Runner In The Daisies

Ain't got no bicycles so this will have to do. It is a running-cycling trail in Forest Park but no two-wheelers in sight. I like the lushness and color. Running through the daisies must be the next best thing to tiptoeing through the tulips. Anyone got a ukulele?                         

Hands of Time

“Sometimes texture shows ... time,” writes Dolon archi, who captured this shot of an elderly man’s hands in Bangladesh.

August City Daily Photo Theme Day: bicycle

August. Oh my, VDP didn't even notice July. Perhaps that's why she didn't have much time to get the perfect shot. Perhaps also because she was away for a little while... Whatever, it's Theme Day in the City Daily Photo blogging community and so here are bicycles (thanks, VP!) The above shot isn't a bicycle of course, just its bell but it was the cutest that VDP could find, especially considering that a lot of French cyclists seem to totally ignore these wonderful little instruments... Below, in order: i) some bicycles are very laden and the possessions seemed to have been rummaged through... ii) Other bicycles are handicapped... iii) In the exit of Right Bank train station (with a shadow of the sign that you had seen here, though that was actually another exit). iv) In pedrestrian mode. To see all takes on this month's Theme, please visit the CDP page, it's this way and happy August! Oh and VDP has shown you lots of bicycles before (click here) but her absolute favourite shot is and will probably remain this one!

Août ? VDP n'a pas vu passer juillet ! Premier du mois, jour de thème dans la communauté des blogueurs City Daily Photo et vous l'aurez compris, ce mois-ci le thème est bicyclette ! Bien évidemment, la première photo n'est qu'un détail d'un vélo, mais VDP a adoré la petite sonnette, instrument bien utile et qui manque si souvent sur les vélos dans ce pays ! Ci-dessous, dans l'ordre : i) certains vélos sont bien chargés et d'ailleurs ont été visités... ii) D'autres sont handicapés... iii) Dans la rampe de sortie de la gare Rive Droite (avec l'ombre de la grille et du mot "sortie", que vous aviez vue ici, bien que c'était à l'époque l'autre sortie). iv) En mode piéton. Pour voir toutes les interprétations du thème dans le monde entier, cliquez ici et bon mois d'août ! Ah et VDP vous a déjà montré beaucoup de vélos (cliquez ici pour les voir) mais son préféré est et restera sans doute à jamais celui-ci !

Note Versailles' crest/coat of arms on the bus stop in this last shot. All the explanations were given in this post.

Skyline Drive, Virginia

Skyline Drive is 105 mile long drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Shenandoah National Park. It provides a number of overlooks with beautiful vistas of the mountains and valleys below, such as the one pictured. It is home to black bears, bobcats, deer, wild turkeys, and a wide array of wildlife. It offers hiking trails, waterfalls, picnic areas, camping sites, lodging, dining and more. The southern entrance to the park is about a two and a half hour drive from Williamsburg.

Theme Day - Bicycles

Well, fancy that! A classy European cyclery in downtown Sydney. Atelier de Velo is at 156 Clarence Street in the city, and when I made these photos the Tour de France was in full swing. It is one of four cycle shops within two blocks; a peloton of shops, perhaps. Clarence Street runs north-south, from the Town Hall until it disappears in the mess of on-ramps to the harbour bridge, commonly known as the Western Distributor. It is wedged between York Street and Sussex Street. Atelier de Velo specialises in three brands of bicycle: Cervélo Cycles, which are manufactured in Canada; Focus Cycles, which are engineered in Germany; and, Bianchi Cycles, which are designed in Italy, even though the parent company is now Swedish.

This is my contribution to the City Daily Photo Monthly Theme Day. To see further contributions to the August Theme of "Bicycles" please visit the CDP Gallery. This theme was chosen by Giacomo and his wife Gianna, who live in the Italian port city of Livorno , the Mediterranean gateway to Florence and Tuscany. They started Livorno Daily Photo on Christmas week of 2008 and have posted continuously ever since. Please pay them a courtesy visit. The cartoon on the right is by Cathy Wilcox, and first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald in 2008.

A warm reflection

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An unusual reflection for Weekend Reflection group.
There was lots of good home-made food last night.

 I was happy to be at the lively and moving bat mitzvah of a wonderful 12-year-old young lady.

