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Saturday, 18 May 2013

Sepia Saturday 177; Child's Play;

The beauty of childhood, anything goes to have fun to play...
Don't get misled by  the sepia pictures,these are my grandchildren at play,

Today's Children work on the PC, own an Iphone, play with the Ipad and Ipod and know what an Icloud is, but they still can play and have a lot of fun when the occasion arises.


Beach fun; 2010



In  the garden, 2011;


.
Sisters can  have fun together even when they are seven years apart.


Please visit SEPIA SATURDAY 177  

Friday, 10 May 2013

Friday, abandoned;


Poveglia  a beautiful Island, I would live there; make it an Island of roses for all the dead and let them rest in
peace for ever!

Poveglia Island is one of many island in the lagoons of Venice, Italy but instead of being a place of beauty, it is eerie, regarded as evil and haunted! Many people like to believe in haunted places, make up stories and add to it to make it more piquant and  interesting.

The dark history of Poveglia Island began during the Roman Era when it was used to isolate plague victims from the general population.  Centuries later, when the Black Death rolled through Europe it served that purpose again.   The dead  were dumped into large pits and buried or burned.  As the plague tightened its grip, the population began to panic and those residents showing the slightest sign of sickness were taken from their homes and to the island of Poveglia.   Men, women, children... all left to die.  It's estimated that the tiny island saw as many as 160,000 bodies during this time.

 The island has become a putrid area indeed.  The soil of the island combined with the charred remains of the bodies dumped there creating a thick layer of sticky ash.  The core of the island is literally human remains that has given the island a loathsome reputation, but appears to be very good for the grapevines that are planted there.
In 1922 the island became home to a psychiatric hospital complete with a large and very impressive bell tower.  The patients of this hospital immediately began to report that they would see ghosts of plague victims on the island and that they would be kept up at night hearing the tortured wails of the suffering spirits.  Because they were already considered mad by the hospital staff, these complaints were largely ignored.

To add to the anguish of the poor souls populating this island hospital, one doctor there decided to make a name for himself by experimenting on his subjects all to find a cure for insanity.  Lobotomies were performed on his pitiable patients using crude tools like hand drills, chisels, and hammers.  Those patients and even the ones who were not privy to the doctor's special attentions were taken to the bell tower where they were tortured and subjected to a number of inhumane horrors.

According to the lore, after many years of performing these immoral acts, the evil doctor began to see the tortured plague ridden spirits of Poveglia Island himself.  It is said that they led him to the bell tower where he jumped, or was thrown to the grounds below.  The fall did not kill him according to a nurse who witnessed the event, but she related that as he lay on the ground writhing in pain, a mist came up out of the ground and choked him to death.  It's rumoured that the doctor is bricked up in the hospital bell tower and on a still night, the bell can be heard tolling across the bay.  The hospital closed down.

For a time, the Italian government owned the island, but it was later sold.  That owner abandoned it in the 1960's and was the last person to try and live there.  A family recently sought to buy the island and to build a holiday home on it but they left the first night there and refused to comment on what happened.  The only fact that we do know is that their daughters face was ripped open and required fourteen stitches.

Today Poveglia is uninhabited and tourism to the island is strictly forbidden.   Every now and then daredevils dodge the police patrols to explore the island, but everyone who has made it there have refused to return saying that there is a heavy atmosphere of evil and they the screams and tortured moans that permeate the island make staying there unbearable.

One report from a misguided thrill seeker who fled the island says that after entering the abandoned hospital, a disembodied voice ordered them, "Leave immediately and do not return."


Rumours are like an avalanche once they are started they can do nothing else but grow. 
A place like this would be THE PLACE for smugglers or for anybody to hide anything.  



Thursday, 9 May 2013

Thursday; smell;

Photo Ts


Lignin prevents trees from adopting a weeping habit. Lignin is a polymer that is in its make up closely related to Vanillin. When it is made into paper and kept for years, it breaks down and smells good.  "Divine Providence" seems to have provided second-hand bookshops to smell of good Vanilla, subliminally influencing a hunger for knowledge in us. 



Camilla's Bookshop is a large secondhand/antiquarian bookstore situated in the resort town of Eastbourne.We have over 250,000 books in almost all categories.


