On this extensive plain, dryland agriculture is practised relying on rainfall and water retention in the heavy black clays. The spacing of the rows is determined by the amount of moisture in the soil at the time of planting - wider spacing means lower soil moisture.

As this crop of cotton seedlings grows, it flowers and then when bolls open the landscape is transformed into an amazing sea of white!

One of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

 

Well dressing, also known as well flowering, is a tradition practised in some parts of rural England in which wells, springs and other water sources are decorated with designs created from flower petals. The custom is most closely associated with the Peak District of Derbyshire and Staffordshire.

  

Practised moods with Cedric.

Cedric - Latidoll Sleeping Miel

Frankreich / Provence - Gorges du Verdon

 

South Rim

 

Südrand

 

The Verdon Gorge (French: Gorges du Verdon Occitan: Gòrja de Verdon) is a river canyon located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. It is about 25 km (15.5 mi) long and up to 700 metres (0.4 mi) deep. It was formed by the Verdon River, which is named for its turquoise-green colour, one of the location's distinguishing characteristics. In between the towns of Castellane and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, the river has cut a ravine to a depth of 700 meters through the limestone mass. At the end of the canyon, the Verdon flows into the artificial Lake of Sainte-Croix.

 

The gorge is very popular with tourists, who can drive around its rim, rent kayaks to travel on the river, or hike. The limestone walls, which are several hundreds of metres high, attract many rock climbers. It is considered an outstanding destination for multi-pitch climbing, with 1,500 routes available ranging from 20 metres (65 feet) to over 400 metres (1,300 feet).

 

History

 

During the Triassic period, the Provence subsided and was covered by the sea, leaving thick layers of various limestone deposits. Several million years later, with the arrival of the Jurassic period, the area was covered by a warm shallow sea, which allowed the growth of various corals. The Cretaceous period saw what is now Basse Provence being raised and the sea reaching the current location of the Alps, which were themselves erected during the tertiary era. As a result of the large-scale geological activity, many of the Jurassic limestone deposits fractured, forming relief with valleys and other such features. The origins of the Verdon Gorge can be traced to this era.

 

The dawn of the Quaternary period had large-scale glaciation, transforming water pockets and lakes into rivers of ice, which remodeled the topography, scouring and striating the landscape. At the end of this activity, erosion by rivers continued, forming the Gorge as it is today. The Verdon's riverbed was scoured for a second time of the accumulated coral and limestone sediments, by a water delivery rate nearing 2000 to 3000 cubic metres per second.

 

Discovery

 

The gorge was described in printed form from 1782 and 1804. By the second half of the 19th century, it was featured in French tourist guides. According to Graham Robb's book The Discovery of France, the gorge did not become known outside France until 1906.

 

Recent developments

 

On 10 July 2006, the Council of State annulled the declaration of public use of a project by EDF relating to a proposed high-voltage line which would have had to pass through the Verdon Gorge. This decision ended 23 years of struggle by public groups and associations of environmental defence to preserve a site of exceptional natural interest, of which a part contains protected animal and plant species.

 

During the 2022 European drought, the water levels in the river were very low and dried up completely in some parts.

 

Geography

 

The source of the Verdon is close to the col d'Allos hill in the Trois Eveches mountain range, whence it continues, flowing into the Durance river near Vinon-sur-Verdon after traveling 175 kilometres. Between Castellane and the Galetas bridge, the river passes through the lake of Sainte-Croix, created by the construction of a dam of the same name. Before the dam was constructed, the village of Les Salles-sur-Verdon occupied the river plain. To create the reservoir, the village was destroyed in 1973. Les Salles-sur-Verdon was reconstructed as a more modern settlement higher up the valley. Today, it is the youngest village in France.

 

For some distance the Verdon Gorge forms the border between the départements of Var to the south and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence to the north in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur région.

 

This region between Castellane and the Lac de Sainte-Croix is called the Gorges du Verdon, or Verdon Gorge. It is split into three distinct parts:

 

"Prégorges" ('pre-gorge'), from Castellane to Pont de Soleils,

the deepest part of the Gorge, from Pont de Soleils to l'Imbut, and

the Canyon from l’Imbut to the Pont du Galetas.

 

The Verdon Gorge is narrow and deep, with depths of 250 to 700 metres and widths of 6 to 100 metres at the level of the Verdon river. It is 200 to 1500 metres wide from one side of the Gorge to the other at the summits. The Gorge has been compared to the Grand Canyon in the United States.

 

Hydro-electric dams

 

Between 1929 and 1975, five dams were erected on the course of the Verdon, between Castellane and Gréoux-les-Bains. These dams hold back water in the following reservoirs:

 

Lac de Castillon, which was created by flooding the village of the same name

Lac de Sainte-Croix, flooded the village of des Salles-sur-Verdon.

Lac d'Esparron-Gréoux, known locally as "lac d’Esparron".

Reservoir at Chaudanne

Reservoir at Quinson, sometimes improperly called the "lac de Montpezat", the name of the village over which it dominates.

 

Notable features

 

The Styx du Verdon, associated with the river Styx of Greek mythology, is an area of sub-canyon within the gorge.

 

The Imbut, also known as Embut or Embucq, is an area where the Verdon disappears underground, beneath enormous rock structures, before re-emerging above ground.

 

Tourism

 

The Verdon Gorge attracts numerous tourists, especially during the summer period. The river's turquoise colour is associated with glacial sources and the minerals of rock flour suspended in the water.

 

It is easily accessible on its right bank from the north (via route D952 from Castellane to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie), and on its left bank from the south (via routes D71, D90 and D955 from Aiguines to Castellane).

 

Sport

 

The Verdon Gorge attracts many rock climbers for its more than 1,500 climbing routes on good limestone rock.

The Verdon and its Gorge are also a favoured destination for fishermen, particularly for fly fishing.

Hiking, canoeing, paragliding, rafting, climbing and canyoning are some of the sports practised in the region.

 

Hiking and scenic walks

 

The most common hikes in the gorge include:

 

Le sentier (pathway) de Martel

Le sentier de l'Imbut

Le sentier du Bastidon

Le belvédère de Rancoumas par le pont de Tusset (the Rancoumas panoramic viewpoint near the Tusset Bridge)

 

The Sentier Martel, was laid out in 1928 by the Touring Club de France.[citation needed] It was named in 1930 to honor the explorer Édouard-Alfred Martel (1859–1938). Martel had visited the Verdon in 1905 as an employee of the Southeast Electricity Company, carrying out precise geological surveys of the river. On 11 August, he and his team (explorer Armand Janet, schoolmaster Isidore Blanc, geographer Cuvelier, plaus Baptistin Flory, Fernand Honorat, Prosper Marcel, and Tessier Zurcher) began an expedition of the region. Their successful arrival at the Pas de Galetas marked the completion of the first expedition of the Verdon Canyon.

 

Other expeditions to the Verdon included Martel's team the following year; followed by Robert de Joly, who in 1928 was the first to completely cross the Verdon Gorge.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Die Verdonschlucht, französisch Gorges du Verdon, umgangssprachlich auch Grand Canyon du Verdon, ist eine Schlucht in der französischen Provence, Département Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Sie beginnt flussabwärts nach der Stadt Castellane und endet nahe Moustiers-Sainte-Marie im Stausee Lac de Sainte-Croix. Durch den etwa 21 km langen und bis zu 700 Meter tiefen Canyon fließt der türkisfarbene Fluss Verdon. Die Gorges du Verdon sind neben der Tara-Schlucht einer der größten Canyons Europas und Hauptbestandteil des nach ihm benannten Regionalen Naturparks Verdon.

 

Geographische Lage

 

Der Verdon entspringt in der Nähe des Col d’Allos im Bergland Trois Évêchés und mündet nach etwa 175 km in der Nähe von Vinon-sur-Verdon in die Durance. Das interessanteste Stück seines Laufes befindet sich zwischen Castellane und der Galetas-Brücke kurz vor dem Lac de Sainte-Croix. Die Schlucht von Verdon definiert über weite Strecken die Grenze zwischen den Départements Var im Süden und Alpes-de-Haute-Provence im Norden. Das Gebiet ist in drei Teilabschnitte gegliedert:

 

Die „Prégorges“ zwischen Castellane und der Brücke bei Soleils

Die Schlucht zwischen der Brücke und l’Imbut

Der Canyon zwischen l’Imbut und der Brücke von Galetas

 

Die Schlucht ist am Grund zwischen 6 und 100 m breit, die gegenüberliegenden Flanken sind zwischen 200 und 1500 m voneinander entfernt und die Tiefe variiert zwischen 250 und 700 m.

 

Entstehung

 

In der Trias-Zeit senkte sich die Provence ab und wurde vom Meer bedeckt. In der Folge lagerten sich am Grund verschiedene Schichten von Kalk (abgestorbene Muscheln u. ä.) ab. Im Jura wurde die Provence erneut von einem warmen, wenig tiefen Meer überflutet, was die Entstehung mächtiger Korallenbänke begünstigte.

 

In der Kreidezeit hob sich die Provence, und das Meer zog sich in den Bereich der heutigen Alpen zurück. Erst im Tertiär wurden die Alpen aufgefaltet. Die in der Folge zerbrechenden Kalkmassive aus der Jurazeit bestimmten das Relief und die Täler. In dieser Zeit suchte sich auch der Verdon sein Bett.

 

Im Quartär überformten die eiszeitlichen Gletscher die Landschaft. Am Ende der Vereisung nehmen die Flüsse ihre Erosionstätigkeit wieder auf. Bedingt durch die Eisschmelze waren die Wassermengen gewaltig: bis zu 3000 m³/s. Diese Mengen ermöglichten die tiefen Einschnitte im weichen Gestein.

 

Jüngere Geschichte

 

Auf dem Gebiet des heutigen Stausees, der durch den Bau des Sainte-Croix-Staudamms entstand, befand sich vor 1973 die Ortschaft Les Salles-sur-Verdon, die kurz vor der Flutung des Tals vollständig zerstört und an anderer Stelle neu aufgebaut wurde. Heute ist sie eine der jüngsten Gemeinden Frankreichs.

 

Seit dem 7. Mai 1990 ist die Schlucht offizielles Naturschutzgebiet.

 

Am 10. Juli 2006 beschloss der Conseil d’État, dass die geplante 400.000-Volt-Hochspannungsleitung der Électricité de France durch den Canyon nicht gebaut werden dürfe. Damit endete ein über 23 Jahre andauernder Kampf verschiedener Umwelt- und Naturschutzorganisation, die sich für den Erhalt der ursprünglichen Schlucht einsetzen.

 

1905: Erste vollständige Durchquerung der Schlucht durch den Speläologen Martel

1929: Grundsteinlegung des Castillon-Staudamms

1932: Unterbrechung der Bauarbeiten

1936: Ein Brand beschädigt den Staudamm

1948: Fertigstellung des Castillon-Staudamms

1951: Fertigstellung des Chaudanne-Staudamms

1960: Fertigstellung des Esparron-Gréoux-Staudamms

1973: Flutung des Sainte-Croix-Stausees

1973: Wiederaufbau der gefluteten Ortschaft Les Salles-sur-Verdon etwa 400 m entfernt

1974: Beginn der Stromproduktion des Wasserkraftwerks in Sainte-Croix

1975: Flutung des Quinson-Stausees

 

Aktivitäten

 

Auf dem Wasser

 

Teilweise lässt sich die Verdonschlucht mit Wildwasser-Kajaks befahren, im Unterlauf am Lac de Sainte-Croix auch mit größeren Booten. Der Wasserabfluss der oberen Stauseen ist zumindest während der Hauptreisezeit Juli und August einheitlich festgelegt. Um den Wassersport wie Wildwasserschwimmen, Rafting etc. zu unterstützen, wird an zwei Tagen der Woche (meist dienstags und freitags) mehr Wasser abgelassen. Der Abfluss beträgt dann 10–16 Kubikmeter Wasser pro Sekunde, an den anderen Tagen ca. 0,5 Kubikmeter Wasser pro Sekunde. Es existiert eine Hotline zur Information über aktuelle Wasserstände. In der Vor- und Nachsaison hingegen wird deutlich unregelmäßiger Wasser abgelassen, in manchen Jahren wochenlang bis zu 40 Kubikmeter pro Sekunde, in anderen wochenlang nur 0,5 Kubikmeter pro Sekunde. Bei Wassermengen über 2 bis 3 Kubikmeter wird im Wildwasserschwimmen Ungeübten vom Baden in der Strömung abgeraten. Durch unberechenbare Hindernisse wie Siphone, Unterspülungen und Holzverblockungen besteht dann Lebensgefahr.

