Bird of Paradise

I think that every week should start with flowers. They’re cheerful and they have the power to make you stop for a second or two and maybe even take a deep breath before heading into a new week. Our flowers on this Monday come from DavidinOz and they are indeed breathtaking.

Bird of Paradise and Sturt Desert Pea. The pea is the Floral emblem of South Australia. SA exports a lot of flowers, but we cannot sell the desert pea to Japan as the Japanese think the “eye” is watching them.

Thanks David. We all appreciate the blast of colour and cheer.

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

Walking in a Winter Wonderland, part 5

pond

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I’m not quite sure what the term for such a body of water is. It’s not a pond, but it fills quickly with water after rain.

blackbird

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The birds knew exactly that I only had the 250mm lens with me…

landscape

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And the wide angle lens.

This concludes the morning walk on the 26th, tomorrow we’ll see what we did in the afternoon.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland, part 4

ice flowers

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Some flowers, showing off their new “bloom”.

icicles

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Icicles growing in an old Roman quarry.

icicles

©Giliell, all rights reserved

icicles

©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

cobweb

©Giliell, all rights reserved

trees

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Let’s call the “The Lovers”. As you can see, the right side tree didn’t fall onto the other one but started to its left, and then grew all around it.

 

Looking at 2018

Since it’s the time of the year to traditionally do so, and since my colleagues have mostly done so already, I’ll do my personal account of 2018.

It’s the personal, and also some of the political, and looking at all of it it would be silly to expect one year, a unit of time whose start and end us humans decided,  to be one thing. 2018 started with fraught. My teacher training was nearing its end and it almost ended my career as a teacher (it did so for a friend of mine). I scraped by a “pass” and I passed several months in a mixture of anger and despair. My family and you, my friends, always had an open ear for me and helped me to cope with the stress. Caine always had a kind word, while she herself battled with cancer.

Meanwhile, the world descended further into fascism. The Brits kept committing the suicide called Brexit, the Trump administration locked up kids in cages, and in Germany the Bavarian conservatives made refugees the one and only “problem”, despite the fact that few are still arriving

Then summer came, and things were looking up, at least on the personal front. I found a job that I really like, with all its challenges, and Caine was nearing the end of her treatment, when the news of her death knocked the feet out from under me, and all of us. How can you love a person you have never met in the flesh so much? How can you miss somebody you have never seen so fiercely? Some days I still cannot comprehend that she’s gone.

Affinity survived, it’s community survived, because especially in these times, you need your friends.

Therefore, the best thing in 2018 was friends.

Voyager, I’m so happy to have you as a friend, across that big wide pond. Your posts make me smile and your friendship means a lot to me. And thank you for the card. Yes, I noticed the tits right away.

Rq, sometimes it seems like there’s just one script for life with kids and we both follow it. I know that 2018 wasn’t an easy year for you either, family wise. I hope things will get better. I know they can. I love your music posts and how you often discover art and share it with us.

Charly, you Jack of all trades. You have so many talents and you create so many beautiful things, from living trees to hard metal. I often envy your dedication and endurance in your projects. I hope you will have a lot of time and good health to spend on these projects in 2019.

My dear friends and readers of Affinity, I won’t try to name you all, because in the end I’d miss somebody. You make this blog what it is. You keep sending us pictures and projects, let us glimpse into your lives and cultures. To all of you I give a rose in memory of things passed.

rose

©Giliell, all rights reserved

And a rosebud as a promise for things yet to come.

rosebud

©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

Walking in a Winter Wonderland, part 3

Yesterday we saw the hair ice, today it’s needle ice. I had never seen that before either, and Mr still didn’t because he stomped past it without noticing. But I made sure he saw it the next day.

needle ice

©Giliell, all rights reserved

needle ice

©Giliell, all rights reserved

needle ice

©Giliell, all rights reserved

needle ice

©Giliell, all rights reserved

needle ice

©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

You Don’t Like Dandelions

The year is almost at an end, and thank goodness for that, amirite? 2019 should be so… much… ummm… well, let’s enjoy the end of 2018 at least, okay?