Lignin
Chemical Compound
Lignin or lignen is a complex chemical compound most commonly derived from wood, and an integral part of the secondary cell walls of plants and some algae
Formula: C9H10O2,C10H12O3,C11H14O4


The term was introduced in 1819 by de Candolle and is derived from the Latin word lignum meaning wood. It is one of the most abundant organic polymers on Earth, exceeded only by cellulose, employing 30% of non-fossil organic carbon and constituting from a quarter to a third of the dry mass of wood. As a biopolymer, lignin is unusual because of its heterogeneity and lack of a defined primary structure. Its most commonly noted function is the support through strengthening of wood, xylem cells in trees.

Highly lignified wood is durable and therefore a good raw material for many applications. It is also an excellent fuel, since lignin yields more energy when burned than cellulose. Mechanical, or high-yield pulp used to make newsprint contains most of the lignin originally present in the wood. Lignin is responsible for newsprint's yellowing with age.




My dream library; 

courtesy of my favourite painter Jacek Yerka




Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Tuesday; orange;


Orange rhymes with Sporange, a botany term  meaning “spore case.”
sporangium 
plural sporangia
 A single-celled or many-celled structure in which spores are produced, as in fungi, algae, mosses, and ferns.


I do like the colour orange in my garden, alas,  I have not that many plants in the colour orange;


This one arrived in my garden,  many years ago, without a name;



Old Tangiers, evokes  a  fiery sundown, a slow tango, cigarette smoke, gin fizz, casual sips, eyes half closed, come to the cinema of a time past...


 
Kwanso, I received more then 30 years ago from a friend in Yamba.



"Starflower" Geranium;



.....always welcome a beautiful sunrise;


©Photos/Text Ts

Monday, 6 May 2013

Monday; sweet...


Mandarin Ice cream;

Ingredients:



A Mandarin tree in the garden;



A simple ice cream churner;




2 Mandarins, juice and  grated peel;
2 fresh eggs from your chooks,
 use 2 eggyolks and keep the egg whites to make meringue.
300 ml cream and 200 ml milk
120 g white caster sugar.

Mix all the ingredients together until smooth, pour into the ice cream churner and churn until thick, around 40 minutes. Freeze, take it out of the freezer 10-15 minutes before serving.




Delicious!



©Photos /Text Ts

Thursday, 2 May 2013

Thursday; Cabinet;


Who would not wish for a cabinet like this one?

The Roentgens' Berlin Secretary Cabinet


David Roentgen 1743–February 12, 1807), was a famous German cabinetmaker of the eighteenth century, famed throughout Europe for his marquetry and his secret drawers and mechanical fittings. His work embraces the late Rococo and the Neoclassical styles.

In 1753 his father Abraham Roentgen, who had trained in London in the workshop of William Gomm, migrated to the Moravian settlement at Neuwied, near Coblenz, where he established a furniture manufactory. David learned his trade in his father's workshop, and succeeded to the paternal business in 1772, when he entered into some kind of partnership with the clockmaker Kintzing. At that time the name of the firm appears already to have been well known, at all events in France; but it is a curious circumstance that although he is always reckoned as one of the little band of foreign cabinetmakers and workers in marquetry who, like Jean-François Oeben and Jean Henri Riesener, achieved distinction in France during the last years of the Ancien Régime he never ceased to live at Neuwied, where apparently the whole of his furniture was made, and merely had a shop, or show-room, in Paris.
Roentgen was first and foremost an astute man of business, and Paris was the style center of Europe. Before very long Marie Antoinette appointed him her ébéniste mechanicien. He appears, indeed, to have acquired considerable favor with the queen, for on several occasions she took advantage of his journeys through Europe to charge him with the delivery of presents and of dolls dressed in the Paris fashions of the moment; they were intended to serve as patterns for the dressmakers to her mother and her sisters.
He appears at once to have opened a shop in Paris, but despite, and perhaps because of, the favor in which he was held at court, all was not smooth sailing. The powerful trade corporation of the maîtres ébénistes disputed his right to sell in Paris furniture of foreign manufacture, and in 1780 he found that the most satisfactory way out of the difficulty was to get himself admitted a member of the corporation to which all his great rivals belonged. By this time he had attracted a good deal of attention by the introduction of a new style of marquetry, in which light and shade, instead of being represented as hitherto by burning, smoking or engraving the pieces of veneer, were indicated by small pieces of wood so arranged as to create the impression of pietra dura.

