My friend and frequent reader Jean admitted, when I resumed daily posting in late March, that she’d enjoyed the “photo vacation” after what she described as my “frantic (and beautiful) postings from 2023.” So this year I started early with the multi-photo posts and hope to continue using up more photos. As long as at least a few of you view and enjoy these, then I’m happy. I’ve built up quite a few on lovely long walks around my local lake – another friend and I have agreed that having a local lake is an excellent thing for one’s health both physical and mental. Definitely so in my own case, when it beckons after a work-from-home day of onscreen meetings at this time of year when the days end ever earlier. I’m making the most of the later onset this year than last of the season of endless rain to stock up fun photos to share in the months ahead. For now – various entrances from summer walks.
Queen Emma, one has learned, was quite popular in the late 1800’s. She’s also the great-great grandmother of NL’s current head of state, who is himself the first male head of state since Emma’s regency, which lasted from 1890 during the final day’s of her husband King William’s life until 1898 when her daughter Queen Wilhelmina turned 18. In other words, heads of state in NL were women from 1890 to 2013. When I compare NL to plenty of other countries I’ve lived or worked in, I conclude this may well have been quite a good thing indeed.
Departing Bangladesh a few weeks ago, I promised myself I’d keep an eagle eye out the window for anything I could legitimately call a mountain. Thus I offer you the Hajar Mountains in the northeastern UAE, most likely in the emirate of Fujairah, but possibly also in Ras al Khaimah or perhaps even Oman though I’m reasonably sure we were west of Oman by this point…
Coming back to NL from Chicago in May, we took off into a bit of a rain storm with low clouds, so I grabbed some views of the sprawling city before it vanished beneath the clouds as we climbed. Below, taken very shortly after the one above, you can get a bit more sense of the Lake Michigan shoreline off to the east as the plane banks to head northeast and we’re looking pretty much due east.
Two more airborne shots from my Cox to Dhaka flight last month. North of Chattogram (Chittagong) and looking east northeast, above; and still in Cox, looking south, below.
A triptych of canals from my bike ride out out to Muidersloot back in May: above, boats plying the Vecht River by the town of Muiden, plus another of the Vecht below right and a smaller field canal in the vicinity on the left.
There’s a petting zoo in the park I bike or walk through if I’m heading into the city proper, so if I decide on a leisurely stroll one weekend or evening (e.g. the best bakeries are over that way), I get to watch the goats cavorting.
(so much world, so little time....) 