zumba demo in Saffron Walden - ahead only

There was zumba demonstration on Saffron Walden market square. It was by my zumba instructor Luisa Curbelo (lady in blue belly dancing scarf), and she was joined by another instructor, Natalia Bull (one in bright yellow trousers).

It was sort of chilly today, but the workout is so energetic, everybody who took part looked hot, not cold.

A few very young girls joined, (one in pink tutu!), which looked very sweet, but I didn't take any pictures, so as not to upset parents by accident.

I must say I myself find zumba excellent fun- considering I never liked really liked fitness, it's saying something I guess.

All the dancing, skipping and jumping was done on the big white letters on the road spelling "ahead only", which seems oddly appropriate

spring lake

Somehow this summer passed without us renting a summer house in Scandinavia. I loved it last year in Denmark, but this year it didn't happen. And we missed mushroom-picking this year, too. Blogs of my Russian friends are full of mushroom-hunting reports and pictures now, after the heat and smog of summer went away and beautiful autumn arrived.

Never mind, there is always next year.

This is not summer or autumn in Denmark, this is spring in Norway, but still.

Healing mud of Nin

I was hesitating somewhat before placing this picture, since I don't know those guys, but decided that their privacy is protected enough by their poses and mud layer. Plus, I turned lady's head away. Plus it is a public beach, of course, it's just I am always very hesitant with photos of strangers.

Anyway, what you see in front of you is one of the beaches of Nin. On the map below is the one to the left from the Nin bay entrance (upper left corner). The dark blue shallow lagoon below it on the map is filled with this black sticky stuff, and as you come to the beach, you see plenty of people smeared with it. It's relatively quiet place at the moment, but I strongly suspect that once this large-ish project I just found about is underway, it'll be lot less accessible and a lot busier.

I don't quite understand what the mud is supposed to be healing, but well. Looks like good fun anyway.

Beaches of Nin are nice, though, mud or not. Visually, they not as striking as ones on Fuerteventura, and not at all as clean, but they have shallow sand access to calm water, and that' a definite plus on most beaches in Croatia I've seen so far.



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photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

Bridge The Gap

Arco Iris was drumming today at the finish of Bridge the Gap charity walk.

I must say that I didn't really read the walk website before we went, at least I didn't read it thoroughly. For some reason I assumed that we will be there for both start and finish, so I though - well, maybe, if the weather will be nice, I might join myself, etc. It turned out that we came to the right place (start and finish being at the same spot), but the wrong time, walk starting at 9.30 and us turning up at 11.

Anyway, if we are still here next year, I might join. It appears to be an excellent value for money, as it were (if such thing can be said about charity event) - the route goes through a few colleges, and it's great photographically, plus at least one of them is normally charging for admission. And the walk is good for you. And you have satisfaction of knowing that your money go to a good cause, of course.

And incomparable Arco Iris expects you at the finish. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, surely.

forest elf

Not sure if the results are to everyone's liking, but I had fun with this picture. Hair proved to be a bit of a challenge, with only Photoshop Elements at my disposal (if I understand correctly, it's a lot easier to make custom intelligent brush in fully fledged Photoshop, but I don't have that)
Actually, I know that results are not to everyone's liking - the model made a face when he saw it. He graciously agreed that it's ok since nobody should be able to recognize him (or so he thinks, anyway)

you can see the entry into POTY competition here. Feel free to vote and/or leave a comment

this image at shutterstock

Patrouille de France

we did catch Patrouille de France on Saturday - about 5ish they were on. Their display was great, and standing where we were, it also felt very, very personal - those jets are whooshing by like there is no tomorrow.


I believe from this picture you can see why we mistook them for red arrows on Friday - there are eight of them (Red Arrows fly eight when one pilot is not available, and that's what happened on Saturday), the outlines of the jets are not dissimilar, and the colors of the smoke they trail are the same. And sure there are differences, starting from the color of the planes, but in the distance you can't really see that at all.

I read up on them a little bit and was very surprised and pleased to find out that the team is headed by a woman - Virginie Guyot

And of course I do have a shot with them doing a very similar curve to the previous picture, but I think there's enough curves for a bit.

