Category: Nature

Blood and bandages?

“Some people choose the flowers at the wedding on the basis of their symbolic meaning. For example orange blossom has always been associated with weddings because it signifies purity and chastity. Peonies are avoided by some as they represent shame; azaleas represent temperance: roses symbolise love and snowdrops represent hope.
A combination of red and white flowers is avoided by the superstitious because they stand for blood and bandages…..The groom often chooses a flower for his buttonhole which also occurs in the bride’s bouquet. This is a vestige of the time when a Knight would wear his Lady’s colours to display his love.” Continue reading “Blood and bandages?”

Fukushima

The meeja are still at it, trying to parley the Fukushima crisis into a disaster and, in the process, handing the bedwetters and neo-luddites large wodges of convenient headlines with which to frighten the masses into the abandonment of the only clean, safe and reliable power generation source which will stop the lights going out as the current generation of power plants comes to the end of its working life. The latest scare tactic is the trumpeting of the fact that the Fukushima crisis has been up-graded to level 7, the highest level on the international scale used to measure these events. ‘It’s another Chernobyl,’ they whinny hysterically, running around in ever decreasing circles and waving their hands frantically in the air. Well, it’s not, nor can it be. It is a serious situation, and I’m not trying to downplay it, but it is contained and the omens, at the moment, are all good for it’s continuing containment. The hype and spin around Fukushima downplays the devastation caused by the actual disaster, a 1,000 year earthquake followed by a 1,000 year tsunami. The facts are…

Birdlife

Yesterday morning we had two unexpected visitors. I saw them as they hesitantly and delicately came around the patio just outside the dining room – all prettily dressed in fancy feathers and looking as though they expected breakfast. Very different to our usual breakfast visitors, the rooks.

My camera is still missing, so I have borrowed an image for illustrative purposes! Continue reading “Birdlife”

Divers take hook out of shark’s mouth

While on a routine dive in Algoa Bay last week this happened. The injured shark appears at about 1:50, but the intro is worth the wait, it’s very pretty.

Article

By Guy Rogers

UNUSUAL footage of an underwater shark rescue in Algoa Bay has been posted on-line.

The hero of the piece, dive-master Jacques Pitout of Pro Dive, was at the weekend out at Bellbuoy Reef, a nautical mile off Hobie Beach, with his boss Louis van Aardt, and a group of tourists. Continue reading “Divers take hook out of shark’s mouth”

Sixth Photographic Competition 12th – 31st March 2011

The theme for this next competition is ‘The Force of Nature’ – the rules for this one are:

  • Manipulation is limited to the usual basics of fine tuning the colour balance and brightness etc, and cropping to make a good composition, but none of the ‘high tech’ manipulation of shots.
  • Photos should be added in a comment following Bearsy’s guidelines –
  • Each image should be supported by a brief description of the where / why/ how (not too technical) and what the theme means to you, how you interpreted it….
  • Photographs should be taken within the time frame of the competition.
  • The closing date is mid day on Thursday 31st of March (GMT)

The leaning temple of Babylon

So, yes, the Sculpture Trail in the Forest of Dean, Glos,  is definitely worth doing. Lots of sculptures hidden in dingly dells, on old railway lines, among the tumps of old mine workings, up trees. Continue reading “The leaning temple of Babylon”