 

Wandern

 

Das Wandern in den unzugänglicheren Regionen der Schlucht ist beliebt und gilt als ungefährlich. Die bekannteste Wander-Route durch den Verdon-Canyon beginnt und endet in der Mitte des Canyons an einem Aussichtspunkt, von dem es relativ steil über Serpentinen bergab geht. Sie führt entlang des Sentier Martel (benannt nach dem Erstdurchquerer Martel). Der Abstieg beginnt von der Route de Crête, am Vereinshaus La Maline. Unten am Fluss angelangt sollte man sich an der dortigen Weggabelung nach Norden halten und dort zügig dem Wegverlauf stromaufwärts folgen. Im Verlauf der fast sechsstündigen Wanderung – ohne Möglichkeit eines Zwischenausstieges – führt der Wanderweg beständig bergauf-bergab und über einige künstlich angelegte Leitern und Treppen abwärts. Eine davon (Brèche Imbert) ist recht steil und führt über 252 Stufen von einem Aussichtspunkt hinunter. Kurz vor Ende der Route führt der Weg durch zwei hintereinander liegende Tunnel, die als einzige Möglichkeit weiterführen. Hier sollte ursprünglich der Fluss komplett umgeleitet werden, doch das Projekt wurde nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg aufgegeben. Die Länge des ersten Tunnels beträgt 110 m, die des zweiten 657 m.

 

Insgesamt ist für diese Bergwanderung mit etwa fünf bis sechs Stunden reiner Gehzeit zu rechnen. Am End- bzw. Ausgangspunkt Point Sublime im Norden befindet sich ein weiterer Parkplatz. Für die Rückfahrt zum Ausgangspunkt besteht die Möglichkeit, ein Schluchtentaxi oder einen allerdings selten verkehrenden Linienbus zu benutzen.

 

Klettern

 

Die Verdonschlucht war in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren eines der bedeutendsten Klettergebiete. In den 1970er Jahren wurden zahlreiche ausgesetzte technische Linien erstbegangen, in den 1980er Jahren gelang dann Kletterern wie Patrick Berhault und Patrick Edlinger die freie Begehung vieler dieser Routen. Auch heute wird in dem Gebiet noch intensiv geklettert.

 

Weitere Aktivitäten

 

Auf der Ringstraße um den Verdon-Canyon sind immer wieder Aussichtspunkte zur Schlucht hin, aber auch auf die Lavendel-Felder, für die die Region berühmt ist, angelegt. Über der Schlucht kreisen häufig Paraglider, Drachen und Segelflieger, wenn das Wetter dies zulässt. Die Pont de l’Artuby wird sehr stark von Bungee-Jumpern frequentiert. Ebenso ist die Schlucht mit ihren Pässen Ziel vieler Motorradfahrer.

 

(Wikipedia)

Having just developed two further rolls of Foma Retropan 320, I am still finding myself perplexed by it. It has given some fascinating grainy effects, and wonderful atmosphere, and such frustrating lack of detail. And then, every now and again, it seems to be ... almost perfect for the moment and render a shot beautifully.

 

It was in the camera for this small cluster of shells on a starkly lit day on Ynyslas, Ceredigion. For full disclosure, I placed the shells on this relatively unmarked sand, having seen the three of them a yard or so away, higgledy-piggledy. It is rare that I pose shots, like this, so I am happily surprised at the result. It wasn't the lens for the job, and I suspected it wasn't the film either. But here we are, and I am surprisingly happy with the result.

 

And so to the film, with its wildly haloed highlights, and all that. Perhaps it is a combination of things: I haven't practised film photography for nearly five years, and I was lucky rather than skilled, even when 'in practice'. That, added to a tricky and unfamiliar film, and a cavalier attitude to metering and so on.

 

Whatever the case, this is one of those photographs that makes me wonder if I do like this film, after all; makes me wonder if what it would really suit (speaking only for myself, of course) are studies and still life.

 

And so, after a long ramble.

 

Here's to learning.

 

Ynyslas, September 2020. Pentax ME Super, Pentax-M 28mm f11, Foma Retropan 320 Soft developed in Retropan Special. Cropping and fiddling with contrast in Photoshop 2020.

The Hagen Open-air Museum (LWL-Freilichtmuseum Hagen – Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Handwerk und Technik; English: "LWL Open-air Museum Hagen – Westphalian State Museum for Craft and Technics") is a museum at Hagen in the southeastern Ruhr area, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded, together with the Detmold Open-air Museum, in 1960, and was first opened to the public in the early 1970s. The museum is run by the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL, regional authority for Westphalia and Lippe within North Rhine-Westphalia). It lies in the Hagen neighbourhood of Selbecke south of Eilpe in the Mäckingerbach valley.

 

The open-air museum brings a bit of skilled-trade history into the present, and it takes a hands-on approach. On its grounds stretching for about 42 ha, not only are urban and rural trades simply "displayed" along with their workshops and tools, but in more than twenty of the nearly sixty rebuilt workshops, they are still practised, and interested visitors can, sometimes by themselves, take part in the production.

 

As early as the 1920s, there were efforts by a group of engineers and historical preservationists to preserve technological monuments for posterity. The initiator, Wilhelm Claas, even suggested the Mäckingerbach valley as a good place for a museum to that end. The narrow valley was chosen, as wind, water and wood were the three most important location factors for industry in the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

In 1960, the Westphalian Open-Air Museum was founded, and thirteen years later, the gates opened to the public. Unlike most open-air museums, which show everyday life on the farm or in the country as it was in days gone by, the Hagen Open-Air Museum puts the history of these activities in Westphalia in the fore. From the late 18th century through the early years of the Industrial Revolution to the highly industrialized society emerging in the early 20th century, the visitor can experience the development of these trades and the industry in the region.

 

Crafts and trades demonstrated at the Westphalian Open-Air Museum include ropemaking, smithing, brewing, baking, tanning, printing, milling, papermaking, and much more. A favourite attraction is the triphammer workshop shown in the image above. Once the hammer is engaged, a craftsman goes to work noisily forging a scythe, passing it between the hammer and the anvil underneath in a process called peening.

 

The Hagen Westphalian Open-Air Museum is open from March or April until October.

One of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

Tornado is silhouetted against a dramatic autumn sky as she rushes to Ropley with the 13:00 departure from Alresford. Not the original shot I went out to get, but the sky was too good to resist! Luckily I have practised this shot recently, so was able to take advantage of the loco and cloud combination. Pentax 16-45mm F4, polarising filter, manual exposure and focus.

The Hagen Open-air Museum (LWL-Freilichtmuseum Hagen – Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Handwerk und Technik; English: "LWL Open-air Museum Hagen – Westphalian State Museum for Craft and Technics") is a museum at Hagen in the southeastern Ruhr area, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded, together with the Detmold Open-air Museum, in 1960, and was first opened to the public in the early 1970s. The museum is run by the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL, regional authority for Westphalia and Lippe within North Rhine-Westphalia). It lies in the Hagen neighbourhood of Selbecke south of Eilpe in the Mäckingerbach valley.

 

The open-air museum brings a bit of skilled-trade history into the present, and it takes a hands-on approach. On its grounds stretching for about 42 ha, not only are urban and rural trades simply "displayed" along with their workshops and tools, but in more than twenty of the nearly sixty rebuilt workshops, they are still practised, and interested visitors can, sometimes by themselves, take part in the production.

 

As early as the 1920s, there were efforts by a group of engineers and historical preservationists to preserve technological monuments for posterity. The initiator, Wilhelm Claas, even suggested the Mäckingerbach valley as a good place for a museum to that end. The narrow valley was chosen, as wind, water and wood were the three most important location factors for industry in the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

In 1960, the Westphalian Open-Air Museum was founded, and thirteen years later, the gates opened to the public. Unlike most open-air museums, which show everyday life on the farm or in the country as it was in days gone by, the Hagen Open-Air Museum puts the history of these activities in Westphalia in the fore. From the late 18th century through the early years of the Industrial Revolution to the highly industrialized society emerging in the early 20th century, the visitor can experience the development of these trades and the industry in the region.

 

Crafts and trades demonstrated at the Westphalian Open-Air Museum include ropemaking, smithing, brewing, baking, tanning, printing, milling, papermaking, and much more. A favourite attraction is the triphammer workshop shown in the image above. Once the hammer is engaged, a craftsman goes to work noisily forging a scythe, passing it between the hammer and the anvil underneath in a process called peening.

 

The Hagen Westphalian Open-Air Museum is open from March or April until October.

 

One of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

6.17.1978, Small Siberian town, Soviet Union

 

Taken from a small boys diary:

 

That day, right at the sunset, we heard the sirens. We knew exactly what to do, after all we had practised it dozens of times at school. We knew that when the siren goes off, we must evacuate the whole town. It wasn't too big of a task, there are only 4,000 people living here. We were told that we can only take just one or two items with us. For me, it was my dear teddy bear. Me and my family got into one of the first trucks. It was nice, because if we had left later, there wouldn't have been much space left in the bunkers by the time we would've got there.

 

I will never forget, how I watched the rockets slowly emerging from their bunkers with those bright flames behind them. It was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. My mother told me that those rockets will bring peace in world. Now I know, how naive we were...

 

Yet again one more FP scene :) The sky is photoshopped, but don't bitch about it. It looks great ;) I really liked the idea behind this scene, but I am not 100% happy how this final picture turned out, though... There are lot to be seen that could use more than just one photo :P I am most proud of the vehicles, though, I am usually not so great with them, but this time they turned out to be perfect <3

    

It looks at the opposite of the sun.Oh my Lord.It contains a number of quotes, real and otherwise, from earlier alchemists such as Geber, (pseudo-) Arnald of Villanova, Senior etc.....This photography of a green lion eating the sun,...looks at the opposite of the sun, which could be taken as meaning it is a substance which absorbs gold, indeed the translation says as much,green lion eating the sun“Of Our Mercury which is the Green Lion Devouring the Sun”There is also the text:“I am the true green and Golden Lion without cares,

In me all the secrets of the Philosophers are hidden.”

associated with the picture."

Now, this text is often taken as being one about spiritual alchemy. The problem with that is that that general approach (espeically with regards to claims by Jung and other esotericists) has been discredited as regarding the actual position of alchemy in Europe in the16th century and earlier.Which leaves us with an interesting question – how can the green lion eat gold?And one obvious assumption – that the text maps onto physical operations. I should point out straight away that a lot of medieval alchemy is simply the author re-writing previous authors, changing the emphasis of the words and concepts used and inventing or bringing to prominence different names which may or may not cover the same substance or concept. Which makes finding the way through the texts rather difficult.In some medieval alchemical texts, gold is certainly consumed by mercury to form an amalgam on which further work is carried out. So if the green lion is a mercury compound then it can surely consume gold. If it is sulphuric acid, it cannot, but what it could do is react with other metals present and form strange compounds. And if the sun referred to is not specifically gold, but sulphur or suchlike, then you can still get some odd reactions taking place.o, lets look at some other alchemical mentions of the Green Lion.The Book of the Composition of Alchemy says at the end, in the exposition of kinds, that “The green lion is glass”, which is probably an error transposing Vitriol into Vitrum. I suspect that this is a later addition than the body of the text, which has probably undergone a lot of changes over the years. The core is an Arabic work, but I don’t know how far back the symbolism of the green lion goes; 9th century recipes attributed to Rhazi include the distillation of green vitriol to produce an acidic water.

By the early 14th century, in the Testamentum of pseudo-Lull, a water from green vitriol is to be joined to a metal. That and other mentions in that century prove that distillation of sulphuric acid was practised; the difficult bit is understanding what part it might have played in the alchemical recipes. There are other recipes from that century which include vitriol, saltpetre and mercury, the practise of which most likely gives some odd mercuric compounds with acids, such as the white mercury sulphide, or if salt is present as suggested by some, mercuric chloride, which is also white. I can’t think of any obvious way in which it could be tainted green, nor do the old chemistry textbooks help.So that’s another set of experiments that I would like to do.

But by the 15th century in England, the green lion is, according to George Ripley, not actually vitriol, although fools think it is:XVI. But of the Green Lyon of Fools, this we say, that from it with a strong fire is drawn Aquafortis, in the which, the aforesaid Philosophers’ Lyon of the Mineral Stone, ought to be Elixirated, and assumes its Name. Raymundus saith, it were better, or safer, to eat the Eyes of a Basilisk, than that Gold, which is made with the Fire against Nature.

XVII. And I say also, that the things from whence the same Aquafortis is drawn is green Vitriol and Azoth: i.e., Vitriol Natural, not Artificial, viz. the droppings of Copper, called also Roman Vitriol, Roman Gold, by many of the Philosophers, from the abundance of its noble Tincture, the which Tincture must be fermented with common Gold.

www.alchemywebsite.com/ripley_medulla.html

Leaving aside the question of what Ripley’s green lion might be, the problem is that distillation of vitriol produces sulphuric acid, a mineral acid not hitherto known for it’s effect upon gold. To dissolve gold need aqua regia, a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids.

Now some alchemical recipes will produce a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid, and the Compound of Compounds, or at least the late/ post medieval version of it, has a recipe that produces sulphuric and nitric acid mixture and then you add Ammonium Chloride to give Chlorine ions in solution, which will certainly dissolve gold. But as with some other similar recipes, it doesn’t mention the green lion, which suggests that there are two paths, one calling green vitriol the green lion, the other not.What may help clarify things is the question of the green lion is when this version of the Rosarium was written. There is a Rosarius attributed to Arnald of Villanova, and then there are other texts that are also tited “Rosarius” or similar. However the Arnaldian one is not the same as the 1550 one we are concerned with, according to this review by Michela Pereira:

journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=on...

I note that mention of the Green lion is made in a section headed “The table of the Greater Science” and one attributed to “Morienus”, and the later section headed “Of our Mercury which is the Green lion devouring the sun”.

