_the_Corner_Park

 

Just out of view on the right is a statue of Glenn Frey, the co-writer of "Take It Easy" and the lead vocalist in the Eagles' song. It was erected a few months after his death in 2016.

 

EDIT: Regarding the "missing" windows... A Google revealed that this entire scene is a mural, not just the first floor. Still don't know why windows 1 & 3 were painted over. By looking at older photos, I learned that this happened recently - sometime between October, 2016, and February, 2017. ???

Here is another recent shot of a Short-eared Owl on the Peak District moors. The heavy eye make-up reminds me of Siouxsie Sioux (of Siouxsie and the Banshees) but I suspect that reference is a bit old and niche now www.flickr.com/photos/truusbobjantoo/49361281442/in/photo... Maybe Daryl Hannah's character "Pris" in the film Blade Runner but that is also old and niche. Back to the owl, this shows the heavy tail barring characteristic of Short-eared Owl, which is less boldly barred in the similar Long-eared. It also shows the dark wing tip which is much paler with a few bars in Long-eared. The only shot I have which shows the tail and wing tip in Long-eared Owl for comparison was taken ten years ago: www.flickr.com/photos/timmelling/19019371992/in/photolist

Taking some time off SL to get my head straight about a few things. Lack of motivation/frustration has caused this more than any other single event I think. My main focus now will be my SL memoirs which will detail from my very first day of being rezzed, to the highs and lows I have experienced along with anectdotes about the personalities I have met along the way. So you can either be afraid or rest easy as I won't lie or bullshit about anyone, I will do as I always have, and that is tell it like it is. Who knows if I will be satisfied enough with it to try get it published, but I can assure you right now, it will be a decent read as I have done so much in my time on SL, and to quote someone close to me "you are the jaded of the jaded" (in reference of my time on SL). I have a few ideas I am going to implement and research before I come back.Uninstalled the standard client and RC viewer today and don't know when I will be back. Might be short term or long term, I am still unsure yet. Time for me to lap up this Summer weather instead of being a recluse sitting on SL all day. Miss all of those important to me already but you all know how I feel about you. Will keep my status updated on here or I might just appear in world one day.

This view shows the south side of the 200 block of E. Washington St. in downtown Bloomington, two blocks west of the Old Courthouse Square. The two buildings on our immediate left were designed by architect A. T. Simmons. Simmons designed the Lafayette Apartments posted earlier in this series, but is probably best known for his more than 71 Carnegie libraries in Illinois and a dozen other states, along with numerous courthouses, schools, churches and other public buildings. Simmons also designed most of the houses in the Cedar Crest Historic District of Normal, Illinois, the other half of the twin municipalities of Bloomington and Normal.

 

The building with the Paxtons name over its entrance was the first of the two buildings to be constructed. Known as the C. U. Williams & Son Building, the four-story building was constructed as an automobile showroom, garage and lodge hall. Called “the largest in any city of Bloomington’s size,” this impressive steel-frame and brick edifice was testament to the coming automobile age. Of particular note are the large second-story showroom windows designed to display twice as many cars from the street.

 

According to the McLean County Museum of History, and his son Walter sold the latest models from early automakers, including E-M-F, Chalmers, Moon, Stearns, Studebaker, Willys-Overland and Woods (the latter known for its electric cars). "The manufacturers that we are representing are all old and well-established houses - there cars are long past the experimental stage," was a C. U. Williams & Son promise.

 

About four years after opening his automobile showroom, Williams commissioned A. T. Simmons to design the Castle Theatre next door. Upon its completion, Williams used the upper floors above the theater for garage space. Both buildings had freight elevators large enough to accommodate the cars of the day.

 

In later years an office equipment company by the name of Paxtons occupied the C. U. Williams & Son Building. It is now the home of the legal offices of Wylder Corwin Kelly LLP, trial lawyers specializing in medical malpractice.

 

The Castle Theatre opened January 24, 1916 as a 1,100-seat movie theatre. It was Bloomington's first real movie palace, and remained a popular Bloomington movie theater until 1988. The Castle Theatre reopened in 2003 after a much-needed restoration as a “brew and view” style first-run movie house but was closed again in January 2007. A church, which has used the theater for Sunday morning services since 2005, continued to meet at the Castle Theatre until late-2010. New owners took over and it is now used as a concert venue.

