Photography

Dum spiro spero

My first year in university was a tough one. The course of veterinary gross anatomy had us all running like a maniac between the lecture theater and dissection lab from early morning until dark. Lab humor, only understandable to those who have actually ‘been there’, helped me maintain a healthy perspective on life no matter what. The Latin language course was compulsory, but we were expected to memorize not only the names of all the organs, but also the names describing all the specific features on an individual bone. Our teachers were experts in Latin language, and from them we learned many phrases, both useful and useless. We even sang four verses of Gaudeamus igitur at the ceremony in the beginning and in the end of academic year. On the last verse, our professors would stand up and respectfully nod to us all.

Vivat academia,
Vivant professores,
Vivat membrum quodlibet,
Vivat membra quaelibet;
Semper sint in flore!

Which in English is

Long live the university,
Long live the teachers,
Long live each male student,
Long live each female student;
May they always flourish!

I knew a good few Latin phrases before, from a handbook I found in my grandmother’s attic. One of my favorites was Memento mori – it sounded very mysterious and somewhat sad to a ten years old curious and life-loving girl. As an antidote to that one, there was Dum spiro spero – While I breathe, I hope.

This winter was very stormy, and three shipwrecks have become exposed on Tramore beach, Co Waterford, uncovered from sand in February. It happens from time to time. When I finally went to see them ( time, tides and weather didn’t want to cooperate for me), the other two were almost gone, and this big one was half buried in sand once again. Another couple of months, and it will be immersed in the sand until the next bad storm.

I was alone in the whole strand. It was shortly after the midday (the lowest tide), and I quickly took photographs and went back to the car. The rain was getting stronger. I was sitting there, eating my sandwich, and it is when all these University memories came back flooding, must be because of the ribs of that old boat, sticking out of the sand like a skeleton of a long dead animal.

Imagine a very young girl with very little experience who finds a book in the attic of an old house, and learns that there is a strange, haunting language in the world, that no one else probably knows! It is what I thought 🙂

If you read the List of Latin phrases, you will realise that this language is still quite alive and widely used.

Since I have long ago grown out of the age when little girls pretend to be smarter and more sophisticated than they actually are, I don’t use Latin phrases without a very good reason, and don’t overuse any quotes altogether. While I breathe, I hope that my own intuition and common sense will help me out. Not that I totally avoid the internet when I look for advice. Some people’s quotes can be very valuable.

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I totally agree with this one 🙂 That Slievenamon climb during which I took the picture, was not easy for me. On the summit, there is a huge pile of stones, a possible entrance to the Celtic underworld… Some people, in hope for a good luck, bring a rock and add to the pile. I hope for a good luck always, but if I want to breathe and stay alive while climbing Slievenamon, I have to forget about taking any rocks up there with me…

On my way home, the rain eased off and I went for a walk around the Tramore Back Strand estuary. At low tide, the place is all mud and myriads of lugworm castings. Cautious birds gather in the center of the mudflat, and I only saw two Little egrets, and these four geese. I also heard a lark, invisible in the clouds. I always think of my Grandmother’s home when I hear a lark.

I came across a family of Field horsetails – their spore bearing stems come out early, and I love their sturdy look. These plants have been around millions years before the dinosaurs came in the picture. My grandmother used the green stems as a brush to clean her saucepans, and she also said that all the parts of the plant are edible and good for skin and bones.

My eyesight went down in the last two weeks. I am so sorry that I don’t visit your blogs as often these days. I will catch up when I get better, and I am working on that. The eyesight problems related to unstable blood sugar are nasty and difficult to fight. There is a natural remedy that my grandmother used – bilberry leaves, flowers, and of course berries. Look forward to Summer Solstice, the best time for gathering most of herbs. While I breathe I hope.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Springish

Spring is the morning of the year… The Golden Rod by Frank Dempster Sherman is written about autumn, but I couldn’t find a better description for the season. All the forces of Nature awaken, the Sun is regaining his strength, a seed begins to sprout and a lamb is born. Life is young.