The problem is simply finding decent information about the Rosarius and similar texts, given how many there were and how alchemists did not hesitate to steal texts and re-write them. Thorndike’s History of Magic and experimental science, volume 3, page 55, mentions an anonymous Rosary from the 15th century and another that isn’t from the 14th. The list of alleged quotes from alchemists in this 1550 Rosarius is comprehensive, but does not seem to be newer than the early 14th century, but does include the likes of St Thomas Aquinas, who as far as I am aware didn’t really have his name attached to alchemical works until the Aurora Consurgens in the 15th century.

So if the text is really from the first half of the 16th century, that does happen to overlap when the Compound of Compounds was re-written to use acid to dissolve mercuric chloride. Having written that, it seems I’m a bit wrong – reading Principe “The secrets of Alchemy”, it seems that the 1550 version is based on the original later 14th century text, which acceptable enough given that was when the use of vitriol for acid manufacture was commonplace, and it’s use with mercury and the like.

In fact the more I think about it the more I wonder if the importance of the green lion has been overstated, based on the use of green vitriol in manufacturing mercural compounds. You mix some white stuff, green stuff, and mercury, and get a whitish substanceOf course one can rarely be certain about reproducing alchemical practises from texts and possible recipes, which is irritating. It might be that there is no practical intention in the text at all. But then why the lion of green? After all, lions are important in medieval heraldry and bestiaries, as the king of beasts a lion would be a sensible choice to eat the king of the metals.Maybe I don’t have the right kind of brain, but I read extracts from bestiaries such as this:

bestiary.ca/beasts/beast78.htm

and can’t see why the lion is so useful in alchemical symbolism.As a conclusion, all I can say is that this requires further study.

distillatio.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/the-green-lion-eatin...

Ladybower Reservoir is the lowest of three in the Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire. The River Ashop flows into the reservoir from the west; the River Derwent flows south, initially through Howden Reservoir, then Derwent Reservoir, and finally through Ladybower Reservoir. Ladybower was built between 1935 and 1943 by the Derwent Valley Water Board to supplement the other two reservoirs in supplying the water needs of the East Midlands. It took a further two years to fill.

 

RAF Lancasters which took part in the wartime Dambusters raid practised their bombing runs here. The road that crosses the bridge leads (to the right) to the famous Snake Pass, which is so often blocked by snow in the winter.

 

In the Geographic apartment of Thessaly in the old years, existed a immense lake. According to the delivery a big earthquake separated the mountains in the two and between in the Olympus and the Kissavous took shape a passage, the Tempi. The waters were poured in the sea and the Thessaly became a plain.

According to the theory of German geologist Al. Filipson, the rocks of Meteora were created by a big mass by rivers Stones, sand and mud that was linked in order to they shape a single cone.

When later, the waters of Thessalian lake were poured in the Aigaio, this single volume was separated because erosive action of water, possible winds, rapid rains and seismic vibrations, shaping hills and rocks in various forms and sizes.

The solidification of rivers stones and sand in compact rocks, was result of dissolution of limestone rocks, as well as pressure that for many thousands years was practised in the lower fossils than highest.

 

Königs Wusterhausen: This wood sculpture by Roland Karl next to the "Pheasantry" forester's house evokes the pheasantry breeding that used to be practised at this site

 

Königs Wusterhausen ist eine Stadt mit 38.111 Einwohnern, einschließlich der in den letzten Jahren eingemeindeten Orte in ihrem Umfeld, und liegt südöstlich der Berliner Stadtgrenze, etwa 36 km vom Berliner Zentrum entfernt. Der Tiergarten zu Königs Wusterhausen ist ein ca. 55 ha großes Waldgebiet mit altem Buchen- und Eichenbestand. König Friedrich Wilhelm I. ließ es einzäunen und nutzte es ab 1725 als Jagdgebiet.Entlang eines etwa 7 km langen Rundwegs stehen mehrere Holzplastiken mit Erläuterungstafeln, die über die Geschichte des Orts und mit ihm verbundene Sagen informieren.

 

Königs Wusterhausen is a town with 38,111 inhabitants, including the villages in its vicinity that have been incorporated in recent years, and is located southeast of the Berlin city limits, about 36 km from the centre of Berlin. The Tiergarten at Königs Wusterhausen is an approximately 55-hectare wooded area with old beech and oak trees. King Frederick William I had it fenced off and used it as a hunting ground from 1725. There are several wooden sculptures with explanatory panels along a circular path about 7 km long, which provide information about the history of the place and the legends associated with it.

I practised reflections this week. Some of my nicest pictures I took in the zoo. I had several of some monkeys (I might post some later) but I liked this best: ringtail lemurs' tails just touching the water. I found it far more intriguing that a picture where you could actually see their entire bodies. At first glance, this might be some big hairy spider, who knows? ;)

A scarecrow of our times, spotted on the Shacklegate allotment in Teddington. Good protection and social distancing being practised here…

One of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

The construction of the present chateau dates from the 13th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.

At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.

The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.

Practised with backlighting...

Practised using the macro feature of my 24-70mm lens.

 

Home, Sydney, Australia (Sunday 17 April 2016)

 

Step through the doors of the Niagara Apothecary and see how pharmacists practised their profession over 100 years ago. Liquor by the barrel or the bottle (and even by the glass), flavourings, paints, dyes, leeches, tobacco and snuff – these were the stock-in-trade of a 19th-century pharmacy. You'll see rows of patent medicines, "miracle cure-alls" for everything from hair loss to tuberculosis. The only restorative ingredients in most patent remedies of the time were opiates and alcohol, so pharmacists were handy with a mortar and pestle to custom-make prescriptions.

 

The Niagara Apothecary opened its doors at this location in the late 1860s. It operated for over 100 years under a succession of six owners, closing in 1964. The Ontario Heritage Trust acquired the property, led its restoration and opened it as a museum in 1971.

 

The original interior fittings of the Apothecary, all in use until 1964, have been painstakingly restored. The hub of the Apothecary was the ornately carved dispensary, which dominates the rear of the museum. With the exception of certain proprietary drugs, even pills were made at the dispensary.

 

The Niagara Apothecary at the Sign of the Golden Mortar is an excellent example of high style, mid-Victorian commercial architecture. The Italianate façade with its arched glazed double doors and two arched plate glass show windows; and the interior, with its lustrous black walnut and butternut fixtures, elaborate plaster mouldings and crystal gasoliers projected an impression of 19th-century

I was tagged by ·ĊЯФШ, J€RO and Laurah! grrrr... thanks Friends!! :)))

...............So here are 16 pieces of my puzzle

Ready?! Go....

 

1 - I am an Earthling before being French.

2 - I love Art in each of its forms (music first).

3 - I hate hypocrits, liars and silences from some people I know

4 - I am not crazy about chocolate, cats or "Hotel California", but I try to improve (yes it exists LOL)

5 - I like laughing, it helps me with my wrinkles :p

6 - I don't trust people easily, and if I do, my friendship is sincere and faithful, and I am intuitive...

7 - My 3 favourite series are "Grey's Anatomy" "Experts" and "Columbo"

8 - If I could change my life and job, I'd be all over the world, working in the humanitarian field.

9 - My favourite quote since I was a teenager " Beauty pleases the eyes, sweetness enchants the soul" Voltaire

10 - What if I tell you "Snow Patrol"? :ppp

11 - a meal that makes me really happy: carpaccio, tomato mozzarella, "crème brûlée", pink champagne and double coffee... after, i am very happy XD

12 - I like cold or hot, but not lukewarm.

13 - I sincerely think that war should not exist anymore, everybody should learn to live with everybody, and not against others.

14 - my three favorite animals: elephants, tigers, and dogs.

15 - I practised rowing, handball, golf, saiing, and if I was rich, I'd drive a Ferrari on a racetrack and gogogogogo F1.

16 - I am proud of my tribe and I love it.

 

etc...mundane things in fact ... but I prefer watermarks: ppp

  

(thanks Lolaa, for his help in translation)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

16 pièces de mon puzzle....

 

1 - Je suis une Terrienne avant d'être une Française.

2 - J'aime l'Art dans toutes ses palettes. (musique en 1er)

3 - Je déteste les hypocrites, les menteurs et les silences de quelques personnes que je connais.

4 - Je ne suis pas fan du chocolat, des chats ou "Hotel California", mais je me soigne (oui, celà existe LOL)

5 - J'aime rire, c'est bon pour mes rides :p

6 - Je ne fais pas confiance facilement aux gens, et si je le fais, mon amitié peut alors être sincère et fidèle ; et je suis intuitive...

7 - Mes 3 séries préférées sont "Grey's Anatomy" "Les Experts" et "Columbo"

8 - Si j'avais pu changer ma vie et mon job, je serais dans le monde entier, travaillant dans le domaine humanitaire.

9 - Ma citation favorite depuis que je suis une adolescente "La beauté plaît aux yeux, la douceur charme l'âme" Voltaire

10 - Si je vous dis "Snow Patrol"? : ppp

11 - Un repas qui me fait vraiment plaisir: carpaccio, tomates mozzarella, "crème brûlée", Champagne rosé et double cafés... après, je suis très heureuse XD

12 - J'aime le chaud ou le froid, mais jamais le tiède.

13 - Je crois sincèrement que la guerre ne devrait plus exister dans notre monde. Nous devrions apprendre à vivre ensemble et non contre les autres.

14 - Mes trois animaux préférés : éléphants, tigres, et les chiens.

15 - J'ai pratiqué l'aviron, le handball, le golf, la voile, et si j'étais riche, j'aimerai faire de la F1 avec une Ferrari!

16 - Je suis fière de ma tribu, et je l'aime.<3

  

Des choses bien banales en fait... mais je préfère les filigranes :ppp

 

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Al Shepard practices climbing out the neck of a Project Mercury spacecraft mockup during training for his suborbital flight.

Astronauts practised this alternative method of exiting the craft in both pools and the open sea. LIFE magazine shot.

© all rights reserved by B℮n

 

Please take your time... to View it large on black

 

Hintertux is one of the most popular summer skiing regions in Austria it lies furthest up the valley at the foot of the Hintertux Glacier, and is surrounded by mountains and glaciers. At the Tuxer Ferner glacier is an all-season skiing area with a large number of lifts. The place is the base for many walks and high Alpine tours. The Hintertux Glacier Ski Region belongs to the Zillertal 3000 meter ski region and is a popular with skiers in summer as well as winter. The Tuxer valley was first mentioned in the records in 1280. The Tuxer valley was discovered in prehistoric times as evinced by various finds from the middle Stone Age. Shepherds and miners also settled the valley, migrating over the Tuxer Joch from the Schmirn valley and cultivating it by clearing forests. The meadows and alpine pastures in the Tux valley continue to be cultivated even today, albeit most farms only provide a secondary source of income.

 

Tux is accessible from Mayrhofen by road. From Mayrhofen station on the Ziller Valley Railway there is a bus service. Within the Tux valley there is a free bus service. Yes there is some lovely views and walks from the first stage of the Hintertux cable car. It is above the tree line in the mountains and is used for summer pasture. Seasonal migration to high pastures is still practised in Austria.Cattle are taken care of by local farmer families who move to higher places. Austria has over 12 000 sites where 70 000 farmers take care of about 500 000 cattle.

 

Hintertux is een plaatsje in de Oostenrijkse deelstaat Tirol. De kabelbanen van de Hintertuxer Gletscher beginnen helemaal zuidelijk van het dorpje. Deze voeren van 1500 meter, naar een maximale hoogte van 3250 meter. Het skigebied op de Hintertuxer Gletscher gaat 365 dagen per jaar door, omdat er het gehele jaar kan worden geskiëd op de Hintertuxer Gletscher. De Tuxer Joch kan per kabelbaan worden bereikt. Het speciale aan deze berg is dat er hier een aantal opgravingen zijn gedaan. Deze opgravingen gaan terug tot de bronstijd. Dit toont aan dat het Zillertal al heel lang als bergpas werd gebruikt. De boeren zorgen in de zomer nog steeds voor verplaatsing van vee naar hoger gelegen weiden en lager gelegen dalen in de winter. De boeren wonen in principe permanent in dalen, in vaste huizen. Alleen de kudden en hun directe verzorgers verplaatsen zich. Oostenrijk heeft meer dan 12 000 boerderijen waar 70 000 landbouwers zorg dragen voor ongeveer 500 000 runderen.

 

La "chaine" du Gobnangou se situe dans la partie sud de la Province de la Tapoa dans l'Est du Burkina Faso. Il s'agit de collines dont la limite nord est marquée par un escarpement plus ou moins important et qui s'étendent sur une distance d'environ 50km entre les communes de Logobou, Tambaga et Tansarga. Le paysage est marqué par des zones rocheuses comme le montre la photo mais également un intéressant réseau hydrographique avec quelques sources d'eau et cascades dans des zones de verdure. Le Gobnangou renferme quelques villages où est pratiqué l'élevage ainsi que de campements d'éleveurs. Il s'agit également d'un passage pour la transhumance.

 

The Gobnangou "range" is located in the southern part of the Tapoa Province in eastern Burkina Faso. These hills, whose northern limit is marked by a more or less significant escarpment, extend over a distance of approximately 50km between the communes of Logobou, Tambaga and Tansarga. The landscape is marked by rocky areas, as shown in the photo, but also an interesting hydrographic network with some water sources and waterfalls in green areas. Gobnangou contains a few villages where livestock farming is practised and breeder camps. It is also a passage for transhumance.

