Micky Ahuja
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The spiral staircase is located within UTS Building 2 (UTS Central) and is located along Broadway in Ultimo. The spiral is inspired by the double helix structure of DNA molecules. It was designed by the Australian firm FJMT.
Broadway, Ultimo
December, 2022
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:: Zenitude!, Mastigouche Wildlife Reserve, Québec, Canada.
Copyright © 2009 Gaëtan Bourque. All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17
Copyright © 2008 childofGOD. All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.
I don't have a name for it. It's been a while in the making. I was trying to make it look like vines climbing up the tree in the foreground but I don't think I did very well at that. Anyway . . . it is what it is
Latest "Rogue One" master piece which is situated in the beer garden of the Viceroy Bar at Paisley Road West Glasgow. Can't help but love his work. Was unable to get into the beer garden due to the current restrictions which are still in place for all public houses in Scotland.
Here's my latest flame!!
It's 'Garden Party', a hybrid tea-rose growing here at Castle Hill, in the Hills District of Sydney.
And here' s the world's current No. 1 video hit on Youtubemusic. It's a remix of Elvis Presley's 'His Latest Flame' with a host of sensational dancers. Interestingly, it's actually been on Youtubemusic for three years!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H6TNo6SHC0
My younger daughter (Miss 16) is driving us mad with her shuffle dancing to this song, along with her girlfriends from high-school! Goodness me, Tik Tok must be sick of the girls posting their shuffle dancing! (I had not actually heard of shuffle dancing until this year!!)
But, anyway, back to the rose!! It is 'Garden Party', a hybrid tea, located at the amazing Roxborough Park Rose Gardens here in the Hills District of Sydney!!
My Canon EOS 5D Mk IV with the Canon EF 100mm 2.8L II USM macro lens.
Processed in Adobe Lightroom and PhotoPad Pro by NCH software.
Our latest items out now at Uber's Neo Tokyo themed round!
Shirt and skirt both come in 8 colours and 2 small colour packs of 4 as always, with savings of 50% off.
Both available in sizes for Maitreya Lara, Belleza Isis & Freya, SLink Physique & Hourglass and TMP.
♥
IMPORTANT: for non-pro users who read the info on a computer, just enlarge your screen to 120% (or more), then the full text will appear below the photo with a white background - which makes reading so much easier.
The color version of the photo above is here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
So far there's only been one photo in my gallery that hasn't been taken in my garden ('The Flame Rider', captured in the Maggia Valley: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/53563448847/in/datepo... ) - which makes the image above the second time I've "strayed from the path" (although not very far, since the photo was taken only approximately 500 meters from my house).
Overall, I'll stick to my "only-garden rule", but every once in a while I'll show you a little bit of the landscape around my village, because I think it will give you a better sense of just how fascinating this region is, and also of its history.
The title I chose for the photo may seem cheesy, and it's certainly not very original, but I couldn't think of another one, because it's an honest reflection of what I felt when I took it: a profound sense of peace - although if you make it to the end of this text you'll realize my relationship with that word is a bit more complicated.
I got up early that day; it was a beautiful spring morning, and there was still a bit of mist in the valley below my village which I hoped would make for a few nice mood shots, so I quickly grabbed my camera and went down there before the rising sun could dissolve the magical layer on the scenery.
Most human activity hadn't started yet, and I was engulfed in the sounds of the forest as I was walking the narrow trail along the horse pasture; it seemed every little creature around me wanted to make its presence known to potential mates (or rivals) in a myriad of sounds and voices and noises (in case you're interested, here's a taste of what I usually wake up to in spring, but you best use headphones: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfoCTqdAVCE )
Strolling through such an idyllic landscape next to grazing horses and surrounded by birdsong and beautiful trees, I guess it's kind of obvious one would feel the way I described above and choose the title I did, but as I looked at the old stone buildings - the cattle shelter you can see in the foreground and the stable further up ahead on the right - I also realized how fortunate I was.
It's hard to imagine now, because Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world today, but the men and women who had carried these stones and constructed the walls of these buildings were among the poorest in Europe. The hardships the people in some of the remote and little developed valleys in Ticino endured only a few generations ago are unimaginable to most folks living in my country today.
It wasn't uncommon that people had to sell their own kids as child slaves - the girls had to work in factories or in rice fields, the boys as "living chimney brushes" in northern Italy - just because there wasn't enough food to support the whole family through the harsh Ticino winters.
If you wonder why contemporary Swiss historians speak of "slaves" as opposed to child laborers, it's because that's what many of them actually were: auctioned off for a negotiable prize at the local market, once sold, these kids were not payed and in many cases not even fed by their masters (they had to beg for food in the streets or steal it).