Today (beginning last night) is also the fun Jewish holiday Tu B'Av (explained in my earlier posts).
And in just a few hours Sabbath Eve will begin.
Shabbat shalom, may you and also this troubled country have some Sabbath peace.
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Music is for Listening

A quartet playing an arrange of unusual instruments entertaining the crowd at Borough Market yesterday. The group playing the tap footing joyful music are part of an orchestra from the Baluji Music Foundation.  The foundation is the brainchild of Baluji Shrivastav an extremely talented instrumentalist from northern India.

The schools he attended as a blind child recognised his extraordinary talent as a musician and encouraged him to further his studies at top music universities. He has gone on to tour the world, write music for films, television and theatre, he has performed around the world and recorded with the likes of Stevie Wonder and Annie Lennox.  The Baluji Music Foundation is a charity he has set up for blind and visually impaired people offering them to play and enjoy music at any level.

After The Rain

Found in a quiet corner of Forest Park. Actually, the ground wasn't very wet but I thought the whole thing was quite strange. Is the parks department so hard up for warning cones that they are swiping them from other city agencies? And why is there a line of cones in a little-used area, leading to nowhere and nothing? Inquiring minds want to know.                    

Elephants on Parade

In the first morning light, female elephants and their young cross the plains of Kenya’s Amboseli National Park to feed in the marshes, says Daniel Pinheiro. Mount Kilimanjaro and its famed mantle of snow looms behind.

Weekend Reflections: au Cénacle

A couple of reflections in the peace and quiet of the park of the Spiritual Centre of the Cenacle Sisters which VDP had shown you here. Check out all Weekend Reflections here!

Des reflets verts dans la quiétude du parc du Centre Spirituel des Sœurs du Cénacle que VDP vous montrait ici. Tous les Reflets du Weekend sont par là !

Bicycles - 1 sleep to go ...

Cycling has been the go-to sport for quite some time now. It is non-contact - the way amateur cyclists play the sport - which means that one can stay in the sport longer. Non-contact does not mean injury-free, of course. As I indicated yesterday, cycling is not a poor-man's-sport. However, riding a bike is a poor-man's mode of transportation. So, I conclude this week of heads-up to our City Daily Photo Theme Day, which is tomorrow, with a look at bikes simply hanging about in the city by-ways. Rusty bikes. Secured bikes. Cheap bikes. Bikes for the "everyman".

I experienced the Sliding Rock at Qunu

I got to slide down the sliding rock at Qunu where Madiba and his friends (as well as many local kids before and after him) played as children.  Some of you seem confused so let me explain. 

 

On a recent trip up the Wild Coast I stopped at the Nelson Mandela Museum in Qunu and was taken on a tour by one of the guides.  Part of the tour takes one about 200 meters away from the museum buildings to a couple of granite rocks on the side of the hill on which the museum is situated.  It was on these rocks that local kids, including Mandela himself, came to play.  Back then the kids would slide down the rock sitting on pieces of wood or whatever object they could find that would slide across the rock.  While walking down I wondered why the guide was carrying the plastic seat section of a chair (like the ones we used to sit on during assembly at school).  The answer came very quickly as he demonstrated before handing me the seat.  It was time to slide.  At first you wonder if you would actually be able to go down on the seat and the next moment you've got to throw out anchors cause that rock is a lot smoother than you think.  It may not be able to compete with "adrenalin activities" like zip lining or kloofing, but the experience is just as memorable because of where you do it.  I can imagine a couple of boys going home with bruised knees and toes after a day at the sliding rock though.

Road Cone

Rather than the bright orange road cone, if you see ones like this it is an indication that a funeral is taking place.

St. Louis' Confederate Monument

There is a lot of controversy in this country about monuments to the Confederate States of America, the Southern rebels during our civil war. It boiled up again after the horrifying murders of black church-goers by a white racist in Charleston, South Carolina. That state has flown the Confederate battle flag in front of its capitol building for decades. It is a symbol of racism to many. South Carolina recently decided to move it down the street to a history museum.

We have an elaborate Confederate monument in Forest Park. I dislike the sculpture, with its swaggering Rhett Butler type striding before two cowering women. Read the text for yourself. The inscription in the bottom picture sounds like it was written by a forerunner of the Tea Party.