We have seen that Roentgen had been appointed ébéniste-mechanicien to Marie Antoinette, and the appointment is explained by his fondness for and proficiency in constructing furniture in which mechanical devices played a great part. The English cabinetmakers of the later eighteenth century often made what was called, with obvious allusion to its character, harlequin furniture, especially little dressing tables and washstands which converted into something else or held their essentials in concealment until a spring was touched. David was a past master in this kind of work, and unquestionably much of the otherwise inexplicable reputation he enjoyed among contemporaries who were head and shoulders above him is explained by his mechanical genius. The extent of his fame in this direction is sufficiently indicated by the fact that Goethe mentions him in Wilhelm Meister. He compares the box inhabited by the fairy during her travels with her mortal lover to one of Roentgen's desks, in which at a pull a multitude of springs and latches are set in motion. For a desk of this kind Louis XVI paid him 80,000 livres. Outwardly it was in the form of a commode, its marquetry panels symbolizing the liberal arts. A personification of sculpture was in the act of engraving the name of Marie Antoinette upon a column to which Minerva was hanging her portrait. Above a riot of architectural orders was a musical clock (the work of the partner Peter Kinzing), surmounted by a cupola representing Parnassus. The interior of this monumental effort, 3.4 m high, was a marvel of mechanical precision; it disappeared during the First Empire.
Roentgen did not confine his activities to Paris, or even to France. It has been said that he traveled about Europe accompanied by furniture vans, and undoubtedly his aptitude as a commercial traveler was remarkable. He had shops in Berlin and Saint Petersburg, and himself apparently twice went to Russia. On one of these visits he sold to the Empress Catherine furniture to the value of 20,000 roubles, to which she added a personal present of 5000 roubles and a gold snuff-box in recognition, it would seem, of his readiness and ingenuity in surmounting a secretaire with a clock indicating the date of the Russian naval victory over the Turks at Cheshme, news of which had arrived on the previous evening. This suite of furniture is believed still to be in the Palace of the Hermitage, the hiding-place of so much remarkable and forgotten art.  The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars which so speedily followed, eclipsed Roentgen's star as they eclipsed those of so many other great cabinetmakers of the period. In 1793 the Revolutionary government, regarding him as an émigré seized the contents of his showrooms and his personal belongings, and after that date he appears neither to have done business in Paris nor to have visited it. Five years later the invasion of Neuwied led to the closing of his workshops; prosperity never returned, and he died half ruined at Wiesbaden on 12 February 1807.

According to his biography in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition of 1911, Roentgen was not a great cabinetmaker: "His forms were often clumsy, ungraceful, and commonplace; his furniture lacked the artistry of the French and the English cabinetmakers of the great period which came to an end about 1790. His bronzes were poor in design and coarse in execution; his work, in short, is tainted by commercialism. As an in-layer, however, he holds a position of high distinction. His marquetry is bolder and more vigorous than that of Riesener, who in other respects soared far above him. As an adroit deviser of mechanism he fully earned a reputation which former generations rated more highly than the modern critic, with his facilities for comparison, is prepared to accept. On the mechanical side he produced, with the help of Kintzing, many long-cased and other clocks with ingenious indicating and registering apparatus. Rontgen delighted in architectural forms, and his marquetry more often than not represents those scenes from classical mythology which were the dear delight of the 18Th century." He is well represented at the V&;A Museum in London, and other collections.




Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Tuesday; Animal farm;


My Kitchen's Animal Farm;

Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland,
 Beasts of every land and clime,
 Hearken to my joyful tidings
 Of the Golden future time.

Soon or late the day is coming,
 Tyrant Man shall be o'erthrown,
 And the fruitful fields of England
 Shall be trod by beasts alone.





Rings shall vanish from our noses,
 And the harness from our back,
 Bit and spur shall rust forever,
 Cruel whips no more shall crack.





Riches more than mind can picture,
 Wheat and barley, oats and hay,
 Clover, beans and mangel-wurzels
 Shall be ours upon that day.