(From my personal digital image archive, year 2016)

 

The Neues Museum date this relief to the 2nd century AD and indicates that it was discovered in 1835. Inventory number SK 707.

 

Neues Museum, Berlin. 2nd century AD. Votive relief to Mithras, the oriental god Mithras kills the sacred bull and from its blood and semen arise the plants and animals.

 

You can see this same symbolism in different museums. The Mithraic religion had a special influence on the Roman Empire. In the image Mithras with a frigio cap, tries to kill a bull that in turn is attacked by a snake, a crab, a dog...

 

There seems to be an astronomical meaning of this "attack" in the cult of Mithras, due to symbology of Zodiac constellations.

 

Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries, was a mystery religion centered on the god Mithras that was practised in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to the 4th century CE.

 

The religion was inspired by Iranian worship of the god Mithra, though the Greek Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice is debated.

 

The mysteries were popular in the Roman military. Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake".

 

They met in underground temples, called mithraea (singular mithraeum), which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome.

 

Picture taken in Neues Museum, Museuminsel, Berlin, Germany)

----------

RELIEVE VOTIVO DE MITRA (2016)

 

(De mi archivo personal de imágenes digitales, año 2016)

 

El Neues Museum data este relieve en el siglo II d.C. e indica que fue descubierto en 1835. Número de inventario SK 707.

 

Neues Museum, Berlín. Siglo II d. C. Relieve votivo a Mitra, el dios oriental Mitra mata al toro sagrado y de su sangre y semen surgen las plantas y los animales.

 

Este mismo simbolismo se puede ver en diferentes museos. La religión mitraica tuvo una especial influencia en el Imperio Romano. En la imagen Mitra con un gorro de frigio, intenta matar a un toro que a su vez es atacado por una serpiente, un cangrejo, un perro...

 

Parece haber un significado astronómico de este "ataque" en el culto a Mitra, debido a la simbología de las constelaciones del Zodiaco.

 

El mitraísmo, también conocido como los misterios mitraicos, fue una religión mistérica centrada en el dios Mitra que se practicó en el Imperio Romano desde aproximadamente el siglo I al IV de nuestra era.

 

La religión se inspiró en el culto iraní al dios Mitra, aunque el Mitra griego estaba vinculado a una imaginería nueva y distintiva, y el nivel de continuidad entre la práctica persa y la grecorromana es objeto de debate.

 

Los misterios eran populares en el ejército romano. Los adoradores de Mitra tenían un complejo sistema de siete grados de iniciación y comidas rituales comunitarias. Los iniciados se llamaban a sí mismos syndexioi, los "unidos por el apretón de manos".

 

Se reunían en templos subterráneos, llamados mithraea (singular mithraeum), que sobreviven en gran número. El culto parece haber tenido su centro en Roma.

 

Foto tomada en el Neues Museum, Museuminsel, Berlín, Alemania)

Esmerelda / Come What May sailing in the Sound of Bute, Scotland. Inchmarnock and Arran in the distance

 

Log of the Dinghy Esmerelda or Come What May

Three seasons learning to sail (1998 - 2000)

 

May 1998

For years, it seems, it has been at the back of my mind that, when it was convenient, I would learn to sail my own boat. Life being such as it is, I have spent the last nine years living within ten minute's walk of the sea but have not been in a sailing boat in all that time. Last weekend, I answered an advert in the local paper. Now, I am the proud owner of a 14ft Lark sailing dinghy! Ian, the seller, kindly offered to teach me to sail her. She’s a modest little boat, but seems worth the price. Adam (my elder son) is delighted and is raring to have a go.

****

Yesterday evening was our first time out on the water, not on the tide, but on West Kirby marine lake in the Dee estuary. I felt very much an incompetent land-lubber. I have a whole new set of coordination skills to learn, certainly more than when learning to ride a motorcycle or drive a car, but this is part of the challenge. I think it helps to have the limbs and bodily plasticity of an octopus.

****

Ian took me out in the boat for the second time yesterday evening and it was beautiful! - sun sinking in the west, warm blue sky, a gentle breeze and the boat gliding effortlessly through the water. If I am not yet completely hooked, then I soon shall be. My aspirations are modest: I'd be thrilled simply to learn the necessary skills and gain the confidence to navigate the Wirral coast.

****

This sailing has really got a grip on me. I spent last Thursday night in Manchester so that I could start earlier on Friday in order to be home by 5 p.m. to take the boat out. It was wild! The wind was approaching force 4 and we managed to capsize twice, (although we were the last boat on the lake to do so). It is a wonderful activity which, like mountaineering, is completely absorbing both mentally and physically, and which, if you're not actually doing it, then you're thinking about doing it or pottering around with the equipment. I'm pleased, because it has restored a dimension to my life that has been sadly lacking for a few years. Alix and I have decided definitely to withdraw our house from sale and stay put here on the coast, at least for the foreseeable future.

 

Inanimate objects

I hesitate to consider my boat an inanimate object. She has several traits suggestive of animation, and female at that:

a nice shape,

moves gracefully,

behaves wilfully,

demands attention,

requires sensitive handling,

and on two occasions has been quite upset and ditched me.

 

Friday 12th June 1998

Stimulating, thrilling, absorbing and therapeutic.

We went out last Saturday and plan to again this Saturday. It is time I took it out on my own though, or rather with someone I can't rely on to take the initiative in a tricky situation. After all, the whole idea is to sail this boat myself. With this in mind, I persuaded my German colleage Tobias to come over on Sunday to join me. He has never sailed, so it'll be the blind leading the blind, but it has to be the quickest way to learn.

 

Sunday 14th June 1998

Achievement!

I took the boat out truly as 'skipper' this evening (with Tobias). The wind was northerly, gusting force 4, and slightly intimidating - I nearly called the whole thing off - but once we'd cast off it was magical!

Suddenly after all the flapping and palaver of rigging, all is quiet and smooth as we glide downwind. A slightly anxious moment ensues when I realize we'll have to gybe before we run out of lake, but this manoeuvre works smoothly and I realize with relief that I can actually tack back against the wind.

After an hour, despite some interesting moments, we have managed to avoid capsizing and are still relatively dry. We are rewarded by the sun peeping out from under the clouds just before it vanishes below the horizon.

 

Clynnog fawr, Lleyn Peninsula, north Wales, July 1998

 

Wonderful holiday! - the best I think for several years. Brothers Martin and Chris and our three families (15 of us in all) staying in a farm house together. Best of all was to see all the kids together (eight cousins and one half-sister) - how the older ones looked after and amused the younger ones, and also how the younger ones amused the adults, and how the adults are actually kids at heart and behave as such when they are all together. It was invaluable to have so many young cousins for Adam to play with, and to be able to let Ricky trot out into the large green spaces around the house and to play in the sand, knowing that there were nearly always three or four others keeping an eye on him.

 

The farm itself was in a beautiful location on a magnificent length of coast, north west facing, catching the best of the sunsets. The whole area is delightfully quiet and unspoilt (and only two hours drive from home, even towing the boat). The weather was not ideal, but we still managed to spend a large proportion of the time outside.

 

At the beginning of the week high winds, cloud and some rain made it quite unsuitable for sailing but we managed some hiking and some went horse riding. By Wednesday, the forecast was slightly better and we'd discovered relative shelter and what seemed to be a nice launching site at the northern end of Llanberis Lake, so we decided to sail come what may. [At this moment Come What May suggested itself as a name for my boat. Only later did I discern the name Esmerelda almost completely faded written on the hull.]

It turned out to be a delightful, sunny and warm afternoon, the shore had trees to climb, sticks and stones to splash in the water and soft grassy spots for picnics. We launched and I was able to take everyone out in turn. For Adam and Alix it was actually their first time, the complexities of child care being what they are. Adam was fairly excited but not a hundred percent confident, he finds it a little intimidating but hopefully that will change. It was the perfect day for him - gentle and warm.

 

The next day started fine with a light breeze. Majority interest however determined that we go riding again followed by a pub lunch, but in the afternoon I was determined to get the boat out. The tide was up and three of us succeeded in handling it down a steep track to the shore and then over small, slippery, seaweed-covered boulders to the water's edge.

I still find it miraculous how, once rigged, with a quick shove and hop in, we are gliding through the water as if by magic (hoping a freak gust doesn't turn us round before I grab hold of the tiller and get the centreplate down!)

Caernarfon Bay, and first time on the sea! The swell was a little daunting as we sailed into deeper water, especially with four adults aboard (not sailed with that many before), but I practised a few tacks, sailing up-wind and down-wind, and she seemed to handle alright without shipping water, albeit a bit heavy at the tiller, so I was happy. It was a delight with the rhythm of the waves and the late afternoon sun sparkling through the spray and sea to the open horizon; with our course set for the open Atlantic I just wanted to keep going. Fortunately, I didn't. All of a sudden there was no more resistance on the tiller and we swung round into the wind: the rudder had torn off its mounting! I was glad that I'd invested in some oars as a precaution with which we were able to turn about to face shoreward; then, by holding the rudder (fortunately still attached to the boat by the uphaul line) and leaning right into the water astern, we were able to hold a course back to the shore. I since realised that the reason the rudder felt so heavy in the first place was because it was not engaged in its fixed down position but trailing horizontally behind; the extra leverage combined with the weight in the boat must have sheared the two mounting bolts. I've now repaired it with four new reinforcing bolts. It was a learning experience and exciting at the time. The others all seemed to enjoy it and seemed to think it was all in a day's sailing adventures.

 

7th August 1998

Last weekend was wonderful. Summer finally seemed to have arrived: it was comfortable to spend dawn 'til dusk in shorts and T shirt and to sit out late in the garden for dinner with a bottle of wine after the kids were in bed. Adam and I went onto the beach on Sunday and spent a good hour just splashing in the sea and being crabs and sea-monsters wallowing in the deep soft sand. Simple happiness!

More exciting still, I took the boat out twice. First, on West Kirby marine lake completely on my own for the very first time. I was out on the water by 7.30 a.m., it was a gorgeous morning and I had the whole lake and, indeed it seemed, the whole estuary to myself. Second, again on my own, on the high tide for the first time. Two significant achievements which have given me such a thrill that I can't wait to do it again! In fact, I can now say that I have achieved my long held ambition of being able to sail my own boat on the sea, albeit in very easy conditions: a smooth surface and barely a breath of wind. I sailed for three hours on the high spring tide and was really chuffed to be out there on my own, but it would have been nice to have had some good company too. I feel this is only the beginning: my curiosity is already drawing me to peruse the second-hand yacht sections of the sailing magazines!

 

17th August 1998

I had my sailing abilities stretched this weekend when I took the boat out on the tide in a breeze that was slightly too strong for me (also my muscles and parts of the boat were well stretched). It was a humbling experience:

On the sea front, the breeze felt rather intimidating. The lifeguard on duty hailed me, having seen me with my boat the previous week,

"Going out today?"

I confided my reservations to him, but he replied, presumably intending to encourage me,

"Only way to learn, by experience!"

This was a challenge I felt bound to accept.

Having rigged and launched, all there was to do was push off and hop in. It was that moment of hesitation that reminded me of the feeling I had as a novice skier on the lip of my first black run: the point of no return. Hesitation over, the first few seconds I spent struggling to lower the rudder, which for some reason would not go down (because, I found out later, I'd hitched the uphaul too tight), while keeping an eye on other boats at their moorings skimming past me at an alarming rate even before I'd trimmed the sails. In the excitement, I forgot to lower the centreplate, which meant that having covered about half a mile in what seemed like about ten seconds I tried to come about into the wind but couldn't. Hemmed in by a sand bank on one side and an approaching groyne on the other, there seemed to be little room to manoeuvre and all I could do was gybe, but this didn't work properly either and I capsized. I realised the centreplate wasn't down when I tried to stand on it to pull the boat back upright, it then took me a few moments to lower it because first I had to untangle the anchor warp from the centreplate uphaul, the two having become intertwined. The boat then righted quite easily and I tacked back against the wind with the water gurgling reassuringly out through the self-bailers; I was determined not to be defeated.

Eventually though, the jib became wrapped around the forestay and I capsized again trying to unwind it. At this point I felt I was doing everything wrong and it was time to come in so I limped back to the slip still half full of water where by now a small group of spectators had gathered to watch me, including the lifeguard and two old sea-dogs who'd obviously been passing comment. Later, the lifeguard told me that the old sea-dogs were "impressed" that I'd got back without assistance. But really I don't suppose I impressed anyone much. I clearly have much to learn.

 

7th September 1998

I took Adam out in the boat on Saturday. There was almost no breeze: we seemed to spend long periods just playing with the sails trying to detect what little air movement there was. Adam had a go at the helm which quite thrilled him, and he even tacked. He was pretty good at holding a course when I told him to steer towards particular landmarks.

The dissipated remnants of hurricane Danielle have been lurking off the coast of Ireland these last few days and forecast to be moving across the British Isles; on Sunday the wind got up and there were gales forecast in the Irish Sea and I chickened out of going out on my own although several boats did sail on the high tide.

 

14th September 1998

Sunday was too windy for sailing. I'm going to have to experiment with techniques for reefing the sails, or sailing on the jib only.