Translated from German Wikipedia: ...The Piazza grande in Locarno, where the Locarno Film Festival is held today, was one of the places where orphans, foundlings and children from poor families were auctioned off. The boys were sold as chimney sweeps, the girls ended up in the textile industry, in tobacco processing in Brissago or in the rice fields of Novara, which was also extremely hard work: the girls had to stand bent over in the water for twelve to fourteen hours in all weathers. The last verse of the Italian folk song 'Amore mio non piangere' reads: “Mamma, papà, non piangere, se sono consumata, è stata la risaia che mi ha rovinata” (Mom, dad, don't cry when I'm used up, it was the rice field that destroyed me.)... de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaminfegerkinder
The conditions for the chimney sweeps - usually boys between the age of 8 and 12 (or younger, because they had to be small enough to be able to crawl into the chimneys) - were so catastrophic that many of them didn't survive; they died of starvation, cold or soot in their lungs - as well as of work-related accidents like breaking their necks when they fell, or suffocatig if they got stuck in inside a chimney. This practice of "child slavery" went on as late as the 1950s (there's a very short article in English on the topic here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spazzacamini and a more in depth account for German speakers in this brief clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gda8vZp_zsc ).
Now I don't know if the people who built the old stone houses along my path had to sell any of their kids, but looking at the remnants of their (not so distant) era I felt an immense sense of gratitude that I was born at a time of prosperity - and peace - in my region, my country and my home. Because none of it was my doing: it was simple luck that decided when and where I came into this world.
It also made me think of my own family. Both of my grandparents on my father's side grew up in Ticino (they were both born in 1900), but while they eventually left Switzerland's poorest region to live in its richest, the Kanton of Zurich, my grandfather's parents relocated to northern Italy in the 1920s and unfortunately were still there when WWII broke out.
They lost everything during the war, and it was their youngest daughter - whom I only knew as "Zia" which means "aunt" in Italian - who earned a little money to support herself and my great-grandparents by giving piano lessons to high-ranking Nazi officers and their kids (this was towards the end of the war when German forces had occupied Italy).
I never knew that about her; Zia only very rarely spoke of the war, but one time when I visited her when she was already over a 100 years old (she died at close to 104), I asked her how they had managed to survive, and she told me that she went to the local prefecture nearly every day to teach piano. "And on the way there would be the dangling ones" she said, with a shudder.
I didn't get what she meant, so she explained. Visiting the city center where the high ranking military resided meant she had to walk underneath the executed men and women who were hanging from the lantern posts along the road (these executions - often of civilians - were the Germans' retaliations for attacks by the Italian partisans).
I never forgot her words - nor could I shake the look on her face as she re-lived this memory. And I still can't grasp it; my house in Ticino is only 60 meters from the Italian border, and the idea that there was a brutal war going on three houses down the road from where I live now in Zia's lifetime strikes me as completely surreal.
So, back to my title for the photo above. "Peace". It's such a simple, short word, isn't it? And we use it - or its cousin "peaceful" - quite often when we mean nice and quiet or stress-free. But if I'm honest I don't think I know what it means. My grandaunt Zia did, but I can't know. And I honestly hope I never will.
I'm sorry I led you down such a dark road; I usually intend to make people smile with the anecdotes that go with my photos, but this one demanded a different approach (I guess with this latest image I've strayed from the path in more than one sense, and I hope you'll forgive me).
Ticino today is the region with the second highest average life expectancy in Europe (85.2 years), and "The Human Development Index" of 0.961 in 2021 was one of the highest found anywhere in the world, and northern Italy isn't far behind. But my neighbors, many of whom are now in their 90s, remember well it wasn't always so.
That a region so poor it must have felt like purgatory to many of its inhabitants could turn into something as close to paradise on Earth as I can imagine in a person's lifetime should make us all very hopeful. But, and this is the sad part, it also works the other way 'round. And I believe we'd do well to remember that, too.
To all of you - with my usual tardiness but from the bottom of my heart - a happy, healthy, hopeful 2025 and beyond.
Colbinabbin is a small town in central Victoria, Australia. The name is derived from aboriginal meaning "the meeting of the black and red soils".
"Wow, a hover car.....with strange round things called "wheels"! The salesman said they were a whole new invention from a long time in the future in a galaxy far, far away. Much better than all those big mechanical leg things that we use. I must inform Lord Vader at once!"
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A 12 image focus stack processed in camera with the Canon R10 and RF24-240 lens.
Eighteen days old, this little beauty is about six weeks younger than the colt, shown previously. She is such a little lady! Look at her eyelashes!
She is very sweet and wants to be hugged and scratched. She is playful and funny, and is growing into a beautiful wee girl.
Her mother also appears in my photo stream - “Ride On”, and if the new wee filly is anything like her, she’ll grow up to be a huge, gentle Black Clydesdale.
A lovely wee foal, here, she is in the foal paddock...It’s been too hot to have her out in full sun, all day, so my friends turn her and her mother out when the sun goes down and take them back to the stable in the morning, before the heat builds up.
“O latest born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!”
From “Ode To Psyche” Keats
“May you always be courageous,
Stand upright, and be strong.
And may you stay forever young.”
Dylan
South Carrick Hills,
SW Scotland
© Zoë Murdoch. All Rights Reserved. Use without permission is illegal!
Latest face, so effortless
Your great arrival at my eyes,
No one standing near could guess
Your beauty had no home till then;
Precious vagrant, recognise
My look, and do not turn again.