 

Both the C. U. Williams & Son Building and the Castle Theatre are contributing architectural properties in the Bloomington Central Business District listed in 1985 on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The district includes roughly twelve square blocks of the city and encompasses 140 buildings, 118 of which are contributing buildings to the district's historic character.

 

Bloomington is the seat of McLean County. It is adjacent to Normal, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area. Bloomington is home to State Farm Insurance, Country Financial and Beer Nuts. Illinois Wesleyan University is located here, while the neighboring city of Normal is home to Illinois State University and Heartland Community College. Bloomington is 135 miles (217 km) southwest of Chicago, and 162 miles (261 km) northeast of St. Louis. The estimated population of Bloomington in 2019 was 77,330, with a metro population of 191,067.

Large on white looks is worth a look - view the entire Lightning set

 

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Tonight it was Mother Nature steeling the show completely. It just couldn't be missed or overlooked. Oh boy, I've got a great series out of this thunderfest! I knew it was coming and I waited for these moment whole day long. Pure excitement and pure visual violence as storm gathered overhead, sideways and in front or me. No shelter in these open fields but the car, which is quite typical in this part of the Netherlands. Multiple exposure times were made, varying from 10 to 100 seconds, and most of them are filled with big fat lightening bolts.

 

However, the excitement changed into the urge for precaution because this stuff should be taken seriously. More so because I heard on the radio that a woman got struck and killed by lightning of today. For this reason I want to dedicate this one to her and her family.

 

Also I guess I saw some shorter form of a ball lightning this evening, but I'm not sure because I have no reference, unfortunately. I guess that would be the ultimate goal to capture such a scarce event. The only reference of a ball lightning - or fireballs if you like - I know came from a a student back in 1987. However, I've heard and seen several stories along with some evidence of fireballs entering houses, schools and churches and craters in gardens caused by this yet unknown event.

 

Anyway, if you ever decide to go outside shooting lightning, here's an informative site about 1.21 Gigawatts!": The Real Facts About Lightning

 

More about lightning on this Wikipedia page.

 

Explore #8 on 2009-08-20 Thank you so much.

 

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I saw on-line a reference to something called, "The Biggest Week In American Birding" which runs from

May 7 to May 16. This got me thinking that perhaps I should do a little birding of my own here in northern Canada. This is one of a number of bird related photographs which I have taken this week in and around Whitehorse in southern Yukon. I don't have the worlds longest lens, that's for sure; but a little practice, and the careful application of stealth seems to go a long way.

 

This is a Wilson's Warbler, which has been visiting my yard over the past few days..

 

Photo taken with the Canon EOS R and EF400mm f/5.6 mounted to a suitably heavy tripod with a ballhead. The finished image was processed from raw using DxO PhotoLab 4.2.

Early morning frost covers this leaf and car roof. The leaf, in brief repose before the wind picks up, has no idea of any journey it's on. From tree to car roof, to wherever the breeze takes it, the leaf remains unaware. Gravity will bring it down somewhere again—to the leaves piling in the yard, to a fence thirty feet away, to the next neighborhood over. That's the way of leaves, to go where the wind takes them, unaware of any force acting upon them.

 

I didn't remember I'd even taken the picture until I opened the file a week or so later, had forgotten the single leaf resting on the car roof, the frost, the wind, the leaf's disappearance. I'd kept my internal shutter open for too long, and the leaf just blew through in a blur. Like too much of life, perhaps. Better up the speed on that internal shutter, don't you think? But as the poet says, that's the paradox of our life, only "Aware of something the moment that we miss it."

 

The quotation comes from a poem called "The Shires" by an English poet, John Fuller. He's taken thirty-nine shires (English counties)—perhaps that's all there are—and in alphabetical order written a six-line stanza for each and titled each stanza with a shire's name. The one I've quoted from is called "Oxfordshire," the whole of which follows:

 

Oxfordshire

 

The kingfisher has long flown. Along the Cherwell

The biscuit of bridge and college wall is blank

Of its image, but with a passing presence

Like a photograph taken with an open shutter.