Duxford air show today

ever impressive red arrows display over Duxford museum today. They are going to kick off the display tomorrow at two, apparently, so there is still a chance to catch them over this w/e.


Yesterday a jet team was doing a display very close to our house. We immediately assumed that they were red arrows, except when they flew really low, I saw that the jets are in fact blue. I was somewhat perplexed, but decided this was a new look for red arrows (Blue is New Red, you know). They did some figures that I didn't ever see the Red arrows do - a heart pierced by an arrow was one.

Today it transpired that what we saw yesterday was French aerobatics team - Patrouille de France, and they will perform today only. Problem is, nobody seems to know what time. We are assuming they'll close the show at about 5, so we are heading back to Duxford soon.

last day of holidays

Timur is sitting by the sea organ, looking completely and utterly bored with sun, sea and everything around him

I am not sure whether this is something many people feel, but for us, a lazy week by seaside seems to be some sort of cut-off. After that it gets boring and all everybody wants is to get back home. We stayed for nine nights - two too many, it seems.

From my student (long-gone) days, however, I remember that if you stay by seaside for about two weeks, some sort of "second wind" arrives and it feels like you can stay there forever.

Alas, I didn't have hols that lasted over two weeks for a long time, so I didn't have the opportunity to test whether it feels the same now as it did all those years ago.

photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

stripes

while in Zadar, we bought a stripy article for everybody, except (sob, sob, sniff) for myself.

Here you can see two of those things, worn by Timur and Yuri on our last day in Zadar, while they converse about something or other. Their conversation tends to consist almost solely of quotes from movies and books known to both. Occasionally those quotes are not even words - that's when they (especially Timur) try to convey the story by sound imitations ("and then he like KAABOOM!")


We stayed in Zadar itself for the last night before going back home. Our flight was in the evening, so we left our bags with the landlord and slooowly went around the town for one last time, with stops for icecreams, long lunch and drinks.

The place for the last night was found via "aquarius" tourist agency in Zadar. It actually proved quite difficult to find accommodation in the area beforehand via the internet, but once you are there, it's easy - just go around asking at tourist agencies that there are a few. If you feel energetic, you can even shop around and look for the right balance of price and quality, but we didn't do that - it was very hot and prospect of walking around with our bags didn't appeal. Incidentally, the trick of easily finding a place to stay while on the spot works in one more place I know of - and it's Scotland of all places. Except in Scotland, you go to one tourist info and they do it for you, while in Dalmatia different tourist agencies seem to hold different lists of properties.

No matter, it all worked out in the end

photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

olives in the middle of nowhere

this old olive garden is along one of the roads that lead from village called Kozino (I can't put the right accent on "z", so probably the most appropriate spelling is Kozhino) to the sea.

Village itself is not far from Zadar - about 5 km, on the main road to Nin. Looks like the original village didn't came down to the sea, but now there is a strip of new developments next to the seaside and it is joined to the old village by at least two steep-ish short roads. Once you get to the sea it's a bit disappointing - the seabottom is stony, with inevitable sea urchins. There is just one cove where bottom is sandy, but it is still fringed with stones, so you have to negotiate those before you can feel the sand under your feet.

Having said that, the apartment that we rented there via one of tourist agencies in Zadar was the most comfortable of four places we stayed in over those nine nights. Another plus side was that Nin, with its truly sandy beaches, was not very far and local buses did take us where we want to go - not always quite on time, granted, but we were never in a hurry anyways.


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photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

dendrobium

yet another present for myself from Scotsdales garden center, this time dendrobium orchid. I am not sure what I am going to do with all those orchids when it's time to move (maybe big give-away event is indicated).

The thought of move is the only thing that stops me from buying books like this one - beautifully illustrated, expensive and heavy as bricks

polished street

this is how old street's surface in Zadar looks like. It looked just the same in Rovinj.

