I love cherries

original image seems to be irretrievably lost together with all the photobucket content, but this one is good too

I bought a small box of cherries today and suddenly went into "In my days we had _real_ cherries, no this flavorless stuff" mode.

Maybe it's just a senior moment, you know. But really.

I remember the huge cherry tree in my aunt's garden and how big and tasty and juicy and soft dark cherries were. and they weren't just sweet, they had the almondy bitterness and strong scent.

So I thought - maybe they are distinct variety, or maybe even different species - well, they could be. In fact, there were two names for two similar types of fruit - "вишня" for real, late summer stuff and "черешня" for early summer fruit, brought from afar.

I went to wikipedia to see if it had the answers. Well, no. I discovered that Russia is in the list of top cherry producing nations, though - to my surprise.

Maybe somebody knows the truth about cherries? If so, do tell

Cherries on shutterstock 

view from the air

I must say that it all looks quite amazingly neat from the air. Shame that I didn't bother to book earlier, when rapeseed filed were flowering, but I didn't and that's that. I know that many people dislike the bright yellow that breaks the "green and pleasant" background, but I think they are unbeatably cheerful, especially when sun is out.

Interestingly, I was an odd one out of about 14 people who were on this flight - the rest of our party were all friends and all booked together. Most of them from Lithuania (I hope I remembered this correctly). I still have about a hundred photos of them to process and somehow pass on.

hot air ballooning

Just got back from my first hot air balloon flight. I thought it was great :) There is a story attached, and hopefully more pictures, but I don't think I can write it up now.

One note to people who are going for the first flight ever - mind the advice to have a cotton hat on. The heat from the burners is very much felt in the basket I was sure I am going to go away with only some of my hair left. They probably weren't all that hot, but I couldn't help ducking every time the pilot switched then on

green chrysanthemums

bought a bunch of those green chrysanthemums at Saffron Walden market. With flowers of unusual colors, it's always interesting to find out if they are "real" or if they are colored somehow - bright blue mums are pretty obviously colored, for example.

turns out, those are "real", that is - they grow like this. And I also found a place that sells them (here), and am now considering buying a couple of plants. question is, where to put them.

On almost completely unrelated note - my friend, Lena Rostunova, who does a lot of street photography in London (among other things), a little while ago added a set of pictures from Columbia Road flower market to her blog. I thought I saw the same seller that works at Saffron Walden on Saturdays. I asked him - and yes, they do Columbia road market on Sundays. No surprise really - it's not far, but I tend to find those little connections funny
green mums on shutterstock

Salve nauta

went to Southwold today. We've been there a few times, but it's the first time ever I noticed this funny (and probably not very old) plaque of Sailor's reading room



Well.

Me not go, me like it here, me not say "bye-bye", me say "Hello Sailor!" (Spike Milligan in Muppet show)

Luton Carnival 2010 - second (and the last) set

the day was dark and most of puctures I've taken are blurry or incredibly grainy (or both). fortunately, there are some good ones, too

upwardly mobile

went to Brandon country parktoday. The place is kind of default options when we didn't plan to go anywhere else and kids are bored. Nice weather for it, after two days of darkness.

I thought that this is a "normal" ladybird - with small red dots, and not the harlequin one, with blobs. But now when I do a search it looks like this one is not the normal one either - the most common one in Europe should have seven spots, three on each wing and one shared between wo wings, next to the head. This one seems to have two each side

Luton carnival

been there for the first time ever today. I must say I was really impressed. it maybe not as big and famous as Notting Hill carnival, but on the plus side - neither is it so crowded. In Notting Hill I could see exactly nothing at all, and my understanding is that this is a rule, rather then exception. Here you really can see the parade from not far

Interestingly, I only noticed the heavy-duty straps (on the first pic on lady's shouder(, for example) that are needed to hold the costumes when I started to look through the pictures.

Weather wasn't great, but well, you can't have everything

those eyes

battling with enormous energy dip, went shopping. it helps, yes.

They had birds of prey charity display at scotsdales garden center, as they often do on weekends. This owl was sitting on a glove of the handler. When confronted with the eye of the camera, it got agitated and tried to fly away - unsuccessfully, of course.

I think he was bothered that somebody (or something) had even bigger eyes than himself

Pottery in Haria

We drove to Haria, which I think the guide described as "the prettiest village on Lanzarote", via road from Teguise. That experience (driving that is) I don't recommend to anybody - there are a few hairpin bends on the way down to the village, with very very limited visibility, and the road is narrow. Fortunately, there is another, much gentler road, coming from eastern side of the island, so you do have a choice.
The village is quite pretty and relatively green, but it's not as pretty as I somehow expected. What I really liked there was the pottery workshop, belonging to Aquilino A. Rodríguez Santana - would be cool to find him on facebook, but he's not there, apparently.




Those little pots are rather charming. We bought a couple of small ones (keeping in mind the luggage restrictions). I would like a bigger one, but maybe I will have a chance to buy when we move to the Canaries.




That's the owner of the workshop. The black inclusions in the clay he uses are particles of volcanic sand, as far as I understood (between his not very fluent english and my extremely limited spanish)





some of his sculptural work. I like the female figure the best.




