Another calm morning

I had another beautiful morning drive today. It was already past 9am, I am sometimes lucky to be able to go in so late, and as it was so pretty and calm I decided to stop for a moment to snap pictures on my way to work. There is a small marina I pass by if I take one particular route, and I definitely wanted to, this morning. I love the quiet shore, the calm water. I doubt if there's anything as soothing as this.

Morning drive

April begins

Easter crocuses

I cannot believe it but crocuses are up already! Some of them at least, and aptly enough, it's the yellow ones that have sprung. I took these pictures from our garden yesterday and I don't remember ever seeing crocuses up this early. This winter has been utterly exceptional, only few days of snow, a thin white layer that appears for a day but melts instantly, nothing that persists like it should on our latitudes. Weird.

There was a newspaper article this morning about spring statistics, about how its progress has changed over the years. A river that runs in northern Finland has been under scrutiny since 1675, every spring the locals make a note of the ice breakup date (it's been an important route for transport and commerce so it has really made a difference). The records now show that over the past 300 years spring has been pushing back and it now arrives (the ice breaks) two weeks earlier than what it used to. That would be the long term trend. And then there is the short term fluctuations and this winter must have topped the chart in mildness. So it's not just in our garden I suppose where these small miracles happen.







I've been thinking of starting to post photos regularly again. Maybe April.

 

Back in Finland

I am back in Finland, after my holiday trip to Spain and the weather today is cloudy, foggy, rainy. All snow gone once again. But today I don't feel depressed about the scenery, to me, today, the fog feels like a comfortable blanket or a veil, enveloping me, protecting me. No rush, no pressure, no chirpy demand to be productive. Just simple solid greyness that sooths.






By the way... one thing I have learned about posting photographs is that you should never trust what your computer screen tells you. While in Marbella I had added saturation to some of the pictures I posted using my laptop (an Acer), and when I came home and looked at the pictures on my desktop screen I realized the laptop screen had been lying to me. The colors looked totally different. And it gets even more complicated once you start thinking what different types of screens, what different kinds of color & brightness settings each of my viewers might be using. There simply is no way of knowing how the pictures will turn out when others look at them on their computers.

Such is life. You cannot control everything even if you try.

Small is practical

My trip in Spain is coming to an end but there is one thing more I want to record before I go. This isn't the rental we've been having, I can only wish it was. I have been missing my little Hyundai Getz that I have at home, here we had a large Ford Focus and parking on the narrow streets has been an ordeal. Small cars are priceless and I have seen several Smarts. I always thought it was just a marketing trick to say they can be parked sideways, but believe me, it isn't. This is just one, but I've seen this happening around the town a lot. Cute, isn't it?

Rain again

Unspoiled

We found a short stretch of unspoiled / undeveloped beach a little east of Malaga. I was overjoyed :-)

Metaphorical olive tree

My husband and I went walking to the old town of Marbella this morning and we walked by this old olive tree. The trunk was huge, bulky, and seemed like a thousand years old. I'm sure it isn't, but it can be a few centuries maybe? Old, in human terms anyway. Behind it there was a shrub of some sort growing up on a wall and I found it pretty the way the flowers of the climber mixed with the leaves of the olive tree. Besides, for me it's exotic because we don't have olive trees in Finland. So I figured this could well be my end of the year picture. You can create your own metaphors thereon, how it reminds us of the continuity etc.







This concludes December. My original idea was to post a picture every day for the lenght of the month and now I'd done that. I will probably continue posting pictures for few more days, to complete our journey in Spain, but once we get back home we will see what happens. I suspect my photographs will get more infrequent. But until then...

Happy New Year to whoever may be coming by!

Sunny day in Marbella

Malaga Catedral

The Malaga Catedral was started in 1528 (the guidebook says) but not completed until the end of the 18th century so it is a hotchpotch of styles, the facade being baroque. The second bell tower was never built and that's why the cathedral is called 'La Manquita' (the cripple) by the natives. The lavishness of catholic churches never cease to amaze me, a lutheran, as we have none of the grandeur in our places of worship.

Cadiz

Rain at Alhambra, part 2

As I mentioned in previous blog entry it was raining yesterday when I visited the Nasrid palace in Alhambra, Granada. My interpretation of the must-do picture in the palace is as seen above :-)

If you want to know more, and see the must-do picture in how it should be done, check out wikipedia for instance.
The place IS beautiful, I'm not denying that. The details are amazing. The lions around the inner courtyard fountain have been removed for restoration but there are still plenty of wonderful sights to admire. If only it had been a little warmer...

Rain at Alhambra, part 1

Despite the seemingly everlasting rain, we ventured out to Granada to see Al Alhambra, one of the Europe's most renown sights today. The rain actually turned unpleasant at one point as the cold crept it and my fingers and toes lost sensation.. it was only +4C / 40F. Sigh. The place would have deserved a better weather.

I will be posting pictures from the actual Nasrid palace tomorrow, these are scenes from the same area, the palace of Carlos V (designed by a student of Michelangelo), the fortress Alcazaba and the garden around it all, Generalife. Not that we walked in the garden much, for obvious reasons.