Morning in the mountains is quiet, hazy and cool. I get out of the car and all the sheep run away. Then they stop, and slowly come back. You think they look at me and pose for a photograph? Not at all. I left the car door open, and it is the music that fascinates the sheep. It is Camille Saint-Saëns, The Carnival of the Animals. I am not joking. The old sheep didn’t move until the music was over. The lamb were not overcome by art to that extent, and soon went around jumping and just being lamb.

The sun goes up and soon the rolling hills are lit and warmed. The weather in March is never the same too long.

The fowl of the earth are celebrating spring too. No chicks yet, but I came across some moorhen chick photographs in Sarah Potter blog . They are so cute, have a look ! 🙂 I love these green legs! This moorhen is marching around the pond in Stephens Green Park in Dublin.

A young gull with dramatic wings looks like a Fallen Angel. In fact, he is just trying to catch a slice of bread.

I took this picture in The Burren, right beside the Poulnabrone Dolmen. These cheerful sprouts are Lamiaceae family members, but I am not sure what exactly they are.

This picture was taken in Clonmel, between Lady Blessingtons Bath and Raheen Road on St. Patrick’s day 2007. Sadly, this daffodil field doesn’t exist any more. It was leveled during the City Council reconstruction works.

You wouldn’t believe, but the next three pictures are taken in March too. It was in 2009, we got a word that the famous Magnolia trees in Lismore Castle park were in bloom.

Camellia, Lismore Castle garden.

An when you think that the winter is gone, there comes a hailstorm.

The weather changes in a matter of minutes.

On days like this, you want to sit in the beach and listen to the surf and the rustling sound of sand…

…or build a castle.

They say that Mark Twain once observed “one hundred and thirty six kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours”. That must have been in March. Capricious March! Sometimes it is difficult to be nice and balanced in the morning, even if it is the morning of the year 😉

Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Easter!

I had a draft of this post ready for publishing when I heard the tragic news from Brussels. Christian world has been targeted once again. My heart goes out to all the people of Belgium, and the families of the victims. The Evil wants to destroy everything that is good in this world with word and weapon. You can use religious or philosophical, or even scientific terms to give a name to that evil. It exists, and it is feeding on fear and its derivatives.

Fear not!

This set of Easter Eggs is dyed and ready for painting. Two pairs of little hands took care of that, and did a splendid job. When I was young, we used to dye eggs with onion skins. The skins were collected all over the winter. “Don’t throw out the onion skins!” I heard this phrase often enough to always remember of Easter. When the time came, the skins were placed in a huge saucepan, and the eggs carefully arranged so that each egg was well covered. There was always a smaller saucepan for ‘special’ eggs. My mother tied different flowers and leaves to these eggs to create patterns. When she got older and lost her creativity, she only used the flowers and leaves from her Geranium plants. Here is a link to a blog that will give you a good idea of the process.

Easter has a nostalgic feel to me. It even has a fragrance – my aunt who stayed with us every winter, always baked a special cake with rum and raisins. All the house smelled divine. I also remember some chocolate eggs and bunnies in shiny foil, but they didn’t taste great, and were mostly used as toys first. We would also receive postcards from our distant relatives – pictures of fluffy bunnies and cute lamb.

Some ‘old style’ pictures seem appropriate for the memory flood.

Another aunt always came over for Easter. She has never been married and never had children. Every summer she would take me home with her for a couple of weeks, and staying in her house in the dunes is another bright memory of my childhood. We exchanged letters since I learned to write until her death in 2000. In this photograph, we are holding wild anemones. We would walk about a mile into the woods, to a special place, a blue lake of flowers. Our Easter dinner table was always decorated with wild anemones – they are in bloom from March to the end of April.

Our house is on the left, and the lake is on the right, down the hill.

These photographs from my 2013 project were taken in the place very similar to the one where I used to spend summer breaks with my aunt. All these houses were built in the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the beautiful summer houses are restored and with certain investments turned into great modern homes.

What is memory without music!

