2007

In this post I travel fourteen years back in time  to 2007 courtesy of my photo library. Like 2006, it was a year in which I did more than my fair share of foreign travel. Above - can you guess where that is? It is an unusual view of  The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. I was in Tuscany for three days in February - also visiting Florence and Leonardo's birthplace in Anchiano near Vinci.

At Eastertime, Shirley and I went to Morocco for ten days. It was a self-made holiday with half the time spent in Marrakesh and the other half at Essaouira  on the Atlantic coast which is where I took this picture of fishing boats:-

In early June we went to Galicia in northern Spain with our friends Moira and Steve. Like many pilgrims before us, we visited the great cathedral at Santiago di Compostela. Here it is claimed that the bones of St James are concealed in his gaudy shrine though the story is of course all pure fantasy. This is a view of the cathedral against a slightly threatening sky:-

In early August, Shirley and I flew to Biarritz in south west France where we picked up a hire care before meandering through the foothills of the Pyrenees to my brother's house near Pamiers, south of Toulouse. We stayed in a small hotel near Lourdes before travelling into the town to mingle with more Roman Catholic fantasists. The people in wheelchairs were hoping for cures as hundreds filled plastic bottles with holy water near the shrine of St Bernadette:-

At the end of August, I flew to Gdansk in Poland from our local airport - Doncaster-Sheffield, also known as Robin Hood Airport. This is a picture of St Mary's Church in the old town - one of the biggest brick-built churches in the world and it was completed in 1502 after a hundred years of  construction work:-

So that's that. A look back at 2007, the year that Luciano Pavarotti, Kurt Vonnegut and Benazir Bhutto died. All that travelling, soaking places up like a sponge. What a contrast with the time of this plague that we have all been living with for so loooooong now. Apart from my country walks, I have hardly been anywhere. Never mind - last night we booked a house in a Leicestershire village for early September and we won't need to fly there.

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/2UNqHym

Cheek

 As I sit

In the silence

I remember

A goodness

That life has

When I stop

And recall

The beauty

That God

Blesses me

With every day

The green grass

That tickle my toes

The water hose

That sprays

My face 

So coolly

As my red cheeks

Rejoice

Seek the good

Searching for 

The miracle

That isn’t hard

To find at all

from R's rue https://ift.tt/2WhyuFB

Pockets of Greenery

 

I was never that fussed with house plants.

I have had an aspidistra and a Christmas rose for over 20 years and neither can be killed off by lack of watering and care despite my best efforts.

During lockdown, I got into the habit of treating myself to a small houseplant every time I braved the supermarket.

And now Pockets of green fill every corner of the cottage, with leaves fighting for light in front of little windows and shady corners.

The Chinese Money plants are my favourites, with their delicate parasol leaves, jaunty and flag like 

I’ve even got a tiny money plant in my bathroom. 

But that’s plastic 

Don’t tell anyone 

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/2XWYRkv