Bright will shine the fields of England,
 Purer shall its waters be,
 Sweeter yet shall blow its breezes
 On the day that sets us free.

For that day we all must labour,
 Though we die before it break;
 Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,
 All must toil for freedom's sake.

Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland,
 Beasts of every land and clime,
George Orwell

Animal Farm is an allegorical novel by George Orwell, published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, especially after his experiences with the NKVD and the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of 
personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as his novel "contre Stalin", and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he had tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".

The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, though the subtitle was dropped by U.S. publishers for its 1946 publication and subsequently all but one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime omitted it. Other variations in the title include: A Satire and A Contemporary Satire. Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which recalled the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques, and which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin for "bear", a symbol of RussiaOrwell wrote the book from November 1943–February 1944, when the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union was at its height and Stalin was held in high esteem in Britain among the people and intelligentsia, a fact that Orwell hated. It was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers.. Its publication was thus delayed, though it became a great commercial success when it did finally appear partly because the Cold War so quickly followed World War II.
The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders, but also the ways wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed, and myopia corrupt everything in a country. It portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution, rather than the act of revolution itself. It also shows how potential ignorance and indifference of the people to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people's government is not achieved.



©Photos Ts

Monday, 29 April 2013

Monday; Fairytale;

La Cenerentola, 
Gioachino Rossini
La Scala,
Milano
1981



La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault.
First performance: January 25, 1817
Language: Italian


 La Cenerentola takes place in late 18th century Italy.


La Cenerentola, ACT I
Inside the defunct mansion of Don Magnifico, Angelina (Cenerentola,  is working as the family's maid. Her  stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisby, are trying on dresses and jewelry. While cleaning, Angelina sings a song about a King who fell in love with, and later married, a woman of the common class. A beggar shows up at their door, Clorinda and Tisby  want to send him on his way, but Angelina kindly offers him a cup of coffee and bread. While the beggar eats, courtiers arrive to announce that Prince Ramiro will  stop by in an effort to seek out the most beautiful woman to be his bride. The girls are excited  and  aflutter, soon the prince arrives disguised as his own valet in order to observe the women in their natural state. He is immediately aware and taken  by Angelina's beauty. They exchange longing glances until the stepsisters call her away. Ramiro, still in disguise, announces the entrance of the prince. His real valet, Dandini, arrives dressed as the prince. The girls swoon over his presence. After inviting them to the ball, Don Magnifico forbids Angelina from attending. Ramiro takes note how poorly Angelina is treated by her family. The beggar returns to the house and asks Don Magnifico for his third daughter, Angelina. Magnifico insists his third daughter is dead, and leaves with Dandini and his two daughters. Alone in the house, the beggar calls out to Angelina. After greeting again, he reveals to her that his name is Alidoro and he is the  the Prince's tutor. He asks her to the ball and promises her protection, then proceeds to tell her that the heavens will reward her greatly for her pure and kind heart. She accepts his invitation and prepares for the ball.


Once Dandini, Magnifico, Clorinda, and Tisby arrive at the prince's palace, Dandini gives Magnifico a tour of the wine cellar in an effort to get him drunk. Dandini manages to distance himself from the family and takes a moment to meet with Ramiro. Ramiro is confused after Dandini tells him that the two sisters are practically stupid, because Alidoro insisted that one of Magnifico's daughters was extremely kind and genuine. Their conversation is cut short when the two sisters enter the room. Dandini offers Ramiro to serve as their escort, but they reject the offer, still unaware that Ramiro is the real prince. Alidoro announces the arrival of a mysterious guest, a veiled Angelina. When she removes her veil, nobody recognizes her. Her stepfamily eerily feels they know her as if in a past life, but they cannot make the connection. This gives them an uneasy feeling.

La Cenerentola, ACT II
Pacing in a room within the prince's palace, Don Magnifico feels threatened by the arrival of the mysterious woman. He reminds his daughters that when either of them marries the prince and takes the throne, they mustn't forget about his importance. Magnifico leaves with his two daughters, and soon, Ramiro enters while daydreaming about the lovely woman and her resemblance to the woman he met earlier in the day. When he hears Dandini approaching with Angelina, he hides. Dandini begins to court her and asks her to marry him, but she gracefully declines. She tells him that she is in love with his valet. All of a sudden Ramiro comes out of hiding. She hands him one of her matching bracelets and tells him that if he really loves her, he will find her. After she leaves, Ramiro calls his men into the room and orders them to find the woman with the matching bracelet.