While we were there, a young woman, his friend and colleague, walked in. She was not from Lanzarote, but from mainland Spain, on holidays, and she was also very curious to look around, pick things up and examine them

This ant helmet-mask she is wearing is made of papier-mache. It's quite scary. He tried to explain to us what it is for, and as far as I understood (see note of language barrier above) it goes as follows : he wears it when he stage protests against their beautiful island being taken over by hotels, which encroach on the land as ants.



Lanzarote pics on shutterstock

first real strawberries

on the way back home yesterday we bought a bunch of asparagus and these strawberries from a roadside trailer. they must still be from a greenhouse, but they are local (from Norfolk, that is) and nicely combined good taste with being extremely photogenic - large and shiny and nice even color - it rarely happens.

now their pics are already selling nicely on shutterstock - I am curious if I can get back the price I paid the first day of selling. So far not, but then us picture buyers didn't have their say yet

sand

went to Cromer today. seaside places in hot weather are real time holes - you park the car, go down to the beach, spread the blanket and next time you look at the watch an hour gone by.

I am still a bit worried about Timur's bump on the head (he slipped in the changing room of the swimming pool on Friday), but he seems to be doing fine. He discovered that hardened sand explodes into particles really nicely under little pressure

allium

this allium proved to be a brave little soldier, battling against the pretty much unstoppable advance of garden mint and, if not succeeding, at least not giving in. It was one bulb that was planted, and there are four flower-heads we had this year. The photo is composite image, I cut just one stem, leaving the rest of them in peace

sunset at world's end

Verdens Ende

I just read that it has panoramic views of the Skagerrak - a geographical name that I though was fictional up to last year, when we went to Denmark. Now it follows me around, or so it feels.

here

Hepatica nobilis

pretty plant with unattractive name.

I mean - "liverwort" - why on earth? apparently the leaves look similar to liver - weeeelll. I don't know. I won't say so, but then, our ancestors had pretty vivid imagination in any case - look at the constellation names. Ursa Minor? how do you figure that, huh? Dipper - yes, I'll grant you that. Little Bear - not really

wobbly spring Norway

wobble wabble.

there were ripples on this lake and there was no decent reflections to speak of when we got to the far end. there were some in the middle though

white ones

Norway this w/e

Fuerteventura - around Montana Roja

one of the main roads on Fuerteventura, FV-1 from Puerto del Rosario to Corralejo, passes through the most spectacular it of scenery. First you go through rather lifeless lava fields before coming up to Montana Roja, and then you come into a different bit altogether - white sand dunes of Corralejo. Beaches by the dunes are amazingly beautiful. Some of them are more or less taken over by kite-surfers, but it doesn't really matter because you won't want to swim when wind is strong enough for them, and when it's not, there is no kite in sight. Well, maybe one or two.

Montana Roja seems to be an epicenter of roaming goats. They mostly stay in the lava area, but those guys above came into the dunes for a bit

Two very short videos on driving there first, coming up to Montana Roja




second, past the mountain, through the dunes. Lanzarote is visible in the background

sentinel

originally, we booked Parque tropical apartment for a week. There was no problem at all with the apartment itself and ground/pool maintenance, and staff was perfectly friendly and very understanding when ash cloud closed the airspace and we couldn't fly back home when we were supposed to (so we stayed one more night there). But, if you are used to relatively quiet place, this could pose a bit of a problem - the apartments really *are* in the center of Puerto del Carmen, which means that if one of your windows is facing the street, there is going to be cars and people going past well into small hours. It's quite noisy. If you are from town somewhere, no problem, but for us, village dwellers, it is.

So, for the rest of our unexpected second week at Lanzarote, we went back where we were over Christmas - Hyde Park Lane. It is a bit out of the way (which means quiet nights and fine if your are renting a car). The only real drawback there is that the little bungalows are semi-detached (duplexes), and the sound insulation between two parts is practically non-existent. We didn't notice that over Christmas, because the second half was empty. This time somebody lived next door. Luckily for us, they were really really quiet not so young couple, so we had nice relaxing second week.

When we walked up to the reception to find out if we can just turn up or need to book ahead (turn up is fine), this beautiful cat appeared from somewhere and sat on the low stone wall surrounding the apartments. We admired it, and I am pretty sure kids were looking forward to getting to know him better. Sadly, he never shown up again

Teguise market

Every Sunday, there is a market in Teguise, in approximate center of Lanzarote. The is quite a variety of stuff for sale - from foods, via inevitable aloe vera products and lava jewelry to clothes and musical instruments. You won't necessarily want to buy something there, but it's a pretty village, and very lively on Sundays, well worth a visit just to look around.

The girl in the picture above was a very friendly jewelry-seller there. She was happy for her display to be photographed and posed herself. I asked if she had a facebook or email account to pass the pictures (if any f them were good). Unfortunately, she didn't have either. I am thinking - won't it be great if one of the people who see this picture know her of somebody who knows her? I know the chances are slim, but still - if there is anybody on Lanzarote you know, show them this pic. I will be very happy to send her a file in good resolution

Below are guys who entertained shoppers at some point, they were great too