 

18th September 1998

I saw a centre page pull-out guide in one of the yachting magazines this week entitled, "Your guide to crossing the Atlantic" - I dream.

 

9th October 1998

It's been cool and windy here but with a lot of bright sunshine interrupted by occasional showers. The leaves are starting to thin on the trees and most of the apples are in, except the late ripening ones. I was hoping there might have been a chance to take the boat out, but the weather really wasn't suitable. Most of the moored sailing boats are coming in onto dry land for the winter now.

I did get some useful clearing done in the garden and managed to build up our supply of fire-wood. Richard was following me behind the wheelbarrow and he managed to tumble into the pond!

It is simply beautiful being out in the garden. There is something very special about this time of year: the colours, the earthy smells and the sound of the wind in the trees.

 

20th October 1998

Autumn has set in a big way: chilly, grey and wet, and particularly dismal now that the nights are drawing in. Definitely time for the wood fire in doors. It was beautiful though in the garden on Sunday: I got a lot of clearing done and generated much material for bonfire night; also, I came across a hedgehog - not so rare in our garden but unusual in broad daylight and nice to see. Adam insisted I tell stories to him about hedgehogs for the rest of the day.

 

3rd November 1998

At 11 p.m. there was a 10 metre tide bursting on the sea wall with a strong northwesterly wind behind it and a full moon. I never saw such a high tide here. The sea was all over the road. I felt a strange, pleasant, almost terrified excitement because there is one recurring nightmare that I have occasionally had in adult life which involves standing on a foreshore and seeing the monster of all waves rising up and bearing towards me and the growing realisation that I won't escape it in time.

Our bonfire party is tomorrow. As usual, a huge pile of wood has appeared as though by magic in the night, the local contractors see it as an opportunity for free rubbish disposal and it will take four of us half the day to built it into burnable shape tomorrow, but this is all part of the fun. Adam is looking forward to it and so am I.

 

2nd December 1998

We like too much where we live: our wonderful garden, horses over the fence, lying in bed listening to the waves on a summers night, the crashing surf of a winter storm, opening the door to the tangy smell of sea air in the morning, sunrise in a crispy dawn sparkling on frost-covered sand, and the pink rays of setting sun over the water glowing off the distant Welsh hills. It's a clear, frosty night with a full moon. There's a thin, misty vapour over the water as the tide silently slides past the sea wall and the oyster catchers make their eerie call - I love it!

 

***

 

26th April 1999

Out sailing again - first launch this year. Saturday was a beautiful day and I took Adam out on the high tide in the evening while the sun was lowering in the west. It was neap and there was virtually no wind - very still, we moved like a whisper. It was so still that we went aground (neap tides don't leave much room to manoeuvre between sand banks) and didn't even notice that we were stuck for about a minute! It was good to be on the water again.

 

28th April 1999

The sun is a great red orb above the horizon. The boat is all set for launching at the next available opportunity - this weekend. It is a long weekend with the May Day holiday and there are high spring tides around midday - perfect!

 

14th May 1999

Sailing has been wonderful! Especially yesterday, when conditions were perfect and I spent three hours exploring some of the far reaches of the sand-banks several miles up and down the coast. I'm looking for the best route across the shallows that will allow me to circumnavigate the islands in the mouth of the Dee estuary on a single high tide. The timing is important in order to avoid being left high an dry.

 

18th May 1999

Sailing is good exercise: strong on the back and arms hauling the trailer along the road to and from the slipway, and then on the tummy muscles when leaning out to balance the boat when it's heeling over.

 

I had an embarrassing little incident two weeks ago in front of the lifeboat. It was a perfect day for sailing, sunny with a gentle breeze. I'd been out for about an hour and was starting to think about coming in for some lunch when I saw the Hoylake lifeboat coming past. This is a big, powerful, offshore boat with an experienced, sea-going crew. It pulled up close to our slipway, and the crew having passed some lines ashore set about some rescue exercises. Meanwhile, I thought I'd better make a good impression. I gave them a wide berth and tacked cleanly round to make my approach to the slipway in such a way as to avoid any risk of entanglement with their lines. Gliding in smoothly, I reached aft to raise the rudder to stop it grounding, but instead managed to pull the tiller off the rudder stock: the boat slewed round out of all control and, before I could do anything about it, heeled over wildly and capsized, right in front of the life-boat! What's more, a crewman was recording the whole incident on video! I righted the boat without assistance and then sailed out again to allow the self-bailers to empty the boat of water to avoid the embarrassment of having to do so ashore. Afterwards, our local lifeguard, who was also there on duty, remarked that I couldn't have chosen a better moment: the lifeboat only comes down here about once a year!

 

We've finally booked our holiday cottage for this summer: a house on the shores of Loch Torridon, way up in the north west of Scotland. I'm really looking forward to it. It is in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland and a superb area for mountaineering. Everything is literally on the doorstep. There is access to the loch to launch the boat and the cottage lies at the very foot of one of the most spectacular mountains in Scotland, Liathach, the crest of which, soaring to 3,456ft directly above the sea, is considered to be one of the four classic ridge routes in the country. Of course, scope for serious mountaineering will be limited, but at least we will be four adults to share child minding. Unfortunately, the cottage was only available for one week and not two, but we plan to take the tent and tour for a few days after. I'm already really excited.

 

10th June 1999

Sailing, it is completely absorbing and I love it! This was my diary entry last weekend:

Onshore breeze, about force 3, which seems plenty strong enough for me single handed. The question arises how to launch at a right angle to the breeze with the sails up; hoisting the sails once afloat would be the better solution but with no means of holding the bow this could be awkward. I wheel the boat on the trolley half into the water then swing the trolley to head the boat into the wind, hoist the sails, rig the rudder, then manoeuvre the trolley so as to allow the boat to float, holding the bow. I'm glad Alix then turns up to retrieve the trolley. Which direction to cast off? Try to avoid the embarrassing and awkward situation of being blown back onto the sea wall before making way, but to make good way, must lower the plate and sheet-in immediately but can't lower the plate until in deeper water. Conundrum. Oh well, try it. Here goes. Shove, hop in and grab tiller. Impetus of shove already gone, drifting back on shore into small party launching rowing boat; sheet-in sheet-in: yes! now 45 degrees to wind and making way, miraculously avoid sea wall. Rudder down, plate down - no, not enough depth for plate, grounding on sand bank; half raise plate, can't tack, bear round with wind, avoid moored boats, must gybe - tricky in confined space, risk of capsize. Steady gybe by holding vang as boom swings across. Success! Now on course with clear water ahead.

It takes a few minutes of lively sailing to convince myself that I am really in control. The swell is slight but riding the waves is exciting as every other crest bursts on the bow, shooting spray up my bum leaning out over the windward gunwale. Shortly, the rhythmic plunge and rise through the waves works a very soothing effect, my senses become fully attuned to my immediate surroundings and all else seems a world away.

 

Hoylake Sailing Club Regatta, 15th June 1999

I actually took part in a race this weekend. The local sailing club held its annual regatta. While I was launching on Friday evening one of the officers of the club introduced himself and invited me to take part. It's quite an event locally, with a lot of visiting boats from the region and open to non-members.

So there I was on the water on Sunday morning with only the vaguest notion of what was expected. I was confused by the order of buoys and posts that marked out the course, which ones to pass on which side and in which order. Then there was the gun. There were meant to be six minute and three minute warning shots but I'm sure there was an extra one, and on which side of the line was I supposed to be? At the last moment but too late it suddenly became clear and the start gun found me on the wrong side of the line going the wrong way! The other boats were racing towards the first buoy whilst I having recrossed the line lagged hopelessly in their wake. For a while I was able to follow them, but as the wind got up and the sea became grey and choppy the field spread out and even some of the more experienced boats appeared to become confused and eventually I had to admit that I really didn't know where I was supposed to be heading! Oh well, I'll know what to expect another time.

I appreciated the opportunity to make contact with the sailing club. They seem to be a friendly and pleasantly informal lot and I may consider joining, partly for access to their rather nice clubhouse with bar overlooking the sea, but partly also because it represents a chance to get to know people whose company I might enjoy and who share an enthusiasm for sailing. It is not a sporty, highly competitive dinghy racing club, although they do organise racing on some Sundays. I have the impression that the competitive aspects are not taken too seriously. It is more a group of people who enjoy sailing in all its forms, which suits me. The attractive clubhouse is an added bonus.

It was not a competitive streak that induced me to participate in the race on Sunday, but an exploratory streak to see how I might enjoy it, and a sense of curiosity to see how my sailing matched up to others. I realised that racing is a good way to hone one's skills because I did a lot more manoeuvring and trying to maximise efficiency than when out on my own. I can see how racing could be enjoyable because it involves optimizing your performance, which can be thrilling and satisfying (and it would be nice to win sometimes too) but I can't yet see myself wanting to race regularly. Like skiing, I see sailing as a means of exploration rather than a competitive sport.

 

Tuesday 6th July 1999

We were sailing on Sunday, all of us together for a change. Rick was very excited before he got in, then once underway he kept saying, "Tip over!" and looking worried, but he got used to it for before long he was scrambling to the stern to grab the tiller saying, "Have it, Ricky do it!" Meanwhile Adam was intent that I tell him a story about some limpets who make friends with some ammonites. I am learning that taking the kids out demands additional skills to normal sailing competence.

We're soon away to Scotland for a fortnight. I actually bought myself a fishing rod and some tackle just in case the wind drops while out on the loch, as if I won't have enough to occupy myself with a boat and kids and magnificent nearby mountains. It telescopes down to 18 inches so it won't take up much space. I thought it might be fun for the kids too (good excuse, eh? Of course I'm just a big one.) I have fished exactly twice in my life and caught one trout about four inches long, so the family probably shouldn't rely on me for food.

 

Torridon and Kishorn, July 1999

 

[Monday 2nd August 1999, back home.] It is hard to be back after such a lovely break. Tragic actually. I suddenly see all the things that are wrong with my life here and what an effort it is to try to force myself to put up with them. Especially I see how drab, ugly and over-crowded are the areas where I live and work, even our little patch on the coast holds no magic compared with the northwest of Scotland.

While we were away it was wonderful to be able to spend so much time continually with Richard and Adam and coming back I realize how unnatural it is for a parent to see so little of his children as I normally do here. I have no illusions that we have a right to a perfect life - there is no reason why working for a living should be easy - but some things need to change.

The northwest of Scotland would certainly have limitations as a place to live, the principal of which would be an acceptable means to make a living, followed by the distance to secondary schooling for the boys. Also, family visits would be much less frequent, the midges bite terribly and the weather would not be as reliably good as we had it at least in the second week. But as for the rest of it - city life - I don't need it.

 

We spent the first week on the shores of Loch Torridon nestling at the foot of two of the principal mountains of the area. Torridon is rugged country - one of the last places in Britain to have glaciers as late as 9,000 BC - but like the whole west highland seaboard, sublimely beautiful. Other fjord-scape coastlines in the world are certainly more splendid, but Scotland has a special charm that appeals to me personally.

The peaks of Torridon rise straight out of the sea to over three thousand feet and are composed of thousand Myr old sandstone, which in the larger corries takes the form of sheer, dark grey precipices of giant masonry blocks, and on the tops, precariously placed boulders like part-melted stacks of huge dinner plates. Many of the peaks are capped with silver-grey quarzite which when wet glints and sparkles in the sun. The whole is founded on much older bed-rock (up to half the age of the earth) which shows itself in places as contorted swirls of intermingled shades of pink, orange and fiery red streaked with white. The region has remnants of the original Caledonian pine forest still undisturbed after eight thousand years. But the principal charms are the play of cloud and light on the hills and sea, and the unhurried style of life, where people still leave their house doors unlocked when they go out.

We had a fair bit of drizzle and overcast days in the first week, during the course of which ours was the only boat we saw afloat in the whole of Upper Loch Torridon. In fact, one afternoon, Martin and I were sitting in the boat in the middle of the loch, with the clouds low on the hills and the rain dribbling down the sails, awaiting any movement of air that might get us back to shore before tea, and I did start to wonder what it might take before I started to question my enjoyment!

Another day Martin and I thought we'd make the most of any time when the breeze died by trying my new fishing rod and three hundred piece fishing kit. Out on the water, the sails lolling impotenty, I gave Martin charge of the helm, should any light air arise to stir us, while I sorted hooks and fiddled, trying to remember how to tie them to the line. All of a sudden, there were ripples on the water, the sails filled, the boat heeled wildly and we were creating a creaming bow wave, covering the distance across the loch in a couple of minutes that it had taken us a whole afternoon the previous day, while I scrabbled to prevent fish hooks from littering the floor around our bare feet and at the same time tried to give instruction to Martin who'd never helmed a dinghy!

 

Come the weekend, the clouds evaporated and there followed six days of glorious hot weather when we were out everyday in T-shirts and shorts, even on the water and up at 3,000ft late into the evening - very unScottish! We found accommodation slightly farther south, with magnificent views from our living room window up into the majestic corries of Applecross and out to Skye, in a secluded bungalow just outside the small village of Achintraid on the shore of Loch Kishorn. Alix, Adam, Rick and I spent a couple of days of idyllic sailing when we were out for the whole day with picnic and cans of beer, mooring on uninhabited islands and remote beaches for long lunches, lounging in the sun, exploring the rock-pools for crabs and sea-anemones and swimming nude (there simply was no need for swimming costumes because no one was there!), although not for many minutes because the water was chilly. I love to abandon the trappings of civilization as much as possible on holiday - radio and television, swimming trunks, combing my hair, etc. I go happily for days washing and bathing only in salt-water with my hair gone wild, I like the feeling of it.

