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

summer reading - 2

Timur is reading a book from "A Series of Unfortunate Events". I think it's book number twelve out of thirteen. He looks quite engrossed and he really is, which is a nice thing to see. Usually, he prefers books of "Eyewitness guide to.." type - information books with lots of illustrations.

IR jumps

they are not IR photos, of course, but the day was grey and the out-of-camera results were not that great, although dynamic and emotional. They were near-silhouette, but not near enough, plus it felt wrong to loose all the texture from the clouds.

Here the blue canal is almost zero and red and green almost equal, so it's not really IR either, but close. I like the results, they look like photos from old magazine.

Conversion was done with photoshop elements (I would love to have full PS, but it's expensive and elements cover most of my needs anyways)

Place is Wells-Next-the-Sea, that marram-grass covered hill opposite from the row of beach huts.

fly-in sunflowers

I rarely put my lensbaby on camera, which is a shame, but explainable by the fact that I tend to shoot with image stocks in mind and they are somewhat suspicious of unusual effects. but this sunflowers asked for it, I think.

Timur's attitude to posing is normal for majority of kids and many adults I know - that is, once you point your camera at them, they make a face (they won't describe it as making a face, but that's what it is). So to make him to change his expression to something more natural, I had to tell him something funny, which was "nobody expects the spanish inquisition!", and produced desired effect

red and black

another color block picture, red and black this time.

this one is from last year, I was just thinking that the weather is too gray at the moment to go to pick-your-own. but we'll probably go there soon anyway - Timur likes jelly and so far blackberry jelly's his favorite.

He decided to try something new a few weeks back and asked to make orange jelly in orange skins - the idea picked from Canaries, where they had lemon and orange sorbet this way. To my surprise, jelly did set (somehow I was sure some weird chemical reaction will prevent setting), but it wasn't great success. so I figure we should go back to old favorite.

sweet corn

when we first moved to Saffron Walden area, all those, oh my, almost twelve years ago, most noise during market days was produced by the fruit and veg seller. He was putting real passion into his "Strawberrrrieeeeeees"! and "We have ba-na-nas in their pi-ja-mas!".

Nowdays, very similar, but even louder and more piercing noises are produced by a young guy who, I assume, is his son. At least, voices and intonations are quite remarkably similar. The "original" guy sells, but doesn't shout any more.

Sweetcorns above is from their stall today

summer reading

there is this huge beech tree in Brandon country park that kids never pass just like that. They always climb, with various degrees of success.

Timur came to it this time with a firm idea that he'll sit on a branch and read. But, being still small(ish), he had difficulties finding a spot and then getting there. He got there in the end, with some help, and finished his book there, but I didn't get a good picture of him.

Yuri had no troubles at all, he found this angled low seat on one branch and spend some time reading Sherlock Holmes stories. He got this book after watching last movie, and likes it. Old-fashioned language or the fact the movie and the book have little in common don't seem to bother him much.

Oncidium

original plan was to go to Wandlebury for a little walk or something. but soon as we got off the front porch it started to drizzle, so went to Scotsdales. kids like it there because there are fish and some pets to look at and I like it because I can buy myself a new flower every time. this time the orchid gallery had some plants there that I immediately labeled as "suspiciously cheap" to which Yuri (I think it was him) added "going all the way up to outrageously expensive".

the plant of the picture is from suspiciously cheap end of the spectrum - 3.99 I think it was, cheap for a tall bright orchid.

And another bit of useless information learned today was its name - Oncidium. I hope writing it will help me remembering it.

and we did go to Wandlebury after that, too. Heavy rain only caught us on the way home.

cannibal pacman

it's not really my idea - I was minding my own business, photographing lemons on our brand-new blue plastic cutting board, when Kirill took my models off me and made them do his bidding.

picture came out nice and cheerful though

iguana again

ok, it had to be done. It's not the exact tracing of the drawing by Timur, but it is close and got his approval. When we get to do henna tattoos again, I will try this one for sure.

and a variation on the theme

una iguana se cayó de arriba de una escalera

School holidays are finally upon us and a lot of school project work came home over the last few days.

and here is Timur's T-shirt with iguana. I thought they were two iguanas, but no, its a reflection in a stream. and sure, he didn't get the optics right here, but the way he uses available space amazes me. I wish I can do as good as he does now. Of course he might loose this graphic freedom at some point (Yuri did, according to himself "I can't draw as good as before any more"), but I right now he's very good.





as to the title - no, this particular iguana didn't fall off any stairs, I just like this song

Liverpool carnival

This beautiful young lady was one of the dancers at Liverpool carnival parade this saturday. The parade was not nearly as big or impressive as one in Luton, (I think there were maybe five floats, and ten or whereabouts groups of drummers and dancers), but it was a nice experience anyway. If I understood correctly, it's a relatively new thing, organized just for the last few years by a samba school in Liverpool, so it might grow into something much bigger eventually. that might make it a lot less accessible, though.

It was good to visit Liverpool. I was there only once before, years and years ago, on a dismal winter afternoon, and had mostly unpleasant memories. Now it looked lively and vibrant, very liveable. Sure, there are still parts of it that will probably benefit from a extensive flamethrower treatment, but hey, it's a city, what city doesn't have those, I ask you.

alarums, excursions and wandering commas

our next door neighbours had a problem with their house alarm - it went off during daytime a couple of times over the last few days, last time today. as a well-trained house alarm, it was making noises for 20 mins or so and then stopped. both times I went out to check the front and back doors and of course it was nothing, so I didn't think too much about it. I saw our neighbour after it went off the first time, and she apologized for the noise

today, she intercepted me in front of the house and presented me with a bunch of roses and lilies. I thought they arrived for me while I was out but no - that was from her, to compensate for the inconvenience :) I thought it was really sweet, although not necessary, I wasn't all that inconvenienced, after all. But she said it makes her feel better :)

So, now I have photographed the roses, and lilies are still unopened, so I am all set for flowers for the nearest couple of days

the alarm, btw, apparently was triggered by thunderbugs getting inside the system. you know them, they get everywhere. they are especially annoying as wandering commas on your screen, when they get under the glass (or whatever you have). And the next stage, of course, is a stationery comma - when they die there

carnival crown

There was a Carribean topic in Timur's school going for a while (so he kept asking me if we can go to Barbados or Dominica for our hols, hmmm). As the high point they had a carnival parade together with another school. It happened on on school grounds, so it wasn't a public event, unfortunately, because it seems that kids and teachers and helpers produces some very nice artwork for the parade, including some huge animals made of colorful paper on some sort of 3d-carcass. I only saw a giraffe, because it apparently didn't fit into the school hall (which gives an idea of the size), it was very impressive.

Above is the carnival crown the Timur made and decorated for himself. He is fascinated by the sea turtle motif for a goodish while already and here it is on the central "feather" of the crown






and another one, from the headband (oil crayons clearly don't draw very well on metallic paper, but still)



also, octopus motif in the center of headband was one of his favourite drawing subjects for a while, ever since they did a celtic topic

Carnival pics on shutterstock - here 

starry pool

one more from Lanzarote. Usual trick with star-shaped highlights. No reason except it's a summery picture and I am still combing my old folders.

might make a nice userpic though

being cool

it looks like Timur is doing some dance accompanied by finger gestures of some kind. He doesn't really, he just run downhill from the dune behind him and is trying to slow down. why slowing down takes this form is anybody's guess

I am combing through my Lanzarote-Fuerteventura pics from the last visit. sure sign I want to go again