There has been some talk about whether to remove or relocate this. No decision. I doubt anything will happen.                           

Passing By

Passionate ski mountaineer and Peter Svoboda loves minimalist compositions in his winter-themed mountain photography. Svoboda saw this scene unfold from about a mile away on the summit of Kreuzkogel in the Austrian Alps. “The angle of [the] slope ... and [the] afternoon sun created rather attractive shapes at first sight,” he writes. “I was waiting on the top of the mountain and took some pictures with the lonely tree. But it was not enough for me.” After he’d photographed a group of skiers who were enjoying the deep powder, this lone figure “was like icing on the cake,” he writes. “The mood was there.”

Lumière du soir

A warm evening glow on Avenue de Paris...

Bicycles - 2 sleeps to go ...

Clarence Street Cyclery sell a TREK EDMONDA SLR 10 H1 for $15,999. Last year, Damien Hancock from Melbourne, bought a custom-made De Rosa Protos that cost $17,000. My son-in-law has a $7,000 something or other, leaning against the wall of the girls' "art-house". SiL reckons it is his shed. Hah ...

Butterfly, Williamsburg, Virginia

Summer is a great time to see wildlife. This butterfly posed in full profile for this photos.

This is the Wild Coast

Doesn't this just shout out Wild Coast to you?  A winding dirt road, rolling hills dotted with huts and villages and a beautiful rugged coastline second to none.  If you have never been there to experience and see this for yourself, then you really must make a plan cause you are missing out.

The photo was taken on the road between Coffee Bay and Hole in the Wall.

  #experienceeastcape

Enter a World of Fairytales

A nomadic yurt and storytellers from the Crick Crack Club, Fabularium is a pop up at Southbank, that promises to whisk kids and adults into the magical world of myths and fairytales.  Add to that a competition for dressing up - let your imagination run wild.

Good Or Bad?

Absolutely no indication of what this place is other than what you see. Some kind of private club?  But there is a nightclub that's been around a long time right next door.

Never seen this before, not that I get my here that often. Found at Locust and 20th Streets.

Okay, it has a Facebook page. It describes itself as a dessert bar and lounge. Strange.                       

Painting With Land

Terraced rice fields are seen from above in Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam. Rice is one of the country’s key exports.

Du calme...

Let's return to the peace and quiet of the Cenacle park, shall we? There's a lovely bridge over (hopefully not troubled) water!

Au parc du Centre Spirituel des sœurs du Cénacle, il y a ce joli pont !

Carob silliness :)

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ABC Wednesday, and C is for CAROB!

I finally found one single carob tree during my evening desert roamings and it was such a nice surprise!

The tree is also know as St. John's bread.
A translation error had John the Baptist eating locusts, but more likely the word in the Bible meant carobs. I hope so!
I gathered some fallen carobs from the ground, brought them home in my pocket, washed them, and ate the pod.
They taste good, some say like chocolate!

The advantage to walking solo in the desert just outside my town is that you can get silly and take silly selfies.
You can even sing and there is no one there to hear you.

To see how to eat, drink, and understand carobs please see my three earlier posts.
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Bicycles - 3 sleeps to go ...

In Clarence Street in Sydney, there are at least three cycleries. This was glimpsed through the doorway of one of them. My father's first job, at the end of second year high-school - aged 14 - was to work in a haberdashery warehouse. He was one of those back-room johnnies, who cut lengths from bolts of cloth for salesmen who travelled around our state, trying to flog longer lengths to small stores. He vowed never again; never again would he take a job where the superior checked the cleanliness of his finger-nails each morning. So, upon his demob from the army at the end of 1945 - with a wife and son to support - he set himself up as a fruit & veg man travelling in his converted tabletop Bedford from street to street in suburbs close to where he lived, selling produce to "the missus". He was bemoaning to me, late in his life, that when he came back from the army, he should have opened a bicycle shop. As you can see from my photo yesterday, he was a cyclist from way-back. He had the build for it. He had the sales-savvy for it. He could strip and reassemble nearly anything, no matter how many wheels. He had a truck licence, a car licence, and a motor-bike licence. We all have our shouldas ...