This, we reflect, is just the sense of our life,

Aware of something the very moment that we miss it.

 

by John Fuller

 

If you wish, you may enjoy at your leisure the whole of "The Shires" here.

 

(For Poetography, Theme 99—Reflect; Literary References in Pictures)

  

This is out of character, normally I wouldn't even be adding a description, but this seemed worthy of one.

 

This was one of those happy accidents that occur every once in a while and shake me out of a rut. I often get way too obsessive over rules and patterns, I can't help it, that's the normal way my brain functions. Fortunately, the wires get crossed sometimes and it shuts down long enough for something more interesting to take over. That's what happened tonight. I shut off a layer I was working on and voila--this happened. I added a little shadow and some photo corners to finish it off, but I really just like what's going on.

 

There's something about the self-reference here that really appeals to me.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day." - Shakespeare's Henry V St. Crispin's Day speech.

 

When I got my Henry V figure from KTown I immediately thought of Shakespeares St. Crispins Day speech from his play Henry V. It is probably the most inspiring speech that never happened, which is why for 400 years it has been referenced over and over again. I also covered the Battle of Agincourt in a previous post so I'm not going to type a long description about it. I will not likely do a revamp of it either since I have other plans related to the 100 years war. If you know, you know. Agincourt wasn't the only battle Henry fought in so he might make another appearance in a future post. Until then, hope you guys enjoy!

 

My entry to the Summer Joust 2021 "Atmosphere" Category.

for nothing left to lose...

 

Before you decide in your mind that it isn't, it is. :)

 

Yeah, it really is Janis Joplin.

She actually looks fairly attractive here, which, she was not known for being.

This is a very good likeness to that particular photograph, believe that or not. :) (The soft rose color may may enhance her femininity, it seems to)

 

I remember that when I saw the photograph that I used for reference that it didn't look like the Janis that I know.

Unfortunately I no longer have that (printed image) photograph to show.

 

Recently I looked all over Google Images for this image, I never found it, but, I did find some that were very similar.

So, there are photographs of her being nice looking, especially before she got famous, I saw videos of her and she didn't look that 'rough', if you know what I mean.

So, from what I saw while searching, she was more than likely about 20 when this was taken.

 

Anyway, done in pencil from a small picture that I found in a T.V. guide.

 

Here's a picture of her when she still looked 'pretty good'.

gardenandgun.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Janis-book-72...

  

At 90' (27.4 m), Williamsport Falls claims to be the highest free-falling waterfall in Indiana. Without a point of reference, this photo does not really portray the height of the falls as well as I would have liked. Still, it's a beautiful setting right in the middle of the little town of Williamsport, Indiana. I've read that the falls are often dry. I was a little hesitant to go out of my way to visit here, because I didn't want to drive out of my way to see a dry waterfall. However, I lucked out and while no one will confuse this with Yosemite Falls, it's still worth a visit! See gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/williamsport.shtml

Previously in Chapter 5 Madness

 

♫ Belraak Library Ambience ♫

 

⚜️"Yes you do!" Tabitha Kinkade exclaimed as she walked around the large oak desk.

 

"You're mistaken Ms Tabitha." Lexington retorted.

 

With that he returned to one of Sir William Kinkade's journals and continued his reading.

 

⚜️The mammoth library offered a vast array of books and scrolls that might aid them in their quest to learn more about the mysterious insignia. Over the years Tabitha's parents, Sir William and Lady Samantha, had collected every known book about the beast they hunted. Werewolves, Vampires, and Demons all. The Belraak Castle Library boasted the most extensive collection of books on the occult, witchcraft, necromancy, demonology, and satanism. Even books on the paranormal and ghost resided on these shelves. Also every religion known to man was represented in the library's collection. But perhaps the most important documents here were the scrolls that contained the Kinkade's extensive research through the centuries.

 

"Whether you realize it or not you are doing it Lex dear. I promise."

 

"My Lady I would never jeopardize a hunt by allowing myself to engage in such an improper eccentricity as, humming. And before a fight no less!"