The Highlands can be extremely bleak and dreary ("driech" in the Scotch dialect) but only in some places and in certain weather. The atmosphere is often fresh and invigorating or imbued with a remarkable softness. Part of the beauty is this softness and the wonderful cloud-scapes. During our hot weather spell, although I wouldn't have wanted to change it, some of the distinctive charm was lost: it reminded me more of the Alps or the Sierra Nevada than Scotland.

I think we've all felt slightly down since returning, we had such a gorgeous few days. Sailing off the sea front here in Liverpool Bay has (at least temporarily) lost its appeal.

 

***

 

Sunday 19th March 2000

First launch of the year. It was wonderful to be on the water again! It is something very special to me. On the water, I am happy: life is as it should be and I don't want for anything. I was out at 8:30 a.m. for nearly three hours, and there was no one else.

 

28th March 2000

Summer time

We switched to British Summer Time this weekend and today the temperature has dropped to 3°C - it feels like January again! I did get out in the boat though, both on Saturday and Sunday. Good thing is, the kids have not adapted to the time change yet, so we get to sleep slightly later, but I wonder how long it'll take for them to catch on.

 

Sunday 2nd April 2000

Hoylake Sailing Club first dinghy race of the season.

It rained the whole weekend: a pretty much continuous light sea-drizzle which hardly let up even once. Alix took advantage of child-minding by parents and agreed to join me in the boat on Sunday (rare that we are ever in the boat together). At 9 a.m. there was a sea mist and hardly a breath of wind, and we really wondered whether we were silly, sitting bailing the rain out from where it collected from dribbling down the sails as fast as it came in, and feeling the wetness slowly creeping in down our necks. At the starter's gun, the few other boats all managed magically to coax some movement out of the still air, while it took a good two minutes before we managed first to point in the right direction then get underway, bringing up the rear. It was all quite amusing really, and in the end we were glad we'd made the effort to go out. Afterwards, all of us including the boys went into the clubhouse for a drink, then returned home for proper Sunday lunch of roast lamb, a good bottle of Rioja and an afternoon cozily by the living room fire. A near perfect Sunday.

 

Hoylake Sailing Club Regatta, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th June 2000

There were around 70 boats racing offshore, so quite a spectacle. I didn't race. I'm not convinced that racing is where my interest lies, I simply like to be out on the water and go where the whim takes me rather than jostle with other craft around buoys. The lifeguard introduced me to Billy who offered to take me out in Magnetic, his Cygnet cruising yacht. We walked out over the sand to his mooring in the outer channel. The tide comes up here with a rush; it is impressive like a fast flowing river, one minute you're lying aground and the next you're bobbing around floating free. It was interesting for a change and novel to be able to brew tea en route in the cabin, but it struck me how sluggish and how restricted in manoeuvring over the sand banks is a boat like Magnetic compared to my dinghy, so on Sunday I was happy to be back under my own sail.

Alix took the boys to the Millennium Dome in Greenwich at the weekend. It has been billed as a festival of Britain to match the great ones of the past but has had bad press and accusations of waste of public money. Alix thought it was accurate in presenting an impression of the state of Britain today in that it was confused and didn't seem to know what it was trying to be, and it had an abundance of what this country is famous for abroad: its queues.

 

12th June 2000

I'm considering an over-night sailing and camping expedition to Hilbre. The tides were right this weekend but the winds were too fierce for me, force 4 - 5 the whole time, and I didn't get out in the boat at all (I feel deprived). Beautiful sunny weather for the garden though; however, I had to use some of it on afternoon naps as, first Adam, then Richard, were sick during the night and left us very short of sleep.

 

16th June 2000

I went out on Tuesday evening just after I got home and it was gorgeous in the late light, sailing into the sunset. There was a significant breeze and I was even surfing in on some waves. This weekend the weather looks set lovely and, wind permitting, tomorrow we will all go out and perhaps anchor somewhere for a picnic.

 

19th June 2000

We are enjoying a heat wave; that is, I am enjoying it, but many are not. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the inner cities reached 90°F this weekend. We have a south wind, but plenty of breeze on the coast to be bearable. We all sailed on Sunday, cruising out to the far edge of the sandbank (about a mile offshore) where we beached, ate picnic lunch and had a swim; it is good to have a break to provide variety for Adam and Richard, otherwise they get restless just having to sit. After we returned, we all went to the beach again (with swimming costumes this time) to cool off while the tide was still up to swim in. Adam and Richard loved it. Later Alix and I were eating dinner on the lawn until 10 p.m. I love weekends like this and count it a great privilege to have the wonderful sea on the doorstep. Being back at work is definitely dull by comparison, but it is what I am paid for.

 

Monday 26th June 2000

We are in the 70s today, warmer than at the weekend with its brisk northwesterly breeze - too windy for sailing, unfortunately, which we’d been looking forward to as Alix’ sister and family were here to visit. We were a bit downcast from sadness that our visitors had to leave. The kids were so excited the whole time to have each other as playmates and they were all devastated when they had to part. They all shared the same bedroom and around seven each morning we heard the "gentle" patter of feet as they trooped down stairs, trying to be quiet but not quite succeeding, to organize their own breakfast before any of the adults appeared. On Sunday morning they even let themselves out of the house to play in the garden and in the lane before we got up - two of them still half in their night-clothes! And Adam was revelling in showing them around his home territory.

 

Sunday 30th July 2000

It's been a good weekend for sailing. Thursday evening was looking gorgeous and Adam decided to come with me (partly I suspect as a means of delaying his bed-time); unfortunately shortly after we launched some grey clouds coalesced above and released persistent rain for an hour. Friday really was gorgeous though: what little rain there was had cleared during the course of the day leaving a few fantastic cloud shapes and sparkling sunshine. I was the only boat out and I sailed until just after sunset in only my shorts and T-shirt. The breeze was very light and at one point I let myself hang backwards over the side with my hair almost dabbling in the water becoming almost dizzy from the huge upside down vista of red orb sun and pink tinted clouds gliding passed at water's-eye view. It was very pleasurable.

This morning Richard and I went out together. First time I've taken Richard alone. He was very good (in doing what he was told when told) and seemed really to enjoy and remain interested for the whole of nearly two hours that we were out (in perfect summer weather). He caused some amusement upon landing when he insisted in helping me by pushing the boat from behind with all his might up the slipway!

 

Saturday 5th August 2000

We are leaving for the Isle of Bute next Saturday and I feel there is a lot to rush to do before we go. Preparations for holidays these days are no longer a simple matter of organizing a rucksack on my back, boots on my feet and money in my pocket. There's the boat trailer to load - do the lights work? - need a new registration number plate to match the new car, grease the wheel bearings, where are all the straps and cords I used last year? Adam, Rick, where have you hidden xyz since I last saw you playing with it? Where are all the tent pegs? Does the camping stove work? etc. Alix tends to organise food and kids' clothes, which is a relief. All I've done is had a case of wine sent to the friends we're staying with for the first week (definitely essential provisions). I try to tell myself that this is a holiday and we're supposed to enjoy it, but I know I've worn myself down because I've succumbed to respiratory infection and my back is playing up (doesn't help to have to lift the boat trailer). None of this stopped us all going out sailing today though. We pottered along the shore to Leasowe beach and landed for the kids to build sand castles for half an hour (they like the break), then headed home before the tide went out. We saw lots of birds and a couple of very brightly coloured jelly fish.

 

Wednesday 9th August 2000

The boat and equipment is now loaded for the road and ready to go as soon as we can get out on Saturday morning. I avoid the check-list syndrome as much as possible and usually get by with a single pencilled sheet of paper scribbled a week in advance; I do what I consider necessary to avoid wasting time when we are actually away. High tide is about an hour before sunset and there is light air movement: if I feel I've worked well by the end of the day I'd be tempted to go out, although I'm not sure I want to face all the unloading and reloading again!

 

Isle of Bute and Argyll, August 2000

 

Our holiday was really wonderful. August Scottish weather again proved remarkably fine. There were only two days in nearly a fortnight when rain deterred us from doing what we had planned, and we had several magnificent days. Of our eleven days spent actually in Scotland, we sailed on six of them.

We enjoyed our time on the Isle of Bute spent with a long-standing friend David in his parental house. His parents are now dead but his sister lives there still. David lives in Switzerland, but returns every couple of years to supervise (and pay for) necessary structural upkeep as it is a large, rambling Victorian property. He generally invites a house-full of friends for the duration, which makes for a lively week - ideal for the kids, because there are other kids to play with, and for the adults too, who have the stimulus of each other's company.

The island is relatively close to Glasgow but, on its western shore particularly, it is quiet and has much of the character of more remote Hebridean islands. We had some fine sailing off the beaches in magnificent scenery and crystal-clear water. I also took some of the other guests out - I enjoy sharing their pleasure in it.

 

For the second week we moved farther westward and found a delightful camp spot on the shore of Loch Sween. It was a perfect, level, grassy platform a few yards above the shore, facing the sunsets. We had words with the local farmer who let us stay there and gave us access to a water tap, and who also offered to launch our boat from their adjacent field, enabling us to keep it moored right below the tent. We actually used two tents on this trip, letting Adam and Richard share the small backpacking tent together, which they enjoyed, thus leaving us some peace and privacy in the larger dome tent. It was very close to idyllic: we were completely secluded, I was able to read The Hobbit to Adam snuggled up to the campfire for his bedtime story, and we were very little harassed by midges, which is unusual for the Scottish west coast in August.

 

Upon arrival, it had been a hectic day travelling in the car, the kids had been fractious and were finally in bed, it was a beautifully placid evening with perhaps half an hour left of sun before sinking behind the hills, and I took the boat out. Ghosting along the middle of the loch with barely a whisper, making myself comfortable with my head resting on the thwart staring backwards up at the sky, I was so absorbed that I turned with a start when I suddenly realized I'd nearly bumped into an island full of seals! About a dozen of them on a craggy rock, about twenty yards long and four wide, breaking the surface of the water by about three feet. The rock was actually marked on the 1:50,000 map as a small blip but I hadn'd noticed it. It lay only about 500yd offshore from where we were camped, so we all returned there together in the morning for a closer look. There were several pups among them looking very cute.

 

Our nearest shop was 4 miles away by boat up the loch at Tayvallich on the opposite shore, but a 20 mile trip around by car, so we experienced the novelty of a family grocery shopping expedition by sail, making a fine day trip, with a good sea-food pub dinner thrown in.

 

Kilmartin Glen, not far away, is a centre for some of the earliest known settlements in Scotland, so on non-sailing days there were five thousand year old stone circles, burial sites, iron age fortresses, and also near by, tiny ruined churches dating back to the early Roman missionaries of the 6thC AD, some with original 12thC stone carvings still intact, as well as Castle Sween to explore. But I must say that I loved the sailing most: exploring the little islands, anchorages and unfamiliar harbour entrances. It is completely absorbing, demanding a wonderful combination of attention to physical coordination and judgment. That is what I find immensely satisfying about mountaineering too: this combination of physical challenges together with the continual need for reassessment of the situation in the light of one's knowledge of one's own abilities and of the objective dangers.

 

Tuesday 29th August 2000

I picked up a book from the library recently about how to build a wood and canvas kayak. I am wondering whether I could sustain the motivation and determination for such a project. This came after casually browsing for some information on glass fibre boat repairs: the boat could benefit from a little attention this year. I would like to paint her name on the hull. The word Esmerelda is just discernible written large on the side but so faded as to be almost invisible except in certain light. I'm still in two minds as to whether to call her this or Come What May, which refers to a remark made in conjuction with a decision to sail one day. To me, Esmerelda is the name of an elderly lady, and as time goes by I realize that she deserves the according level of respect.

 

Brother Martin and family came over the bank holiday and we sailed. Then today Adam and I happened to get the perfect combination of clear sunshine, fine breeze and high spring tide that allowed us to cross the sandbank and circumnavigate Hilbre, a feat that has been my aim since the beginning of the season, but from which I had been deterred either by too much or too little wind or insufficient tide. We spotted a dozen seals on the way, a pair of which followed us at close quarters for up to half a mile (Adam was thrilled).

 

Wednesday 13th September 2000

This day I was at home working, ostensibly, but there was mild, balmy sunshine and sufficient breeze to tempt me out onto the tide at midday. It was gorgeous and I made good way into the gentle south westerly air, ploshing pleasantly through the wavelets. Out of the distance, suggesting itself as a destination, appeared the HE2 East cardinal buoy that marks the east side of the West Hoyle Bank, beckoning me like a siren to go farther offshore than I have ever been, two and half miles out from the mouth of the Dee estuary. I decided I ought to be able to round it and return with the breeze behind me in time to cross the bank before the tide receded.

It was eerie being alone and so far out, with the buoy and its apparently resident population of perched seagulls on its large scaffold superstructure behung with lights, bells and other navigational symbols; the boat seemed small and fragile compared to its robust iron bulk.

