Black swans

It was the 1st time I saw black swan in real… and maybe even the 1st time I just saw black swans at all!

Hidden museum

If you want to see what is hidden behind those trees… just open this page in the blogTHESSALONIKI DAILY PHOTO by Κόστα: he is lucky enough to live in Θεσσαλονίκη all year long and took a “leaveless winter” picture of this museum…

Departure?

"Tutto considerato al mondo ci sono solo due tipi di uomini: quelli che stanno a casa e quelli che non ci stanno." (Kipling)

Actually Kipling could as well have said:

those who look at the sea day: and night: and those who take the boat:

I have read this quote by Kipling on the site of the wonderful broadcast: Siti terrestri, marini e celesti, on RAI Radio 3: every sunday at 23:30 or every week via their podcast. Siti terrestri, marini e celesti Dalle miniere di sale di Taudenni, alle profondità abissali degli oceani; da una piramide Maya sepolta nella giungla ai miasmi della discarica di Malagrotta; dal tappeto verde dei più prestigiosi casinò d'Europa, alla tomba di Jim Morrison, alla Cloaca massima di Roma; dal rogo della biblioteca di Alessandria alle pire funebri dei ghat di Benares, il viaggio di "Siti" si snoda attraverso una serie infinita di luoghi geografici e immaginari in un caleidoscopio di suggestioni olfattive, sonore e letterarie. Un programma di Silvestro e Guidarello Pontani, a cura di Loredana Rotundo. If you want to explore this world and discover other worlds, you know what to do…

Another sunset

A more classical one with its “tomato soup with cream” coloured clouds… Someone cooking tomato soup for some battalion? Napoleon’s army spent a few night here before the Waterloo battle… Some kind of vegetarian sacrifice: cooking tomato soup for Gods instead of killing bulls?

Natural dark pink

I simply couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this sky. Dark pink? Purple? I don’t even know what name to give to this colour…

Maybe viola: the sky became fan of la Fiorentina last night and it helped them to win.

Or maybe there was just some big explosion in a factory producing blackberry marmalade…

Anti-who?

También recuerdo con algún estupor cierta asamblea que se convocó para confundir el antisemitismo. Varias razones hay para que yo no sea un antisemita; la principal es ésta: la diferencia entre judíos y no judíos me parece, en general, insignificante; a veces, ilusoria o imperceptible. Nadie, aquel día, quiso compartir mi opinión; todos juraron que un judío alemán difiere vastamente de un alemán. Vanamente les recordé que no otra cosa dice Adolfo Hitler; vanamente insinué que una asamblea contra el racismo no debe tolerar la doctrina de una Raza Elegida; vanamente alegué la sabia declaración de Mark Twain: “Yo no pregunto de qué raza es un hombre; basta que sea un ser humano; nadie puede ser nada peor” (The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, pág. 204). J. L Borges Dos Libros, Otras inquisiciones

Σκυλάκια

	Small dogs? Indeed, if you take one of those flowers and push on their sides, they open and close ‘their mouth’ like a dog barking… Still, I prefer not to touch them and share those pictures with you… the only thing left from summer’s garden and its colours.

Outoor guest

Here is our guest in the garden… where he sometimes meets other cats from neighbouring houses. Autumn, soon winter: not much left in the garden… no coloured flower; just some green: grass, leaves &c.

Indoor guest

We finally found where this cat came from. Or at least what is the last stage of his odyssey before arriving here… The baker had somehow adopted him for some time but the law does not allow them to have a cat in the bakery. They had to close their doors to this so nice guest. And he just tried to find another house: on the road again. My nephew loves him very much even if he is still somehow afraid. But the cat too seems somehow afraid as he often goes and sits under the tables. My niece is “in love” with him but his father does not even want to see a cat and this is why they did not take it at home.

To be continued…

Global warming

New strange animals appear in the sand deserts of what used to be cold and rainy Belgium…

Da Belgium

Special guest

We had a special guest today at home: He entered the cellar but then he decided to stay in the garden…

In the beginning my nephew was as afraid as the cat… but it seems they just liked each other company.

Here are my niece, my nephew and their mother, with this special guest:

Summer sky

It was still summer: warm, sunny evenings, children playing out in the garden and clouds playing in the sky with the sunlight. Coraggio! It will come again in less than one year!

Pompei.be

This couple looks like the masters of the castle whom a volcano has transformed in statues like in Pompei. Look at them on the top of this small hill. Maybe these fountains are formed by their eternal tears.

Natural climate control

Trees are wonderful: they do not only offer us great pictures… They can also save the planet in many ways. This tree above and in the middle of this bench can be used as some kind of natural climate control: in summer the shadow of his leaves protect us from the sun; in winter it lets the sun pass to warm us. And more and more architects use trees for that: placing them on south sides of houses.

Separated twins

Twin pots separated by this small lake, like Syrian brothers living in different (free and israeli-occupied) parts of the Golan and communicating only with megaphones along the border…

Garden geometry

Water symmetry in trees & banks perspective.

Botanical quiz

Can you find which kind of trees those trees (in the garden and in the hill behind it) are just by looking at the colour of their autumn leaves?

Full moon in an empty sky

Tonight’s full moon in a black cloudy starless sky

Games with water and time

The same picture with different opening/exposure times:

1/500 second for the 1st picture

1/6 second for the 2nd picture

You can see the intermediary stages down here:

1/180 sec 1/90 sec 1/45 sec 1/10 sec