Meanwhile, Don Magnifico approaches Dandini and commands him to choose between his two daughters, still under the impression that Dandini is the prince. Dandini confesses his true identity as the prince's valet, but Don Magnifico doesn't believe him. When Magnifico becomes disgruntled, Dandini is quick to kick him out of the palace.
Back in Don Magnifico's mansion, Angelina, dressed in her rags, is cleaning as usual and tending the fire. Don Magnifico and his two daughters arrive from the ball in foul moods, and they order Angelina to prepare their supper. Angelina follows her orders and begins cooking as a storm rages outside. After dinner, Aldorino arrives seeking shelter when the prince's carriage is overturned in the storm. Angelina quickly prepares a seat for the prince. When he sits down, they instantly recognize each another. Ramiro takes out the bracelet she gave him before and he compares it to the one she is wearing. Realizing he has found his true love, the two happily embrace. Expectedly, Don Magnifico, Clorinda, and Tisby protest angrily. Ramiro rebukes them and begins to decree a punishment. Angelina begs him to have mercy on her family, and he obliges. The two lovers depart and Aldorino couldn't be happier with the turn of events.
Within the palace and dressed as a princess, Angelina is approached by Magnifico begging for her favor. She tells him that she only wishes to be recognized as one of his true daughters. He agrees to her wishes and the two embrace. Angelina asks the prince to forgive her family. Once forgiven, she tells them that her days serving as their maid are over.

That's what is called a fairy tale.  It always turns out with a happy ending! When have you last seen or read a fairy tale?



Saturday, 20 April 2013

Sepia Saturday; odd;


My godfather in the 1930s or perhaps earlier, not sure. there was always the same group of friends hunting together, my father included. The meat was divided. It was also a culling of the male animals.

I have always found it odd to be photographed with a dead animal as trophy.


The hunting trophy
A hunting trophy is an item prepared from the body of a game animal killed by a hunter and kept as a souvenir of the successful hunting or fishing expedition.

Often, the heads or entire bodies are processed by a taxidermist, although sometimes other body parts such as teeth, tusks or horns are used as the trophies.

Such trophies are often displayed in the hunter's home in  a "trophy room," sometimes called "game rooms" or "gun rooms," in which the hunter's weaponry is displayed as well



These, with many more were hanging in my father's gun room. At the back  they were neatly inscribed where they came from. There were also mounted birds and squirrels.  One was quite a big owl with open wings.


The chamois came from Splügen 09/09/1935

The one on the right came from Tschingel, Trins 1935.

My father had many beautiful guns. One was a small one with beautiful silver engravings. My father did not have sons so he taught me to shoot, I was only allowed to use the small rifle. Sunday mornings we would go out into the country site, I carried the target, a stick with a white cardboard with black rings.


Do not miss your next target and visit Sepia Saturday 173

www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com




©Photos/text Ts

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Wednesday; tongue in cheek;

....the truth and nothing but the truth...




Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself,'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin..'
- Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)
I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: - 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.'
- Eleanor Roosevelt 

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement..
- Mark Twain

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
- Groucho Marx

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.
- Jimmy Durante

I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.
- Rodney Dangerfield

Money can't buy you happiness .... But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
- Spike Milligan

Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was SHUT UP .
- Joe Namath

I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.
- Bob Hope

Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty .. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out..
- Phyllis Diller

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.
- Billy Crystal




May your troubles be less, may your blessings be more, and

may nothing but happiness come through your door. 



Have a nice day! 



©Photos my garden Ts













Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Tuesday; favourites;

Wonderful Book Stores;


Baldwin’s Book Barn, West Chester, England
A place like coming home into your favourite room, cats waiting to welcome you...


Massolit Books, Kraków, Poland
Kraków , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century.

Imagine sitting here, listening to the centuries, dreaming ...




Livraria Lello, Porto, Portugal;
Divine neo-gothic bookstore considered the nearest to a stairway to heaven, opened in 1906.