One of the things that surprised me in Zadar this year is how busy and touristy it was - maybe not quite as busy as Venice (i.e. you could walk relatively freely without having to squeeze between sweating bodies), but close. Even more surprisingly, Rovinj as I remember it three years ago was almost spookily empty. Considering that Rovinj old town area is more beautiful and has fewer or maybe even none of the new buildings, the explanations I can come up with are : we were there not in the peak of high season and there are a lot more tourists coming now to Croatia in general then it was three years ago.

Back to polished street: they look slippery, but those were uneven stones to start with, so they provide just enough grip to walk safely (although I don't know how it'll be in rain).

But I did manage to fall (and drop my camera!) on stony surface in Zadar - and that was not on old street, but on newly laid edge of a lawn close to the waterfront. Waterfront there serves as town beach, and especially show-off bathers take a loooong run before they dive, so there are always wet patches here and there. And whoever decided on the new layout for the area had a bright idea of making some of the surfaces of completely smooth, flat and polished marble. I truly don't know what possessed him or her. Some water on that marble and it's as slippery as ice, so beware.

Having said that, it's nice area, especially for a evening stroll, and of course "Greeting to the Sun" glowing disk is an absolute highlight.




photos from Croatia for sale at shutterstock

Greeting to the Sun

I had big difficulties chosing those two pictures out of dozens taken on "Greeting to the sun" solar panel disk on Zadar's seaside. Zadar has two Nikola Bašić's installations, another one being "Sea organ", which is not very impressive visually, although not less imaginative. This one is visual treat, especially in summer sunset when it reflects the summer skies (and of course at night when it lights up in psychedelic patterns)

I added both pics as entries to Photographer of the Year competition - see them and links to other entries here and here

apple juice and skylight

yesterday we came back home (to a lot of rain) from extremely hot Croatia. We stayed in Zadar area, and for two nights in two different apartments in Zadar itself. The pictured place, in the converted loft of one of the old houses, had two good points - very central position and two roof windows which gave beautiful spotlights in the morning.

When Timur went to have his apple juice on scratched-glass-topped table, it looked like he's having is out of a torch.

On the last night we've left our Rough guide to croatia in the (different) flat, figuring next time we go we'll need a new book. So if you stay in Zadar and find 2007 edition laying around somewhere, it's probably ours

tendril

Between two rains went to Cambridge Uni Botanic gardens yesterday. I don’t know which plant exactly is that — although both me and Timur like green greenhouses there, he tends to drag me through “rainforest” bit pretty quickly, because it’s damp and hot there. So there is no time to trace the creeper plants to their roots and little name plates next to them. I have a very vague impression that it belonged to passionflower plant — red species (Passiflora coccinea), but I can’t be sure.

Various tendrils on Shutterstock

suspension bridge

I've already processed this bridge picture (from Fuengirola, Spain) a goodish while ago, but I tend to re-comd through my folders before removing them off my hard disk . I leave them on external back-up disk, of course. This time processing left me with more perfect silhouettes, and I am hoping that this time the pic will be accepted at picture agencies, since people on the bridge are now unrecognizable.

more zebras

just one more pic of them and I'll stop.

Do you see interference (I think it's interference, although my optics are shaky) - an additional pattern is formed on defocused zebra in the background? Or is it just me?

Both zebra pictures were converted to black&white using infrared pre-set in photoshop elements. I just tweaked it a bit, adding more green and adjusting other channels to match. By a stroke of luck, it make the background white in first case.

Zebra abstract

Zebras from Linton zoo. Shame that there is only four of them there (at least, I think it's four). In my opinion, a herd of zebras is a sure recipe for millions of instant masterpieces

baby tapir

Went to Linton zoo today and luckily, came to tapir enclosure just as this young lady was finishing her talk. After the talk she stayed to answers questions — mostly about this very cute baby tapir, two months old, if I understood correctly.

After some very short belly scratching, baby happily flopped on his side, as a dog would. It was all very "awwwww".

Baby tapir pics on Shutterstock

Montana Roja

the mountain in the background is meant to be red, but not in this picture, clearly. Colors are all over the place anyways - intentionally, but still. In any case, it's not really that red, you can only just about see reddish tint in the aerial pictures

Combing old Fuerteventura folder again, clearly a sign of seaside hols long overdue