 

⚜️As their banter echoed, a refined old gentleman made his way into the expansive library. He was slender and wore a dark pressed suite. His name was Augustus Joubert and over the years, while in service to the Kinkade family, his youth had faded away. Quietly approaching the pair, he mumbled softly to himself and shook his head.

 

"Lexington I never said....Ahh, here he is. Augustus! Augustus, can you help me please? Lex and I are having a disagreement, but I believe you can clear this up. Now firstly..."

 

The old man shook his head and raised his hand as she spoke. "Please Ms. Tabitha! I know better than to get pulled into squabbles between you and Master Lexington."

 

Tabitha gasped, covering her chest with her hand. Augustus! I can't believe you'd leave me alone with my own defenses in this matter. After all, I am correct. And I'm quite sure you'd be in accordance with me on this little dispute."

 

Barely looking up from the journals, Lexington responded. "You don't have to trouble yourself, Augustus; she's just trying to pull you into her web."

 

Looking at them both, Augustus sighed and graciously bowed his head. For he was well aware of the Kinkade tenacity. "Well yes, I suppose I could try to help Ms. Tabitha? "

 

Tabitha clapped joyously, intent on her never wavering teasing of Lexington. "Very good! Well, it's not really a matter up for debate, Augusutus. It's really just a matter of what's factual and what's not. That said, does he or does he not begin to hum when he's feeling anxious about something?"

 

As Augustus fumbled with a sutable response Tabitha leaned over to whisper, but not so low that Lexington could not hear. "You see, the great werewolf hunter hums before our fights."

 

Lexington suddenly stood up, banging the book on the desk, shouting, "I do not!"

 

Tabitha gasped again, then snickered a bit as she patted poor Augustus on the shoulder. "Don't worry, he's a kitten. I assure you."

 

Augustus looked up at Tabitha as she grinned at him, then he looked over at Lexington and slowly began to pick his words.

 

"Well....Master Lexington, while I realize you've become a great hunter, I have known you since the first day you arrived at Belraak Castle with Sir William. And in that time, it's become well known that indeed, you may very well hum, just a bit, when you're anxious or anticipating something."

 

At this point, Lexington sat back down and held the book in front of his face, much like a little boy might who didn't want to listen any more.

 

Desiring to soften the blow, poor Augustus continued to speak slowly. "But it's not a sign of weakness Master Lexington. In fact, we've all come to think of it as a sort of trait of yours that's well, it's just your way, sir."

 

At this point, Augustus was sure he heard Lexington begin to hum. He covered his face in dismay and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Ms. Tabitha, but you asked and.. Oh Master Lex, can you forgive a tired old man?!"

 

Suddenly, Lex looked up from the book, smiling at Tabitha and began to laugh. Tabitha burst out as well, both running to Augustus.

 

Augustus jumped back startled, then realizing they were teasing him all along, began to chuckle as they both gave the old man a hug and apologized. Lexington spoke first, "Apologies Mister Joubert. However, this little raillery was all Ms. Tabitha's doing, I can assure you. "

 

Tabitha looked at Lexington in shock, smiling when she poked him in the arm which caused them all to laugh again.

 

Tabitha gave the old man another hug and gleamed. "Oh Augustus, you are precious! I apologize for pulling you into that, my dear friend. Forgive me please. "

 

Augustus smiled as he always did, then pinched her cheek tenderly, "No need, Ms. Tabitha. I'm quite accustomed to your lively teasing by now. "

 

⚜️These were the times Tabitha loved the most with her family. And they were all family at the castle. Each had their own duties, but Tabitha's parents had long ago taught her to be respectful of the staff at the castle. For many who resided at Belraack had been there since before Tabitha was born and, as such, had had a hand in raising her. Augustus had been like a grandfather to her, and she relied heavily on his sound judgement and advice as well as his knowledge.

 

As they all began to catch their breath and the lauging turned into loving smiles, the old butler turned, picking up the platter he'd brought down to the library.

 

"Will that be all, my lady, or shall I expect more deviousness from you two children?"

 

Picking up one of the tea cups, Tabitha took a sip, folding her hand around its warmth and giggled. "No no, I think we've played enough dear Augustus, but I hoped you'd join us. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you to take a look at this drawing we've been studying over and tell me if anything comes to you. "

 

"Certainly, Ms. Tabitha, I'd be happy to help if I can."