On the way back the breeze became lighter. A seal investigated me closely, surfacing and blowing noisily just off the stern and rolling tummy-up as if to get a better look. Shortly afterwards the wind died.

I tried with the oars to get as far as possible, and then towed and hauled on the painter as the ebbing tide left me with barely enough depth to cover my ankles, but eventually had to deploy the anchors, abandon my vessel and walk home, some fifteen minutes back to Hoylake promenade.

Next high tide was not until midnight so I would have to walk out and wait for the flood two hours before, then row back in the dark. My main concern was to locate the boat on the vast expanse of sand in darkness; I had taken a compass bearing and, fortunately, noticed that the iron railings on the promenade caused the needle to deviate by about 30°!

Come What May / Esmerelda finally appeared as a ghostly white shadow in the torch beam. Waiting on board for the tide was a quietly serene experience, reclining quite comfortably in my 8mm wet suit in a slight drizzle. It was rather beautiful: wet but warm in the dark, with the night full of the sounds of oyster catchers and imagining the gurgling trickle of advancing water becoming louder by the minute, and a hint of moonlight behind the clouds.

 

20th September 2000

The season is distinctly about to slide into autumn. The apples have reached full ripeness and are starting to drop, and there are widespread hints of leaves starting to turn colour. The sunshine is warm during the day, but last night the temperature dropped nearly to 50°F for the first time probably in months. With the shorter days, the number of high tides potentially suitable for sailing becomes restricted; that combined with the higher probability of poor weather means sailing will be sporadic (I've been out only twice this month). But I love this season.

 

22nd November 2000

I'm enthralled with a book at the moment. It is a description of three seasons spent sailing up the eastern seaboard of North America, from Florida to the St. Lawrence, in a 16ft Wayfarer dinghy by Frank Dye. It is about exploration by sail stripped to its bare essentials, the idea of which appeals to me enormously, and is exactly the sort of sailing I'd love to do on this coast, although without some of the author's more hairy adventures. Among other things, he has opened my eyes to what an enormous and varied coast North America has - like distances on the land, the size of the coastline is difficult to conceive compared to this country.

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

The construction of the present chateau dates from the 13th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.

At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.

The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.

The Rhins of Galloway is a narrow strip of land, jutting out into the Irish Sea at the south western extreme of Scotland. It is a remote peninsula that the modern world has only lightly touched. Its close proximity to Northern Ireland points to a long history of Irish influence and the land is punctuated with numerous prehistoric stones, forts and the ruins of early Christian chapels. It is a place where the veil between the past and the present is very thin indeed.

 

About a mile or so inland from the village of Sandhead is the atmospheric church and burial ground of Kirkmadrine. The church stands on a small hill and is of late Victorian construct, plain in features, but its footprint is far, far older. Gravestones cluster around the southern wall of the church, tumbling down the short, steep incline in ragged disarray. They face east to the rising sun, waiting for the coming of the light.

 

In the summer, this is a beautifully peaceful place to pass a warm, sunny afternoon, sitting on the grass among the tombstones. It is a very different place in late October. The ground is sodden, this year’s leaves fallen across the grass and stuck to the wet gravestones. The musty smell of decay hangs in the air. On days like today, daylight is nothing more than varying shades of darkness. Colours are barely perceptible as anything other than hues of grey and the low clouds mingle with the land.

 

In the porch is evidence that the history of this place runs far deeper that the Victorian church first suggests. A display of early Christian carved stones is neatly displayed behind a glass screen. Among fragments of tenth century carvings stand two tall, narrow slabs, carved with the Chi-Rho monogram of Constantine above deeply cut Latin inscriptions. They are among some of the oldest Christian stones in Scotland, marking the ancient graves of the priests Viventius, Mavorius and Florentius since the fifth century, until they were moved to serve as gateposts a couple of hundred years ago. Also displayed is a smaller stone of the same period, again with the Chi-Rho symbol above Latin script. INITIUM ET FINIS, the beginning and the end.

 

The stones are taken as evidence that a very early medieval monastery stood here, perhaps even predating Whithorn and maybe acting as a bastion of Celtic monasticism once Whithorn had been absorbed into the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria.

 

There are prehistoric monoliths in the fields nearby. Possibly, the carved slabs are reused standing stones, first raised by a religion far older than Christianity. Sacred rites have been practised on this knoll for many thousands of years, from the earliest times when human beings first tried to make sense of the world around them, calling upon their ancestors to commune with the gods of nature and favourably influence the hunt and the harvest.

 

The long history of worship on this patch of earth has pushed its residue deep into the landscape. Whatever ancient genius loci brought those early people to this special place is still here. Beyond modern comprehension, it has been here before people came and gave it a name and will still be here in millennia to come.

 

A sudden explosion of surf seven or eight metres high caught on camera. It was also at this location that the fisherman in the photo suddenly shouted “Quick!” and began running backwards in a way he had obviously practised. I managed only a few paces before being knocked down by a 'mad-dog'. Two lenses were write-offs and my SLR cost half its original price to repair, but I was not at least dragged back out to sea. I was left with just cuts and bruises, as the ground I was on was fairly flat (the main reason the fisherman regarded that spot as relatively safe). For over 2,000 other free (public domain) photos, please see my Pexels account:

www.pexels.com/@alix-lee-43379071/

Course landaise, Estang, Gers, France.

One of the four forms of bullfighting praticed in the world but it differs from the other three by two features, first it is practised exclusevely with cows and not bulls, the other feature it shares with the Camargue races, is that there is no killing, or hurting of the animal, either during the race, or after.

The Vale Of Ffestiniog a valley in the Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, North Wales.

 

It stretches from Blaenau Ffestiniog in the east and runs in a westerly direction towards Tremadog Bay, terminating near Porthmadog. The Afon (River) Dwyryd runs through the Vale; pastoral farming is practised along its length.

 

It is chiefly famous for the Ffestiniog Railway, a narrow gauge railway line running from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Once used for transporting slate mined in Blaenau to docks on the coast, the line is now a major tourist attraction.

 

Information source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_Ffestiniog

 

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

The construction of the present chateau dates from the 13th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.

At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.

The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.

In the conservatory (natural soft box) following Sunday breakfast I practised my books photography whilst ma & my wheelchair remained in situ at the table.. The rules? what's at hand.

Wisemans Bridge located on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path between Saundersfoot and Armouth, in Pembrokeshire, South Wales

 

It is a tiny seaside hamlet with a rocky beach linked to Saundersfoot by a series of three tunnels through which a narrow gauge railway once travelled carrying coal from the local mines to Saundersfoot Harbour. The old railway line or dramway heads up the wooded valley to the Stepaside Iron works, now a historic ruin..

 

In 1943, Winston Churchill visited the area as the allies practised for the D Day landings.

 

Information Sources:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisemans_Bridge

www.visitpembrokeshire.com/explore-pembrokeshire/towns-an...

 

Runkel is a town on the Lahn River in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.

 

The town’s first documentary mention came in 1159 in an enfeoffment document in which a nobleman named Siegfried von Runkel had his name appear as a witness. It is believed that this Siegfried was the one who built Runkel Castle.

 

In 1191 Siegfried married a countess of Katzenelnbogen. This high noble family forced Dietrich of Runkel to open his castles Runkel and Dehrn. No later than 1230, the castle had a chapel, thereby giving Runkel its first church building. In 1288, after years of family disputes, the Lords of Runkel and those of Westerburg sundered into two lines. In 1440, building work began on the Lahn bridge, but owing to the rift between the Runkels and the Westerburgs, the work took until 1448. In 1447 Count Philipp of Katzenelnbogen was the liege lord.

 

In 1543, Count Johann IV of Wied had Philipp Melanchthon as a guest at Runkel Castle. In 1568, the Reformation was introduced. In 1622, there was yet another family rift when Count Hermann II at Wied drove his younger brother Philipp Ludwig out of the leadership and indeed from the castle. In 1634, the town and the castle were largely destroyed by Count Johann Ludwig Hektor von Isolani’s troops in the Thirty Years' War. In 1649, the castle’s dwelling buildings were newly built as a residential castle.

 

In the early 18th century, continued French invasions combined with a record cold winter led many people from the Palatinate, including Runkel an Lahn, to emigrate down the Rhine River, then to England in 1709. There were so many refugees from the German Palatine region that the English government set up a tent city for the winter outside the London walls. In 1710 ten English ships carried nearly 3,000 Germans to the colony of New York. The people worked off their passage in camps on the Hudson River. In 1723 and later they were finally allowed to acquire land in New York's Mohawk Valley, where they established towns such as German Flatts and Palatine Bridge, New York.

 

In 1791, Friedrich Ludwig, the last of the Wied-Runkel line, was made a prince. In 1796, fighting in Runkel’s streets broke out as troops of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt drove French revolutionary occupying soldiers out of town.

 

In 1806, the Runkel holdings on the Lahn’s right bank, and thereby the part of the town of Runkel lying there, passed to the Duchy of Berg. In 1824, the Wied-Runkel line died out with Prince Friedrich Ludwig’s death, putting the lordly domain, along with the town of Runkel, in Wied-Neuwied’s hands.

 

Winegrowing is known to have been practised in Runkel by 1270. In 1929, however, it was given up after the phylloxera infestation and a cold winter. In the end, the vinicultural area amounted to 35 hectares.

 

In 1860, the first savings and loan association (Sparkasse) in Runkel was founded under the name Vorschuss-Verein (“Credit Club”). Since 1914 there has been a central water supply in the town.

 

In the course of administrative reform in Hesse, the formerly autonomous communities of Steeden, Ennerich and Schadeck merged on 1 December 1970, as did likewise Arfurt, Eschenau, Hofen and Wirbelau on 31 December 1970, with the town of Runkel. The community of Dehrn was only amalgamated on 1 July 1974 by state law.

 

The outlying centre with the earliest documentary mention is Ennerich, which can prove its existence in 790.

 

Like many other castles, there is also a legend about Runkel Castle.

 

One of the knights of Charlemagne is said to have decided to build a castle on the rock ridge in 778. Now, of course, a name had to come up. So he named it after the area of Roncesvalles (Roncevaux) in the Pyrenees, in memory of the struggle against the Moors that took place there. The name Ronkeval later became Runkel. Therefore, the name has nothing to do with the (ger. Runkel) turnip.

Lance Corporal Ashley Rodriguez directs his troops

 

Royal Gibraltar Regiment trains in the UK

 

Soldiers from the Royal Gibraltar Regiment have recently completed their annual four-week exercise in the UK where they have made use of training facilities not available on The Rock.

 

After their mandatory shooting tests on the impressive ranges at Hythe in Kent, the troops moved on to Sennybridge to make full use of the huge Brecon Beacons training area.

Unusually, the weather in South Wales was warm and sunny, so sunny in fact that a ban was imposed on the use of certain types of weapons because of the increasing number of large-scale grass fires.

During the exercise, the regiment was visited by its Commander-in-Chief, His Excellency Vice Admiral Sir Adrian Johns, and by the British High Commissioner to The Gambia, Mr Phil Sinkinson. Sir Adrian said:

"I have been very impressed with the regiment's skills and motivation. Clearly, the exercise has been planned to gain maximum value from those facilities which are not available in Gibraltar."

Whilst at Hythe, every soldier completed his annual combat marksmanship test which included distances of 50, 100, 200, 300 and 400 metres. To fail at any one of these distances meant that a soldier failed the whole test.

Major Ivor Lopez said:

"Hythe's ranges are excellent. As well as the rifle ranges, there are ranges for sniper weapons, for our underslung grenade launchers and for our light support weapons.

"There is also a full scale 'village' in which we can practise our internal security tactics. We don't have these facilities in Gibraltar so we have to exploit this opportunity to the full."

After a long journey to the Sennybridge Training Area in South Wales, the troops stepped off the coach straight onto the training area and into five days of living 'in the field', carrying everything they needed on their backs.

During this period they practised all their basic infantry skills and relearned the art of living out in the open. Although the days were sunny and warm, night-time temperatures often dropped below zero.

The sheer size of the training area provided an opportunity to brush up on map-reading skills, so essential for soldiers who are not used to such an expanse of training land or navigating using 1:50000 maps.

It also tested the Regiment's ability to communicate by the use of radios across an area many times the size of Gibraltar. Major Lopez continued:

"We have brought twenty Moroccan troops with us and that also makes us think about how we work in a multinational environment.

 

"Soldiers' basic skills are learned here in Sennybridge and then adapted for use in Gibraltar. And everything that will be used later in the year on Exercise Jebel Sahara has been learned here."

A further advantage of training in the Brecon Beacons is that most of the Army's infantry courses are held there. The better the regiment's troops get to know Brecon, the better their chances of doing well on their career courses.

By the middle of the third week of the exercise, the troops were carrying out company-sized attacks using 'live' ammunition and 'live' hand grenades.

In one attack, three sections each of eight men made their way up a tight valley, knowing that the 'enemy' was hidden somewhere and was about to open fire on them.

The 'enemy' was represented by electronically-operated pop-up targets but as each soldier ran and dived for cover before opening fire with at least thirty 'live' rounds, there had to be some very real safety measures in place.

Private Daniel Rodgers said:

"I've enjoyed all the live firing. A lot of it has been exciting and I've learned a lot of new skills.