One of the biggest events for me this year was the passing of Caine, as a(n internet) friend, as an inspiration, as a teacher, as an emotional support. Amongst all the other changes, this was huge, so it was a very emotional moment when I recently received a package from Germany, which included not only life-saving cookies, but also a very special envelope with a very special letter and a huge reminder of what we all miss so much, embodied in a perfect shiny little pendant:

Horse pendant by Giliell. Best thing ever.
©rq, all rights reserved.

And everything was blurry for a while.

Thus, before the closing of the year, I would like to say a big thank you to my fellow bloggers, my fellow readers and commenters, and most of all, to Caine (and Rick) for being the beginning and support of this whole blogging project.

©rq, all rights reserved.

Today’s song choice is one that always, always reminds me of Caine – strangely, the song is about a person who would, most likely, be the ultimate opposite. The chorus reads something like “You – don’t like [the taste of] dandelions, / You – don’t like me; / Where others have a raging rapid, / You have built an H[ydro] E[lectric] S[tation]”. It’s my favourite new song by a local artist this year (the video isn’t), and I hope at least some of you enjoy it, too.

Also, I want to apologize for sparse contribution lately. I’m never good with the end of the year, which is a long and melodramatic story, but I hate New Year’s even more than I don’t like Christmas, and things don’t seem to get better with time (except the idea of not attending peopled activities or large fireworks events), but I will improve with the new year and the lengthening of days. Thanks for reading!

Jack’s Walk

Alas, we did not find the beaver, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I found this beaver chewed tree at the end of the trail today. We looked around a bit, but couldn’t find any other signs of beaver activity. This tree tells me that they’re here, though, and once the ground is frozen and less boggy we’re going to walk closer to the river to see what we can see. I’ve never seen a beaver in the wild so this is all very exciting. What could go wrong?

Caine’s Horses

In Memory of Caine (front of card),

Over the holidays I received a very special package from Giliell. It’s one of Caine’s painted horses, in miniature on a background of silver and set in clear resin. It came with a beautiful handmade card reading In Memory of Caine.  The note inside was even more beautiful. Giliell has made many resin horses and, together with the card, has sent them out to as many members of our Affinity community as she could gather addresses for.

Giliell’s gift to the Affinity community

The resin pendant is beautiful and Giliell’s artistry is obvious.   The silver shimmers and catches the light and Caine’s horse is spirited and full of running energy The pendant is also meaningful and I cherish it already. I love the thought that these wee horses now reside in places all over the world and that my horse is one link in a chain that stretches far and wide. I love the reminder of Caine’s energy and talent. I love the way such a small work of art makes me feel connected and how it reminds me of my good fortune to be a part of this community.

Resin pendant with one of Caine’s horses, made by Giliell

In memory of Caine (back of card)

I don’t want to catch Giliell unawares, but if you are part of our family and are feeling left out please drop a note to our in-box at affinitysubmissions@gmail.com.

Giliell, I’m a bit verklempt and can’t quite find the right words, but thank you for such a thoughtful and meaningful gift. (I did get a few other goodies from Giliell which I’ll share in another post, but this gift needed a post of its own.)

YouTube Video: What Has The EU Ever Done For Us?

We did not have any posts about the Brexit debacle, did we? A lot of the points in this video could also be applied to CZ (and we have idiots here aplenty who advocate for “Czexit” which would be even more suicidal for us than Brexit is for UK)

 

I agree with the gist of the video, which can be summed up thus: All the good things the EU makes for us here in Europe go under the radar of the media, and as a consequence under the radar of most people. Failures and mistakes are highlighted, successes and benefits are taken for granted.

I like the most the point that we, in Europe, experience the longest peace in history. We do not know what war is, for almost three generations by now in some countries. If the EU had achieved nothing else, that one thing is huge.