Could any child or adult, resist those delicious reading nooks?
 Poplar Kid’s Republic, Beijing, China



Shakespeare & Company, Paris, France

Browse and marvel,  books upon books upon books in narrow hallways, sink into a chair, bliss...




Underground book store in Coober Pedy, Australia

If you ever visit the outback town of Coober Pedy, do not miss to visit this unique book store.
The ceiling and the walls have the beautiful lining of red veined earth,  it is like being in another world.



I have always a stack of  new books I want to read, old books I want to read again or  browse for favourite passages. I have also a Sony reader, I buy books on line, BUT nothing ever will substitute the pleasure, the happiness and  the thrill, to be in a great book store to choose a book or more. to have them stacked up on tables and chairs to be ready to be read..and read again.
Read books you want to read not books which you think you must read.


Do not buy or treat books like fast food. Titania


©Text Ts

Saturday, 13 April 2013

Sepia Saturday 172; hiking;


My Mother hiking, her camera always went everywhere with her. Doesn't  she looks sweet  and happy in her hiking gear? The lyrics of a song say:'' Uf de Alpa isch äas herrlichs Läba  uf de Alpa isch äas schön!" Being on the alps is the best, it is a wonderful life!"  In the early 1930s 



This does not look like a hiking trip. Right, my aunt, who loved the work outdoors. This is in Murgsee where they had an alp to feed the cattle over summer on the healthy and  tasty grasses and herbs.They had  to do al lot of "hiking" to bring the milk to the hut where cheese and butter were produced.



Shoes and naked toes in the forground, 


My sister and I, right,  going on a hike. Here we are waiting for the bus to take us to a mountain village.



My three daughters loved to go hiking and sleeping at the shingle covered  "Alphütte"  (Alpine hut.)



Cooking the soup



Here we went with friends on a hike, had a rest and a cool drink in one of the mountain restaurants.



Meglisalp where we did a lot of hiking.

Berggasthaus Meglisalp. Whether you arrive after a hiking tour from Seealp, the Bollewees or Säntis: Here you can relax and enjoy a hearty dinner (try the traditional "Spätzle" noodles with fried onions and grated cheese, or a Bratwurst, generally the choice of the  girls. The Meglisalp is a beautifully located hamlet far away from the next city. 

Now it is time to hike to 

Friday, 12 April 2013

Friday; vulnerable;



The bumblebee bat Craseonycteris thonglongyai
 is about 29 to 33 mm  hence the common name of "bumblebee bat". It is the smallest species of bat and may be the world's smallest mammal.
It occurs in western Thailand and southeast Burma, where it occupies limestone caves along rivers.
It has a reddish-brown or grey coat and a distinctive pig-like snout.
Colonies differ in size, with an average of 100 individuals per cave. The bat feeds during short activity periods in the evening and dawn, foraging around nearby forest areas for insects. Females give birth annually to a single offspring.
Although the bat's status in Burma is not well known, the Thai population is restricted to a single province and may be at risk for extinction. Its potential threats are primarily anthropogenic, and include habitat degradation and the disturbance of roosting sites.


Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Wednesday; passion;

Mike Hawthorn Lemans winner 1955,  driving a preview lap on the Lemans track in a Jaguar.



Watch this video, unique from 1956

A very interesting film clip from Chris, to think that I owned XKD 540 all those years ago during my involvement with Jaguar !

Amazing to see all the people and traffic on the road with Mike traveling at up to 180 Mph (300 km/h)

And to think that Mike lost his life in a  accident in a Jaguar 3.4, maybe no seat belt, who knows ?
Travel Safely,
Cheers BillC



Bill C. his E-type 1960



Loved the microphone set  – not much micro about it.

How would you like to be coming around a corner in whatever , car ,motor cycle or bike or coming out of your drive on your tractor & there is a D Type at speed?


Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Tuesday; yesterday;

A quick deluge;


A stormy approach, late afternoon; 08/04/2013  15:43 PM



A watery landscape; 16:15 PM



A private waterfall; 16:26 PM



A curtain of rain; 16:27 PM



The end of the storm;  Sunset at 17:29 PM


©Photos from my garden Ts