"At the recruit infantry training centre you don't do the training for Fighting In Built Up Areas and I've never done platoon attacks with 'live' ammunition. I'm really enjoying it."

Running separately from the main exercise is the six-week Junior Non-Commissioned Officers' cadre. This tough course helps the regiment select which of its top Private soldiers will achieve their promotion to Lance Corporal.

Several members of the cadre have already dropped off the course and others have injured themselves so the numbers are falling.

Private Luke Willis said:

"We know that promotion depends on how well we do here. Everyone wants to get one of the top slots. The first week was tough as we had snow and ice at night but since then the weather has improved - until today!"

The final days of the exercise saw the cadre setting off on its final task whilst the main regimental exercise was moving into its most intense phase.

The officers who planned the annual exercise had aimed for something that was 'ambitious but achievable' and, clearly, they had certainly achieved their aim.

The Regiment's Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Colin Risso, said:

"This exercise qualifies our unit and our people for all our operationally-mandated tasks in Gibraltar and goes further in preparing every commander and soldier for wider professional utility.

"Let's be under no illusion, this is serious business and we will seize every opportunity we can to achieve the best results."

 

Liebe Mitglieder der Hunde-Gruppe,

 

dies ist mein erstes Foto in dieser Gruppe, und ich hoffe, dass es euch ein wenig gefällt. Ihr seht hier unseren Mogli, der leider vor kurzem verstorben. Er war ein Australian Terrier von unwahrscheinlicher Aktivität. Ihr seht es auf dem Bild, wie er Freude hat, mir Angst zu machen. Ich habe wirklich gedacht, er springt mir in die Kamera. Aber kurz vorher drehte er zum Glück ab. Wir haben wochenlang für dieses Bild geübt, und es ist bis heute mein Lieblingsfoto.

Ich bin aber natürlich auch auf Eure Bilder gespannt und freue mich auf Eure Meinungen.

 

Viele Grüße aus Nordhessen

Rainer

  

Dear members of the dog group,

 

this is my first photo in this group, and I hope you like it a bit. You see here our Mogli, who sadly passed away recently. He was an Australian Terrier of incredible activity. You can see it in the picture how he takes pleasure in scaring me. I really thought he was going to jump into my camera. But just before that, thankfully, he turned away. We practised for weeks for this picture, and it is still my favourite to this day.

But of course I am also curious about your pictures and look forward to your opinions.

 

Many greetings from North Hessia, Germany

Rainer

  

A general purpose machine gun provides covering fire for troops

 

Royal Gibraltar Regiment trains in the UK

 

Soldiers from the Royal Gibraltar Regiment have recently completed their annual four-week exercise in the UK where they have made use of training facilities not available on The Rock.

 

After their mandatory shooting tests on the impressive ranges at Hythe in Kent, the troops moved on to Sennybridge to make full use of the huge Brecon Beacons training area.

Unusually, the weather in South Wales was warm and sunny, so sunny in fact that a ban was imposed on the use of certain types of weapons because of the increasing number of large-scale grass fires.

During the exercise, the regiment was visited by its Commander-in-Chief, His Excellency Vice Admiral Sir Adrian Johns, and by the British High Commissioner to The Gambia, Mr Phil Sinkinson. Sir Adrian said:

"I have been very impressed with the regiment's skills and motivation. Clearly, the exercise has been planned to gain maximum value from those facilities which are not available in Gibraltar."

Whilst at Hythe, every soldier completed his annual combat marksmanship test which included distances of 50, 100, 200, 300 and 400 metres. To fail at any one of these distances meant that a soldier failed the whole test.

Major Ivor Lopez said:

"Hythe's ranges are excellent. As well as the rifle ranges, there are ranges for sniper weapons, for our underslung grenade launchers and for our light support weapons.

"There is also a full scale 'village' in which we can practise our internal security tactics. We don't have these facilities in Gibraltar so we have to exploit this opportunity to the full."

After a long journey to the Sennybridge Training Area in South Wales, the troops stepped off the coach straight onto the training area and into five days of living 'in the field', carrying everything they needed on their backs.

During this period they practised all their basic infantry skills and relearned the art of living out in the open. Although the days were sunny and warm, night-time temperatures often dropped below zero.

The sheer size of the training area provided an opportunity to brush up on map-reading skills, so essential for soldiers who are not used to such an expanse of training land or navigating using 1:50000 maps.

It also tested the Regiment's ability to communicate by the use of radios across an area many times the size of Gibraltar. Major Lopez continued:

"We have brought twenty Moroccan troops with us and that also makes us think about how we work in a multinational environment.

 

"Soldiers' basic skills are learned here in Sennybridge and then adapted for use in Gibraltar. And everything that will be used later in the year on Exercise Jebel Sahara has been learned here."

A further advantage of training in the Brecon Beacons is that most of the Army's infantry courses are held there. The better the regiment's troops get to know Brecon, the better their chances of doing well on their career courses.

By the middle of the third week of the exercise, the troops were carrying out company-sized attacks using 'live' ammunition and 'live' hand grenades.

In one attack, three sections each of eight men made their way up a tight valley, knowing that the 'enemy' was hidden somewhere and was about to open fire on them.

The 'enemy' was represented by electronically-operated pop-up targets but as each soldier ran and dived for cover before opening fire with at least thirty 'live' rounds, there had to be some very real safety measures in place.

Private Daniel Rodgers said:

"I've enjoyed all the live firing. A lot of it has been exciting and I've learned a lot of new skills.

"At the recruit infantry training centre you don't do the training for Fighting In Built Up Areas and I've never done platoon attacks with 'live' ammunition. I'm really enjoying it."

Running separately from the main exercise is the six-week Junior Non-Commissioned Officers' cadre. This tough course helps the regiment select which of its top Private soldiers will achieve their promotion to Lance Corporal.

Several members of the cadre have already dropped off the course and others have injured themselves so the numbers are falling.

Private Luke Willis said:

"We know that promotion depends on how well we do here. Everyone wants to get one of the top slots. The first week was tough as we had snow and ice at night but since then the weather has improved - until today!"

The final days of the exercise saw the cadre setting off on its final task whilst the main regimental exercise was moving into its most intense phase.

The officers who planned the annual exercise had aimed for something that was 'ambitious but achievable' and, clearly, they had certainly achieved their aim.

The Regiment's Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Colin Risso, said:

"This exercise qualifies our unit and our people for all our operationally-mandated tasks in Gibraltar and goes further in preparing every commander and soldier for wider professional utility.

"Let's be under no illusion, this is serious business and we will seize every opportunity we can to achieve the best results."

 

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

The construction of the present chateau dates from the 13th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.

At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.

The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

The construction of the present chateau dates from the 13th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.

At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.

The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.

Father loon was out fishing. Biologists estimate that loon parents and their 2 chicks can eat about a half-ton of fish over a 15-week period. Taken from my kayak. After many visits I could call Dad and he'd show up shortly after. I video taped him and practised at home. I was thrilled that he actually responded with his own call to my voice. So was my photography students. They had to stay way back though.

 

Whole story here

www.flickr.com/photos/ranchdoll/27923138451

640metres long the tunnel takes the Union Canal through solid rock it was opened in 1822, the infamous Burke and Hare practised their digging skills here

The Château de Puivert is a so-called Cathar castle situated in the commune of Puivert, in the Aude département of France. This building, on top of a hill overhanging the village and its lake, reaches an altitude of 605 m. The site is in the Quercob region, 60 km (37 mi) south of Carcassonne and 45 km (28 mi) east of Foix. The castle has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1902.

The construction of the present chateau dates from the 13th century. The first mention is in 1170; it belonged to the Congost family before the Albigensian Crusade. These lords practised Catharism and were accused as heretics. Then, in November 1210, the castle was subjected for three days to a siege by the army of Thomas Pons de Bruyère, lieutenant of Simon de Montfort. The castle subsequently became the property of the northern barons. All that is left of this older castle is a few sections of wall to the east. A collapse of the natural dam on the lake at the foot of the site caused the destruction of part of the town of Mirepoix, 30 km to the north, in Ariège in 1279. According to legend, this was because a certain Dame Blanche wanted to daydream on the lake shores, which were inaccessible in bad weather. She asked that the water level be lowered and work undertaken to accomplish this goal led to the collapse.

At the start of the 14th century, Thomas de Bruyère (grandson of Pons) and his wife Isabelle de Melun had the new castle built to the east of the old castle. The remains of the old castle are still visible. The coat-of-arms of Isabelle de Melun, who was the daughter of a Grand Chamberlain of France, still exists in the 'new' castle. The building was given a symbolic and picturesque character that can still be seen today.

The castle was classified as a Monument historique (Historic monument) in 1907. The castle is privately owned. Thanks to its very well preserved keep it has been a location for many films, including The Ninth Gate and Le Peuple migrateur.

HH Younus AlGohar answers a question from someone on social media who asked for the definition and applications of love.

 

Read the transcript: www.theawaitedone.com/articles...

 

⁃Love is of many types. People generally believe that love means an outburst of emotions which is constantly generated.

 

⁃When you see someone and are so taken with the beauty of their body that you momentarily forget where you are, this is affection and infatuation. As a child, your love is innocent. When you reach puberty, you notice the opposite sex and you fall in 'love' often; this is puppy love.

 

⁃There is conditional love and unconditional love. Conditional love is commonly practised; unconditional love is not humanly possible; it is granted to an individual by God. Before unconditional love is granted to you by God, there are many conditions to be fulfilled.

 

⁃In divine love, you are supposed to have feelings for God. But you have never spoken to him or seen him. You have no personal experience with him. Initially, you must generate divine energy in your heart. When you have generated enough divine energy, you will start to have feelings for God because you have something of his in you. This will uplift your outburst of emotions for God. This is the first stage of love, but it is not eternal love. If you do something wrong that God does not like, the emotions you have for God will be gone.

 

⁃The original form of love which does not fade away is granted to an individual from God only when he sees God with the soul in his head. When you see God, lights will emanate from his body and pull you towards him. This natural attraction is known as pure, unconditional love.

 

You can watch the live recordings of these videos every day at 22:00 GMT on younusalgohar.com

 

Can't access this video? Watch it on Daily Motion: www.dailymotion.com/mehdifound...

 

Listen to this speech on the go with SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/younusalgohar/

We all know cats don't pose when you ask them to. They always look either fabulous or cute. Lesser creatures like humans sometimes need a little help in that area. But how do you get people to look natural when you tell them how to pose? My nightmare is telling someone to pose and we end up with a mugshot like the school photographer gets.

 

I've been browsing the internet as well as a great book by Roberto Valenzuela, who shares my believe that practise makes perfect. I went out and practised, this is one of the results.

 

Sanne's spine is posed in a way she looks even better than she already does. I always think of what to do with the hands. It's like first time kissing, right? Where do you put them? Her right hand pushed open a fence that in summer, keeps the sheep on the dike and off the main road. The left hand holding her glitzy purse 'hangs' straight down for a natural look. I asked her to look at my hand and together we turned her head so her ear disappeared. This way the contour of her face makes a beautiful line and highlights how great she looks. This is a very useful posing tip that comes from Scott Robert Lim.

Another thing I practised is creating balance. Sanne's in the middle but the fence and the fence post balance out the image.

 

PS - I think this picture also proves you do not need fabulous weather to take a nice photo! This is almost SOOC.

My travels around the UK by car for three weeks with my son. June/July 2019 England.

 

On a short stop at Marazion late in the afternoon.

 

Marazion is a civil parish and town, on the shore of Mount's Bay in Cornwall, England, UK. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Penzance and the tidal island of St Michael's Mount is half-a-mile offshore. At low water a causeway links it to the town and at high water passenger boats carry visitors between Marazion and St Michael's Mount.

 

Remains of an ancient bronze furnace, discovered near the town, tend to prove that tin smelting was practised here at an early period. Marazion was not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1088. Its only charter was granted by Queen Elizabeth I.

For More Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marazion

You can follow me also on Getty | 500 px | Deviant Art

 

Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 30 million, Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolitan city.

 

Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture, and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten highest mountains, including the highest, Sagarmatha, known in English as Mount Everest. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized. It contains over 240 peaks more than 6,096 metres (20,000 ft) above sea level.

 

By some measures, Hinduism is practised by a larger majority of people in Nepal than in any other nation. Buddhism, though a minority faith in the country, is linked historically with Nepal as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, who as the Gautam Buddha gave birth to the Buddhist tradition.

 

A monarchy throughout most of its history, Nepal was ruled by the Shah dynasty of kings from 1768, when Prithvi Narayan Shah unified its many small kingdoms. In 2006, however, decade-long People's Revolution by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) along with several weeks of mass protests by all major political parties of Nepal culminated in a peace accord, and the ensuing elections for the constituent assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of the abdication of the last Nepali monarch Gyanendra Shah and the establishment of a federal democratic republic in May 28, 2008. The first President of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav, was sworn in on 23 July 2008.

 

The word "Nepal" is believed by scholars to be derived from the word "Nepa:" which refers to the Newar Kingdom, the present day Kathmandu Valley. With Sanskritization, the Newar word Nepa became Nepal. The Newars of present day Nepal, refer to all the inhabitants of Kathmandu valley and its peripheries (called "Nepa:") before the advent of Shah dynasty.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal