Budapest reflections through time

Photos by Richard Schear, 2012

Posted for
Weekend
Reflections
hosted by James,
wherever he is.
Thanks, James!

Budapest at night is a glorious sight to behold, while, during the day, even in cloudy, foggy weather, windows in heritage buildings reflect the daily activity of this wonderful Hungarian city.
The castle, above, the legislature building and bridge, below, are always favorite subjects for photos, especially at night when the lights reflect on the River Danube.

My intrepid photographer, however, caught a reflection in the gold color of these astonishingly high-heeled shoes in a Budapest store window.

Skywatch Friday: sun on trees

Kay Davies photo, December, 2012

Several times every winter, when I see the lowering sun shining on the bare trees across the way, I just have to grab my little camera to try to capture some of that wonderful warm light.
They're always the same trees, of course, the ones I can see from the window by my computer desk that make me think "Ooh, picture!" and the same ones I can see from the porch when I run out in slippered feet to snap a shot.
So here we are, in southeastern Alberta, where the big prairie sky is full of surprises. Today it is sunshine again, as it was the day I took this picture. The temperature is hovering right around the freezing mark right now, and the dog has been outside rolling in the snow. All's right with our world.

Posted for
Skywatch Friday

A pastiche for the Imaginary Garden

Over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Kerry asked us to write a pastiche poem, and provided us with the following definition:

pastiche [pa-steesh, pah-]

noun

1. a literary, musical, or artistic piece consisting wholly or chiefly of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources.

2. an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc. taken from different sources; hodgepodge.

I, of course, translated that to mean an incongruous hodgepodge, what else?

Kay Davies photo, December, 2012

*

what does it take to make such trees?

imagination, greens and cheese;

thought and planning, then more thought,

before we’d see what thought had wrought

  

a cheese ball’s what I planned at first

but, having neither ham nor wurst,

I thought I’d be a bit creative:

to shape a tree — one that is native

to BC’s coast where I was born (early one December morn)

*

The most incongruous part of the whole project is that I dreamt, even for one moment, that this looks like a tree, Douglas Fir or otherwise.
Then again, there's the part wherein I imagine any of my friends will want to dip a cracker into the above mixture this evening, then voluntarily eat it.
Sigh.

Our World Tuesday was Bratislava one day

On one of the final days of our Grand European Tour with Viking River Cruises last month, I felt well enough for a bus tour to the castle in Bratislava, Slovakia, with my intrepid photographer.

After we saw the castle (parts of which were old although much was rebuilt in the Soviet era) and also many newer buildings in the city, Dick and most other passengers stayed in downtown Bratislava to explore.

The 5 areas above were fascinating to see, and I'm glad I was able to go. Dick took the next 5 photos, right, and below, after the tour bus returned me to the Viking Danube.

It's unfortunate I felt unwell on our holiday last month, but I picked an excellent place to be under the weather, with all meals provided for us, and coffee, tea, and snacks in the Viking Lounge all day.

Photos by Richard Schear
November, 2012

Fun, and perhaps helpful

Writers, here's something we can use
(I know I can, anyway).

Margaret Duarte, at Enter the Between, has posted about the "blah-blah meter" which will gauge the level of unnecessariness (i.e. BS) in a paragraph or two of our writing.

It's fun, it's entertaining,
and might be very, very useful.

A recent post of mine registered 0.15, which is much better than 15.0, but not as good as the piece Margaret entered, which only registered 0.08.

I'm contemplating entering
something from the earliest bits of my blog: the first chapters of my work-stalled-in-progress, An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel.

Maybe I'll learn something from it.
Maybe it will hurt my feelings.
Maybe it will increase my sellability.
Maybe it will make me cry.

Who's game to give it a try?

Check out what Margaret says about it, HERE.

Truck on a country road

Andy Magee photo

It's been a while since I've posted anything for "The Mag" (formerly Magpie Tales) but the prompt photo, by Andy Magee, suddenly said something to me today. It spoke in prose, not poetry, so here goes...for The Mag.
Also posted for Open Link Monday at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

HER TRUCK

Kathryn had always wanted a truck. A yellow one, she thought, for visibility in bad weather.

The weather was certainly bad enough the day she finally bought her truck. It was red, supposedly a safe color because fire engines were red, but mostly because a yellow truck wasn’t in stock.

She drove it home through the fog, the drizzle, and the high, high winds. Neither the berm, nor the hedges, nor the winter-bare trees provided protection for the open back of the truck where she carried building supplies, but at least she’d had everything well wrapped.

Kathryn smiled as she saw the shabby old fence. It would be one of her restoration projects soon, but the house came first.

Her husband never understood why she wanted to fix up the house and property.

“No one ever comes here anyway,” he always said. “It all looks okay to me.”

And, “I don’t see why we need a truck. My car does fine.”

“Fine,” she thought, shaking her head as she drove the truck down the little hill, where she could see tracks in the grass beside their road, tracks made by the car doing “fine” on an icy day recently.

“I’ll show him fine,” she laughed. “It’s a good thing I got a winch on the front of the truck, too, because you never know when you might need to pull something out...a tree out of the ground, a car out of a ditch...”

And she laughed again as she passed her husband’s car, in the ditch beside the road, where it had been for almost a week. He’d had to walk home in the ice and snow, and he’d had to eat humble pie once he reached the house.

