‘Brua’ is Norwegian for ‘bridge’. This bridge connects the mainland with the island of Sotra, near Bergen. We sailed under it today on the Statsraad Lehmkuhl, a large ship which I occupied with about 300 (mostly drunk) Norwegians, an ambiguous way to spend one’s evening, but the views were good.
Denmark sneaks itself onto the blog again, courtesy of overflying it then changing planes in Copenhagen, on my way to Norway for a week and a half’s work. I love this, proof that nature can create beauty at so many different scales. It looks like a flower, don’t you think? I also think the single little cloud in the bay is a nice touch.
A couple of minutes’ searching on Google Maps suggests this is the ‘island’ of Æbelø, just north of the city of Odense on the north coast of Fyn (and on that island is also located Nyborg, which has also featured on the blog if you recall). It must be low tide here — I would bet this area looked quite different a few hours later.
Oh yeah, it’s day 650: and every 50 days I update the ‘Best of the Rest’ page. Only two new ones this time — I must be getting pickier. (Or less good at photography.)
I’m walking again. If you want to know more about that part of the day then see my other blog. It was a gorgeous, glorious summer’s day, perfect weather in every respect, and this is more-or-less the only picture I took all day that didn’t have some blue skies on it somewhere. But nevertheless it’s the one I like the best: good curve on the wall, the solitary X-shape of the stile.
Life round here definitely feels chilled at the moment. It’s amazing what a nice, sunny four or five days does to this country, particularly when it’s been about a year since we had any such sustained period of pleasant.
I know I did the same theme a couple of days ago but if I’m to truly encapsulate the day then I have to return to it. Went on a walk up to the woods of Hardcastle Crags today, and the bluebells are making a spectacular display this year. They are a signal species, if the bluebells are healthy, the wood’s healthy, so this is a good sight. I think anyone familiar with the English countryside reacts to bluebells at a pretty primal level.
Joe here shows his opinion of gardening, refusing to be impressed even by the relatively substantial leek harvest (these have been in the ground at least a year). Only the promise of a picnic got him up to the garden in the first place, despite the decent weather — but here it is still 10 minutes away.
Three days of photos back home in HB and they’ve all had a floral theme; which is certainly pervasive as a theme, round here at the moment. There is more going on in this picture than you might at first think, however: this was taken into a cloud of insects, several of which are lit up in the sunlight to the top right of the shot.
Time to start finding photographic inspiration back at home, if I’m to keep this blog going. There’ll be more pictures of local flora yet I am sure: having missed out on (what has passed for) spring at home, there’s some catching up to do. I like the seemingly random distribution of focus on this shot.
On the return home,
Fallen blossoms. I’m sure there’s
A haiku in it.
What have I missed while I’ve been away? Little things, the family, my DVD collection, pubs. Whitelock’s has in the past won ‘Best City Pub in Britain’ awards and is this great little oasis in the middle of Leeds’ shopping district. Plenty of reference is made within to its foundation date of 1715 AD: fifty-five years before any Europeans properly set foot in the country I have just left.
What have I not missed while I’ve been away? The weather…
