Chris James's Blog, page 13

Merry Christmas and thanks for reading

I’m not quite sure how yet another year has almost run away and escaped into the past. This one has been quite a year, although rumination can be left for a more appropriate and wordy post next week at the year’s end. For this Christmas evening, here are a few photos from our traditional Wigila. I offer my gratitude if you spent time reading my writing this year, and my wishes that wherever you are, I hope you and those you care for are as well as can be. Merry Christmas.

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Published on December 24, 2019 13:23

1 November in Poland (2019)

As regular readers of this blog know, All Saints Day is a very special yet sombre day in Poland, a day when Poles flock to their cemeteries to remember the dead. Every year I am rendered speechless by how beautifully the graves are adorned with flowers and candles, and this year is no exception. All of the images below were taken this evening at the Remembertow Cemetery in Warsaw.

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Published on November 01, 2019 15:04

More autumnal shots and the newest member of the family arrives

Yesterday the newest member of the family arrived, and he doesn’t even have a name yet. As with all of our pets, he’s a rescue animal that, judging by his reaction to men he doesn’t know, has had some trouble in the past. I’ve started working on him with lots of hand-fed reclaimed meat and strokes and cuddles, and he’s already calming down. Take a look at these photos of him and if a name jumps out, please let me know in the comments below:

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Elsewhere, this morning saw a glorious sunrise with a deep blue sky. I grabbed my camera and tried to capture what I could, including a woodpecker that I caught in mid-batter and which ignored me as I snapped away. As last year, the weather is far too mild for October in Poland, but the colours are again outstanding.

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Published on October 20, 2019 08:35

Autumn returns

Every summer I tell myself that this year I shan’t bother taking any photos of autumn because I already have so many nice photos from past years. Then the season arrives and I am gripped by a childlike fascination of why some leaves go: “Oh my god! The temperature has dropped below 25 degrees and I can’t cope! I’m dying! Arrgggg!” while other leaves look on in sympathy and reply: “Yo, dude, what’s up? It’s, like, not even cold.”

So, the only novelty I can offer with these shots is their modernity, in that I took them all today in my local forest in a south-eastern suburb of Warsaw, Poland.

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Published on October 06, 2019 08:36

Documenting the New Motorway, #8: Panic at the Bridge?

For the first time since I began posting occasional updates about the new A2/S2 motorway extension two years ago (and click here to see how the bridge looked then), today Mrs James and I were challenged and warned off going too close to the construction site. This was a shock, to say the least. Yes, notices are posted along the border, but, hey, this is Poland. The last time we visited, six months ago, as usual no one was working on a Sunday and there were no security guards to warn us off. Indeed, last March I clambered up scaffolding to get an ace shot of the supports for the new bridge.

Today, however, not only was the place very well furnished with uniformed security guards, but patrol vehicles cruised the perimeter warning people to stay away. In addition and for the first time I’ve seen, construction workers were beavering away on a Sunday. Now, perhaps there have been some thefts recently. Another theory might be that as this bridge and accompanying stretch of motorway are scheduled to open in just 11 months’ time, next August, someone at the construction company might have read the penalty clause in the contract for failing to meet the completion deadline, muttered “Oh shit,” and reacted accordingly.

In any event, it made getting some decent shots today a little tricky, and these were the best I could do:

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Published on September 22, 2019 09:52

Something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo

Youngest Daughter and I have a tradition going back a few years now: visiting Warsaw zoo together, just the two of us. I’m not sure it’s quite as exciting as it used to be for her because she’s growing up quickly. However, I’ll keep taking her for as long as she wants to go, mainly because it gives me some invaluable quality time with her.

So here are a few shots today of some of the residents/inmates (delete as applicable) at Warsaw zoo. At the end is a video of the Simon & Garfunkel song from which the title of this post comes.

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Published on September 15, 2019 10:09

Three years of gratitude

I published Repulse, Europe at War 2062-2064 three years ago today. If you’ve read it, thank you. If you’ve read it and left a review, a very big thank you indeed. If you’ve read it but not left a review, then please go and bloody leave a bloody review, for Pete’s sake! thanks anyway for your time.

This was only the beginning. There is still much more to come.

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Published on August 28, 2019 11:46

A Morocco moment

Here are a few shots from the first vacation Mrs James and I have had without kids since 1996. We stayed in Agadir on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, and from the enthusiastic-amateur-photographer’s point of view, there were some terrific point-and-click scenes on offer. We also took a day trip to Marrakesh (which confirmed that one day is nowhere enough for that remarkable city), and trekked into the Atlas Mountains. And by “trekked”, I mean in the comfort of an air-conditioned 4×4 *cough*

First, Agadir, which has an impossibly long and sandy beach. The first shot below is from up on the casbah; there’s a Ferris wheel that works in the evenings; and the Arabic words written on the hillside read: “God”, “King” and “Country”.

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Next, a few shots from Marrakesh. I’m not an especially seasoned traveller, but I can’t imagine another city like it. These images don’t really convey the heat or the vitality.

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Finally, we went into “Paradise Valley” in the Atlas Mountains for a day. Our guide was at pains to point out that those houses are not roofless, but merely have a terrace that looks like an unfinished floor. Apparently, no roof means the house is not finished, so fewer taxes have to be paid.

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Published on August 24, 2019 12:01

Peak summer

There must come a moment in each season, unknown and probably unknowable, when that season reaches its apogee, the maximum extent of its effects, and thereafter it begins to wane; imperceptibly at first with barely the faintest suggestions of its impending demise, certain only that the majority of its gifts have been bestowed. I think that happened with summer this week, but then it has been a disagreeably tough week, so I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway, here is a selection of the activity in my garden today. And yes, a hen will jump that high if you offer her unripe grapes

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Published on August 04, 2019 09:48

Some gratuitous pictures of a cute kitten

Wafer has been with us for two weeks now, and he is doing just fine. Here are some gratuitous pictures that show just how cute he is. I know they say that pets take after their owners, so I think there’s no need to comment on the look of wondrous stupidity and confusion on his face, thank you.

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