“Maybe we really should get a truck,” he mumbled as he stood by the fireplace, trying to get warm.

“Oh, there’s no rush,” Kathryn had replied.

It was almost a week before someone came to the house: a delivery van with a box of brochures her husband had ordered. He was out walking the dog when Kathryn hitched a ride to town in the delivery van.

“I’ll pull his car out tomorrow,” she said to herself. “That will make him happy. But I wonder why he left the window open on the driver’s side. That seat is going to be awfully wet by now.”

Kay L. Davies, December, 2012

Succinctly Yours: undeniable

On her Grandma's Goulash blog, Grandma hosts a meme called Succinctly Yours.
She asks us to look at the photo she has posted, and write a short story about it, using 140 words or less, or a short-short story using 140 characters or less, including spaces and punctuation.
If they like, participants can include the word of the week. There's no prize or even a pat on the back for using it, but there is that inner glow that comes with accomplishment. Especially when the word is a long one, as it is this week: it is undeniable. I mean, the word of the week is "undeniable" and it takes up 10 of my 109 characters, including spaces and punctuation.

Picture supplied as prompt

Well, Martha, it's undeniable. All we have to do is hold Junior up like this, and he can see Santa from here.

Pet Pride: Lindy's cousin Jasper

Lindy says: Hi, Bozo, here's a picture my mom took in the summertime. It's of my cousin Jasper, who is the Senior Dog in my family. He's 12 years old! Here he is guarding my people-cousins at their grandma's house on an island in British Columbia. I don't think I've ever been to British Columbia, and I'm not sure what an "island" is, but my mom and dad say maybe we can go to BC next year. I think that would be fun. I'd like to meet Jasper and my people-cousins.

Posted for Pet Pride
hosted by Lindy's friend Bozo and his family
at their Pets Forever blog in Mumbai, India.

Photos by Kay Davies, 2012

Doll story, for Margaret at Real Toads

Margaret, at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, has posted a second series of photos of dolls made by her daughter and fellow art classmates, to act as inspiration for the Sunday mini-challenge for Real Toads members and contributors.
I've chosen two pictures from this weekend's group, the first by Austin Cassie, and the second by Isabelle Rolles. The interpretation is mine, and does not represent the thoughts of the artists who made the dolls nor of Margaret who photographed them.

'ere, 'ere, wot's this?

wot's this, then?

a spot o' trouble, is it?

doncher know

we can't 'ave that?

no, we can't 'ave that 'ere,

it just won't do,

it simply won't do,

anuvver word outer you

an' Ill 'ave yer

in the nick, then,

yes, I will.

wot's that?

a body?

you found a body?

'ere? 

be'ind wot?

be'ind there?

oh, no, this won't do,

oh, it is a body, then,

yer right,

and yer say it's

nuffink ter do wiv you?

(blows whistle)

well, then, when me mates

'ave arrived,

we'll see about that,

an' we'll 'ave ter

'ave yer down to The Yard

fer pertick'lers, like,

yes, we will,

fer pertick'lers,

in case y've seen summat,

summat yer dunno y've seen

becos it just won't do,

it simply won't do.

Camera Critters created for Christmas?

Richard Schear photo, November, 2012

European craftsmen had fun making these critters for tourists' cameras. The cat on the left is my favorite, and the snowman brings a Christmassy feel to the group, but I think the vultures are hilarious.
My intrepid photographer captured this shot in the town of Melk, Austria, which is best known for its beautiful Benedictine monastery.

Posted for the
Camera Critters
meme, hosted every week by Misty Dawn. Thanks, Misty!

Weekend Reflections: big birds in Europe

We didn't see many small birds on this year's European tour with Viking River Cruises, but we did see quite a few ducks, geese, and swans. Unfortunately, there were no sightings of the largest European bird of all: the stork. I would have loved to see a stork!
Here, in Melk, Austria, when the water isn't being disturbed even slightly by swimming swans, a goose and some ducks can be reflected.

Richard Schear photos, November, 2012

Posted for
Weekend Reflections
posted by that other world traveller, James, wherever he may be.
Thanks, James!

Real Toads: a prairie poem for Hannah

Over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, we've been asked by Hannah to consider the prairie, the grasslands, the steppes: those wide, mostly flat lands in the centers of most continents.
Along with help from my prairie dog, Lindy, I'd like to bring you an illustrated poem about the prairie where I now live.
First, my prairie dog, in case you haven't met her before.

 

Lindy Davies-Schear

All the above landscapes are part of "the lone prair-ee"

WHERE COYOTES HOWL, yes indeed, but

also WHERE THE DEER AND THE ANTELOPE PLAY

the prairie

is a poem

in and

of itself

with hawks

on poles

and cattle

in the fields

feet and fire in the sky

and canola fields streak stripes

 across the landscape

cactus and

flowers

and

cactus flowers

compete with

rocks for

beauty on

the ground

prairie dogs

'n' gophers

rabbits,

horses,

deer

singing birds

and

swimming birds

and clouds

and deep

blue skies

camouflaged

 critters

insects

and snakes

rivers

and ponds

and hoodoos

are some

of the things it takes...

to make a prairie

Photos © Kay Davies and Richard Schear

Skywatch Friday: I remember summer

 

On a chilly Friday in winter, I thought I'd show you
some of the deep blue skies of August.

Posted for
Skywatch Friday

Richard Schear photos, August, 2012