One of my beloved pieces of music is a chorale prelude Ich ruf zu dir Herr Jesu Christ by J.S Bach. There are many brilliant interpretations, both for organ and piano, but I want to share the one of a Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva. A slow tempo (almost one minute slower than any other interpretation, for such a short piece of music!) has an expressive and poignant effect. Every note breathes and lives.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUSK68yi-fw&w=560&h=315%5D

And this one is a truly magnificent piece of music. 2500 individually submitted videos of singers are combined with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the virtual performance of “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah. Among the submitters are Donny Osmond, Alex Boye, Tiffany Alvord, Madilyn Paige, Maddie Wilson, Firefly, and various vocal ensembles. The finished video premiered on March 12 this year.

Nestle and Cadbury have removed the word ‘Easter’ from their chocolate eggs. I don’t know about Nestle, but Cadbury have removed something else from their Cremes, because they don’t taste right anymore. Here you can learn how to make your own Easter Chocolate Eggs 🙂

Happy Easter! Love and hope to all!

St. Patrick’s Parade 2016 in Waterford

This picture is my personal favorite. I took it in a small town a couple of years ago. Proud mother and her beautiful baby daughter, surrounded with their family, are standing in the crowd of spectators during the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the first such Parade for the baby.

St. Patrick’s Day parade features everything Irish. It is a wonderful spectacle of marching bands and dancers, schools and community groups, and various floats, that include local businesses, artists, firefighters and many others.

This year, almost 60 parades and many more cultural events and festivals took place throughout the country. The main National Parade in Dublin city attracted more than 500,000 spectators

To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, some of the parades include the re-enactments of the events.

Waterford City was the first city to declare St Patrick’s Day a national holiday, and to entirely suspend business on the day. Before 1903 St Patrick’s Day was not a national holiday in Ireland.

The theme of this year’s parade in Waterford city was ‘Three Sisters 2020: Celebrating Waterford’s Cultural Diversity’. The Three Sister’s bid sees Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford in a joint initiative to become European Capital of Culture 2020. The annual parade was accompanied by various street performances and other cultural activities throughout the day.

The county’s cultural diversity was presented with a number of international entries. For the first time, members of the Ukrainian community took part.

Members of the Filipino community, who won Best Community Float last year, returned with a new colourful creation.

Three African communities participated in the parade this year.

My favorites are the local theatrical groups, because the characters are interacting with the spectators during the march, and it is always fun.

Marching to his own beat 🙂

Evolution themed SPRAOI float is leaving the parade, and the spectators are leaving too, but the celebration is not over.

In addition to the parade, a series of events are staged in the city centre, featuring entertainment from local bands, amusement rides and a treasure hunt.

This year, about 60 different communities were presented in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in Waterford City. Thank you for taking part!

Have a wonderful weekend!

This blog is two years old

In February 2014, I installed WordPress offline using Wamp server, and started this blog. Only a couple of my first posts survived until this day. My initial idea was to create a portfolio-type blog, and I wrote ten posts and stuffed them with children pictures. When I went online on St Patrick’s Day, I got a few ‘likes’ and was very pleased that someone took interest in my creation. My very first followers were https://lisalabelleblog.wordpress.com/, https://poemsandpeople.wordpress.com/ and http://www.tonyeveling.com/blog/. They are not blogging anymore, I am afraid.

Then came a nightmare. Certain webpages linked to my posts tagged ‘children photography’, and certain sort of spam flooded my Spam folder. Akismet catches spam, but doesn’t protect from those who deliver it. I deleted my posts. Only after a year I dared to use this tag again. Nothing happened so far, but the same spammers linked to one of my Saltee Island posts, and I was getting hundreds of spam comments daily until I closed the comments altogether. WordPress is not all white and fluffy.

These ten bloggers are among my first followers, still active and sparkling with talent. They have been my friends and supporters since early spring 2014.

Sheri de Grom, Marcus Dilano Photography, Moodphoto, Jason, Francis, Charly, Mihran, Leyla , Harrie Nijland, Jet Eliot

There are more than a hundred bloggers in my community since 2014 – great friends and brilliant writers and photographers. I cannot name all of you here, but you know who you are. Thank you for blogging and reading my blog! Way to go to us all!

There is a potpourri of photographs from some of my older blog posts. They are not linked to the post or larger versions. Please scroll down – I hope you remember some of them. Thank you so much for your visits over these two years!

Green St Patrick’s Day illumination in Carrick on Suir, 2014

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