Admirer and admired embrace
on a useless level, where
I contain your current grace,
You my judgement; yet to move
Into real untidy air
Brings no lasting tribute -
Bargains, suffering, and love,
Not this always-planned salute.
Lies grow dark around us: will
The statue of your beauty walk?
Must I wade behind it, till
Something's found - or is not found -
Far too late for turning back?
Or, if I will not shift my ground,
Is your power actual - can
Denial of you duck and run,
Stay out of sight and double round,
Leap from the sun with mask and brand
And murder and not understand?
~ Philip Larkin.
Porsche 918 w/ Weissach Package from Qatar. George V, Avenue George V, Paris. July 18th 2015.
MORE ON --> www.thelittlespotters.fr
SCT intermodal 3MB9 works around Goondah curve with CSR016 and CF4430 hauling dead attached C’s 502/503/508.
SCT transferred the C class from Western Australia after a period on hire with Watco, they would be detached at Goulburn before being forward to SSR’s Cootamundra depot.
Southern Shorthaul Railroad has added the former Railfirst C’s to their ever growing locomotive fleet.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed Saturn on 20 June 2019 as the planet made its closest approach to Earth this year, at approximately 1.36 billion kilometres away.
Saturn hosts many recognisable features, most notably its trademark ring system, which is now tilted towards Earth. This gives us a magnificent view of its bright icy structure. Hubble resolves numerous ringlets and the fainter inner rings. Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens first identified the rings in 1655 and thought they were a continuous disk encircling the planet, but we now know them to be composed of orbiting particles of ice and dust. Though all of the gas giants boast rings, Saturn’s are the largest and most spectacular.
The age of Saturn’s ring system continues to be debated. And, even more perplexingly, it’s unknown what cosmic event formed the rings. There is no consensus among planetary astronomers today.
Read more here.
Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley); CC BY 4.0
Common Name : Red Kite
Species : Milvus milvus
© All rights reserved
Please NO LONG MULTI INVITATION, thank you.
Have a great Sunday!
I LOVE SOUTHALL!
We are promised, 'Most luxurious 3 screen cinema', showing all the latest Bollywood and
Lollywood blockbusters. It was once the very busy and popular Liberty (Lee-burr-tee, as pronounced in Lahore!) Cinema where I spent nearly every Sunday afternoon with my family watching all the latest releases; I distinctly remember watching Bobby, Pakeezah, and a few loud Pakistani Punjabi fillums here, as well as running up and down the stairs in the halls! The other two, both further down the road, were the Century and the Dominion cinemas.
All the shows were sold out, every weekend, and whole families would turn out. During
the Interval, we would always eat samosay and jalebi, and were always excited to drink Coke from a can. The current cinema was restored in the late 1990s for £3 million, and does a good trade since reopening in 2001, although nothing like the 1970s, where
there were crowds and crowds of cinema-goers thronging the pavements at show times.
I would definately recommend a visit to Southall if you're ever in town; there is fantastic shopping here for all things desi (not matched anywhere in London, not even in Green Street, imho), you can even speak to the shopkeepers in any desi language, Punjabi being the lingua-franca around here! There are numerous mouth-watering and unforgettable food places to eat, and ample places for you to worship, whether you are Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Christian. And every religious day is celebrated with gusto, Eid, Diwali and Holi, and all the Gurus' birthdays. The Southall Mela draws hundreds every summer to Southall Park, as well as for Baisakhi and Basant celebrations. Parking and traffic is horrendous and rush-hour lasts all day long, seven days a-week. But, you are promised a total desi experience in the the west of London. It's not called Little India for nothing y'know!
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
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Autumn - Höst bliss at Kvarnbacken in Mårdsjön, Jämtland, Sweden.
I love seasons and the autumn is special with its colours, the crisp and clear air in the mornings.
What is your Autumn or season feelings?
The latest on Instagram:
Photo and video credit: Lars Ling
All rights reserved (c) copyright
Today's story and sketch "by me" we are visiting the latest Tiki Oasis, one of many that seem to appear overnight around the Mohave Desert.
I was told they are created by Aliens from the Planet Wikitikki, the same aliens that have been responsible for carving crop circles for hundreds of years.
I was told by our Blog friend Rescue Randy, the most informed and interesting living tissue crash test dummy in the galaxy, also a friend of the Wikitikkians, told Randy they were bored with crop circles, and the fact that not many crops will grow in the Mohave, because of the 140 degree daytime temperatures, and lack of water, they took Randy's suggestion of using their Wikitikki water well technology, and love of their native Wikitikki Palms and tiki's to dig some wells, for the hundreds of the deserts Gypsies, goat herders, Bail jumpers,
disbarred attorneys, off the grid desert dwellers, and retired
mail carriers, and create a few oasis and plant Wikitikki Palms and Tiki's for them to enjoy, which has worked out well for JB and Randy who are taking tourists on very expensive Tiki Tours in JB's Choppers to see the latest Oasis.
Until next time taa ta the Rod Blog
Ever wondered how to build good tudor style walls?
Check out our latest tutorial by Titus V. on brickbuilt.