 

Easing his way around the desk, Augustus peered down at the drawing Lexington had made the previous evening. He squinted a bit more as he leaned down to get a better look. "I seem to have left my reading glasses in the kitchen."

 

Lexington handed Augustus a large magnifying glass as he explained. "We realize it's a wheel of some sort, and of course, a traingle or pyramid in the middle. We just can't find a reference to anything that would help us track down its origins. "

 

Looking back up at them both, a worrisome expression came across Augustus' dark face. "Where did you get this?"

 

Tabitha became more concerned, noticing the old man's change in demeanor and shared more details about the previous evening's encounters. When she mentioned the brands on the werewolves' corpses, Augustus bit his lip in thought. Shaking his head as he rubbed the indented bridge of his nose, he once more hovered the magnifying glass over the insignia to take another look. Taking a deep breath, he stood up straight again and walked back around in front of the desk. Both Tabitha and Lexington watched him curiously as he began.

 

"The wheel has nine spokes, as you both have no doubt ascertained." They represent The Nine, the nine unknown men. The pyramid isn't as old, but it represents the Enlightened Ones. Your mother and father both fought not only lycans, but also vampires and demons associated with these societies. They're both very powerful and cunning in their own right. The distressing thing here is that I've never seen them together like this. This is a first. "

 

Tabitha and Lexington looked at each other, then pulled out various books and scrolls they hoped might help them gain more knowledge about each of these organizations.

 

Taking a seat, Augustus watched as both of them scurried about the library. "Your parents would have kept a record of their encounters with these cults, Ms. Tabitha. Have you looked in your father's chest? It's on the other side of the room with his armor and weapons. The display"

 

"Oh, that's it, of course! Why didn't I think of that?! Thank you, Augustus!"

 

Tabitha ran across the room and began to rummage through the old travel chest. She pulled three dusty journals from its innards, then walked briskly back across the long rug that ran down the length of the library exclaiming. "I have them!"

 

⚜️Augustus stayed a while longer to answer as many of their questions as he could, but as the night wore on it was obvious the old gentleman was very tired. Smiling at him, Tabitha leaned up, catching his weary gaze.

 

"Augusutus, you should get some sleep. We'll tidy up here. You've been more than helpful. Thank you."

 

She helped him up to his feet and before he walked away the old man smiled and turned to look back. "I was glad to be of service Ms. Tabitha. Do be careful my dear, and you as well, Master Lexington."

 

He turned away again and slowly walked out of the immense library. By the time he'd reached the double doors that led to the castle's main hall, the duo could faintly see his siloette. When the door closed, a loud thud echoed down the long room, and Lexington looked up at Tabitha. "You said nothing to him about the werewolf speaking to us, my lady."

 

Still peering toward the end of the great chamber where Augustus's form had faded into darkness, Tabitha nodded, considering the question. "I thought not to Lex. He seemed so troubled by what we'd discovered that I didn't want to worry him more. "

 

Lexington nodded in response and turned a page in the book he was holding.

 

⚜️They'd learned a great deal with Augustus' help. They'd discovered that The Nine were a secret society appointed by King Ashoka of the Maurya dynasty in India. They'd also learned that the other society or cult known as the Enlightened had begun in Germany in the latter part of the 18th century. What they didn't know was how either group was tied to the werewolves they'd destroyed the night before. And how was it that they were both represented in a single tattoo?

 

"What now, my lady? What's our next course of action? "

 

Walking away from the desk, she folded her arms under her breast and thought. When she turned, she stared at him, still in thought before answering. "Tomorrow you'll go to town and send a telegraph to Cardinal Antonio in Rome. The Catholic church has some influence in India. We'll ask if he has a safe contact in Calcutta."

 

"Do I say more, Ms. Tabitha? About the brands or about the male lycan who spoke to us? "

 

Tabitha sat down across from the desk, resting her chin against her hand. She pondered it for a moment before answering. "I thought about that. And no, not yet. I trust the Cardinal, but it's a long way from here to Rome. And besides, I don't trust the whole church, Lex. Do you?"

 

"No, Ms. I do not. "

 

Standing, Tabitha walked to the desk and reached down to sip her tea. "Oh no! It's cold. "

 

"I can warm it for you, Ms. Tabitha." Lexington offered

 

"No, dear Askil, I wouldn't ask you to do that."

 

Tabitha giggled a bit, knowing full well he would rather be called Lexington than by his Berber name. She continued, ignoring him as he sat back down, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "Besides, it's very late and we have a lot of research to do, and a good deal of planning. This will be a long voyage."

 

"Yes, My Lady,"

 

Tabitha drifted off a moment, in thought again. Augustus had looked very old and worn this evening. Somehow she hadn't noticed it until now.

 

Dismissing the unpleasantness of the image, she smiled and turned briskly as she spoke, "I'll tell Augustus in the morning so he and Lottie can alert the staff. "Don't stay up too late, Askil...I mean Lexington!."

 

With that, she snickered and turned.

 

"One last dig before bedtime my lady?"

 

"One last dig Askil."

  

🐺🐺🐺🐺

  

Continued in Chapter 7 Ad Mortem

 

🎭 Sanquinolency: Book I

  

⭐Of course I would like to thank my friend Marcus Strong

Thank you so much Marcus! Hugs!. 💓

 

⭐I'd also like to thank my friend Mr. Croco aka Westley aka Mr. W. You're awesome babes! 💓

  

🌳Taken at Coven Of Crows

Also a special thank you to Sena who owns Coven of Crows and allows us to take photos on her sim without asking us for a thing. She's very special and so is her sim.

Also you can check out some of the awesome captures others have done at Coven of Crows in the groups Flickr, Coven of Crows SL🐈

Another striking woman! This time the dominant warm colour is yellow and the artist’s self portrait is a direct reference to one I’ve already shown you, George Lambert’s “Self-portrait with gladioli” (1922). Mind you Wendy Sharpe is still just peering out at us from the right. It’s a world of competitive gazes in here. So who is this stunning person before us? She’s Yvette Coppersmith, Melbourne portrait artist. With this work, “Self-portrait, after George Lambert”, she became the tenth woman to win the Archibald. www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/recasting-...

 

Two other works of note in the room behind us. Music lovers will recognise pianist David Helfgott, whose story was told to the world in the Oscar winning film, “Shine” (1996). Cherry Hood entered this portrait in 2009.

“Hood’s portrayal, while suggesting her subject’s fragile mental state, is also a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit. Hood recalled: ‘His extraordinary music merges with his powerful magical persona to give his audience a most moving and lingering gift’.” www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/what-lies-...

 

The triptych in the corner is Brett Whiteley’s starkly honest self portrait, “Art, life and the other thing”. It won the Archibald Prize in 1978, even though many people prefer the blue tones of his 1976 winner, “Self-portrait in the studio”. www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/1976/

But not for me. This one is so excruciatingly honest and so full of meaning that it wins me over every time. In fact you’ll note I used a part of this triptych in relation to Ben Quilty’s war painting the other day.

 

I’m sure I don’t need to explain who Brett Whiteley (1939-1992) was. At his prime Australia’s most famous contemporary artist. Even the band Dire Straits used part of his masterpiece, “Alchemy”, on the cover of their double album of the same name. www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/348.1998.a-r/

 

The “other thing” in Whiteley’s title was simply the succubus mistress of his life: Heroin. In the end, as prophesied in this work, heroin was what did him in. After a long struggle of trying to break the cycle of drug addiction, Whiteley was found dead in a dingy motel room with a bag full of syringes. If ever we needed a memento mori for modern life, this painting is it.

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/artboards/archie-100/what-lies-...

  

www.ywt.org.uk/reserves/kilnsea-wetlands-nature-reserve

  

This new nature reserve has been created to compensate for habitat being lost nearby on the eroding Holderness coastline.

 

Update: Footpath works from the Kilnsea Wetlands car park to the hide are due to start week commencing the 11th July. These works are being conducted by Environment Agency to improve the surface of the path. The intention of the works is to test a small test area to see how the additional material binds, if satisfactory the works will continue along the rest of the path. The footpath will be closed for approximately 5 days from Monday 11th July.

   

Kilnsea Wetlands is intended to provide refuge for passage and wintering roosting waders that leave the adjacent Humber mudflats at high tide to roost. Golden and grey plovers, knot, dunlin, sanderling and bar-tailed godwit should all benefit from this safe refuge. A variety of habitats will provide the conditions needed to support these birds, but this will take a number of years to reach its full potential.

 

Freshwater and saline pools with islands and spits and wet grassland with seasonal scrapes will provide this site with roosting and feeding locations, but also hopefully he right conditions in the spring for breeding oystercatcher, ringed plover and lapwing.

  

Top Tip:

  

A visit in autumn or winter will give you a chance to see large numbers of roosting waders which this site has been specifically designed for. Check the tides to coincide your visit with high tide and you’re likely to see greater numbers.

  

Engineering is only the start of this process – the nature reserve is to be managed in a sustainable manner using local livestock. This location is one of the driest parts of the UK, and without the ability to bring water on to the site from surrounding areas, functionality of the habitat will rely very much on rainfall and groundwater levels.

 

Farmland birds including corn bunting and tree sparrow may well use the nature reserve as it develops. In time the grassland should become established and we hope this will provide some botanical value and interest, in turn supporting a host of insects including dragonflies.

 

Salt-tolerant plant species such as spiral tassel weed may well find a home here too.

 

A hide, viewing screen, and off road parking, long with a footpath route through the nature reserve leading to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Blue Bell Cafeé in Kilnsea mean this site is ideal for a visit

   

Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife

 

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Discover Yorkshire’s Wildlife book, which has detailed information on all of Yorkshire Wildlife and Sheffield Wildlife Trust’s reserves, is available to buy now from our online shop.

  

Public Transport

 

The Spurn Ranger bus from Hull stops in Kilnsea.

  

Directions

 

Approach Kilnsea on Easington Road. The car park is on your left just after you go over the left hand bend which rises over Long Bank and before you reach Kilnsea village.

  

Other information

 

There is a dipping platform available for arranged visits. Please do not walk along Long Bank to the north of the nature reserve to avoid flushing the birds. Paths are unsurfaced. Toilets are located in Kilnsea.

  

Reserve information

 

Location

Easington Road

Kilnsea

East Yorkshire

HU12 0UD

 

Map reference

TA 405 167

  

Great for...

 

a family day out

birdwatching

overwintering birds

  

Opening Times

 

Open at all times.

  

Facilities

 

Cafe

Toilets

  

Size

 

35.00 hectares

  

Access

Yes

 

Contact the Trust for disabled access information. Toilets are located in Kilnsea.

 

Walking information

Paths are unsurfaced.

 

Parking

yes

 

Dogs

Dogs must be on lead

 

Grazing animals

The nature reserve is to be managed sustainably using local livestock.

 

Reserve manager

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Tel: 01904 659570

info@ywt.org.uk

No one had ever heard of Innsmouth years ago. It was an ordinary seedy town, where everyone tries to leave at the first opportunity.

Perpetually cloudy weather, a meager catch of fish, divine services on Sundays, which were attended by old people smelling of fish. Innsmouth was slowly dying.

But one day one man changed everything.

He traded with distant islands and had brought gold, fish and other gods from there.

In the churches, completely different services began to be held, praising Dagon. Protestant and Methodist priests left the city, accusing the inhabitants of blasphemy and heresy.

And unimaginable creatures, ungodly shoggoths, have settled in the depressions and caves. The deep ones bring gold and fish to Innsmouth, and in return the inhabitants fatten these under town creatures.

 

Heh this was the biggest moc I ever done. And the most exhausting.

It is 119 pins long and over 50 wide.

I've been nurturing the idea of Innsmouth for over a year, inspired by the fishing village from Bloodborne DLC The Old Hunters. Here is also a white creature washed up on the beach, a reference to the Mother Kos.The concept has changed several times for this year. There was an unsuccessful version in the form of a fishing house. I started building this final version of Innsmouth in February and now, after almost five months, it is ready.

 

That's it, in the next couple of years I definitely won't aim at works of this size.

Also you can follow me in Instagram and see a lot of wip photos.

www.instagram.com/ventum_vox/