There was an exquisitely beautiful moon last night over the sea, and Venus hanging in the branches of a Norfolk pine.  It's a beautiful, beautiful day ( Read more... )

I have to be quick - this laptop is conking out repeatedly, and will have to go in for repairs on Monday ( Read more... )

With fellow-feeling from rainy Hanoi - well, not just now it's not, but last week it was, so here are two pictures from a rainy day.

A corner of the market, the tail-end of the morning.


( Read more... )

The weather is at that indeterminate point where it's hard to decide if there's any need to have hot water to shower in or not.  Hot, but not brutally hot - 32 now, and maximums not above 37 all week ( Read more... )

I have seen so many wonderful pictures here lately, of summer flowers and summer abundance, especially on puddleshark's pages - thank you, photographers ( Read more... )

Another long, hot day here, with the mangoes from next-door-but-one's tree still thudding down into our front yard here - it's a big tree, and the houses are built very close together ( Read more... )

I am deep in the throes of gingerbread house-making.  Yesterday I was in genuine fury about our horrible government, stymyieingly so,and I still am.  This morning for the first time in forever I didn't even want to look at the morning news, so you can guess how unsuited I am to be making gingerbread houses.  But... tradition is there, and there it ( Read more... )

We have been having very heavy rains of later, in short bursts - so heavy that it seems amazing that so much could have been up there to start with.  Of course, this means floods and landslides and much loss and sadness in the mountain areas, but here in the city there's very little flooding, and blessedly no buildings collapsing that I've heard ( Read more... )

Lovely to read of so much exhilaration and hope on the many marches.  I'd been anxious - about communications systems, amongst other things - and it was so good to find that it wasn't necessary at all, in the event!  :)    (But it was interesting to see it confirmed by some people involved, that mobile phone/cell phone coverage does indeed falter ( Read more... )

Well, "all this"  is probably false advertising, but here's two things which caught my eye in the morning's news:

Horse-snowboarding!  A new snow sport. (link goes to German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, with link to video, 1 min 40 seconds.)

This one doesn't reflect well on me, because the article is about serious stuff (refugees in Belgrade) but I ( Read more... )