Flower of the Day: 03.06.2016 Jasmine

Jasmine 03.06 (1)

I might, most probably am, wrong on this one. As I am running out of freshly growing and blossoming flowers in my garden and currently are not going on long hikes I have to rely on the local supermarket or what I happen to see in the village. I took this photo in the supermarket, but did not have a clue what it was. However, according to what I found in Internet, this must be Jasmine, or perhaps it is Jasmine. Any other suggestions warmly welcome, we can always learn something every day.

Flower of the Day: 03.06.2016 Jasmine

Photo Challenge: Numbers

Solothurn Main Station

This was not as easy as it looked. Numbers? Where do you get lots of numbers in one place. My first thought was the railway station. The Swiss Railway Clock is the icon for all railway clocks, so I though that would be a good photo. When examining my photos of a Swiss Railway clock at the local and other stations I realised this was not a good idea, because it has no numbers, just little lines. What a let down when you cannot even rely on your own country.

However, I decided to take a look at our local station of Solothurn. Every time I take a train somewhere, I also take a few photos. Of course I found some numbers. We number our platforms and note the Swiss Railway Clock hanging up on the left and its abscence of numbers. Platform 1 is the main Geneva-Romanshorn (via Zürich) line cutting horizontally through Switzerland. We are 2 hours from Geneva and 1 hour from Zürich.

I am not sure what Platform 2 does, but I think it is more reserved for local trains, and probably takes you to Burgdorf which is the gateway to the Emmental in Kanton Bern.

Platform 3 is where you alight from the train that has arrived from Zürich and further East.

On the other side of the station there are two platforms for our direct connection to Bern and return which is quite handy. It is nice rural countryside on the way, going through various small villages and at the end of the journey the train goes underground for a few minutes arriving in the centre of Bern after an hour’s train journey. If you are lucky, on a good day, you will also get a view of the Bernese Alps on the way.

Photo Challenge: Numbers

Daily Prompt: The things you see in the Sky

Sky

There are skies and skies, and no, I did not convert this sky into black and white, it arrived in this colour. I arose from my midday golden oldie sleep and saw that the theme today was sky. I decided not just any old sky, but today’s sky, an actual sky and so I took this shot of the sky just five mintues ago with my mobile telephone and uploaded it into my photo hoster. This is an actual live sky over Feldbrunnen in Switzerland, the real thing taken at 03.10 hours p.m.

Taking photos of skies is not so easy. I discovered that when raising my head with the camera balanced in my hands. I was free standing, and free standing is not something I can do, but have to have a grip somwhere. I moved along and eventually supported myself by the wall and pressed the button. I have many sky photos on my computer, but this is a real live sky and even the sun was trying to get into the picture. It has now disappeared, but might return again, who knows. It was not in the mood for a photo session. At the moment the clouds in the sky are doing a solo performance.

Plane and Crow

Of course the finest sky photos as the ones you take from a plane with all the drama included. Fluffy clouds, the high blue above and a crow. A crow? Well why not, it was their manor before the humans developed legs.

“Crow what are you doing perched on the motor of the plane.”

“You put me there, remember, something to do with photo shop, although it suits me. A nice view from up here.”

“Shhh crow, don’t tell everyone you were photo shopped, I am being admired for my skill in taking the photo of a view from a plane window with a crow.”

Crows are not so bad, they belong in the air, it is when you get a guy sitting on the wing with a fork in his tail and wings on his body, especially if his skin is red, although very photogenic. He tends to turn his head and glare at you through the window of the plane, perhaps even uttering a maniacal laugh. His eyes are also red to match his general appearance and he will probably have claws on his long fingers. It makes it easier to take a grip on the wing. If you are flying through a storm the effect is really good, the lightening bounces off his fork and he tends to glow. He sometimes wears a t-shirt as an advertisig gag bearing his name “St. Elmo”, and if he turns the word “Fire” is written on the back of the shirt. It is then that everyone in the plane begins to sing the song St. Elmo’s Fire and begins to clap and the guy on the wing does a flight demonstration. The stuff that airlines do today to get publicity for their flights.

I quite  like flying actually, and often take shots from the window, although the sky often gets in the way. My first strange feeling when sitting in a plane, that has taken off, is thinking about my feet on the plane floor. I suddenly realise that the distance between my feet and solid ground is a big distance. If the floor of the plane would break away my feet would be hovering over a lot of empty space known as sky. This is a reason why you should always keep your seat belt fastened when flying. It prevents you dropping off the plane. Generally you have a smooth flight until the pilot decides to fly through a cloud. The clouds are rough going, and the ride gets bumpy. This is often the case when gaining altitude or descending.

Eventually you land and everyone scrambles for the exit and if you have survived the flight through the sky, you might get hit by a suitcase or pushed down the stairs from the plane. Everyone wants to leave the plane in a hurry. Landings are the most dangerous parts of flying. The sky breathes a sigh of relief, one less noisy machine loading the clouds with negative gas effects and noise. The birds were more friendly, they just let themselves be carried by the air currents and even dropped their recycled matter onto the ground during their flight.

So let us be kind to our sky. If you were really meant to fly, you would have been born with wings and that is only reserved for the angels and the red guy that sometimes sits on the wing just for the fun of it.

Did I tell you about the time I saw an angel from the plane window …. no, forget it, I will save that for another blog.

Daily Prompt: The Things you see in the sky

Good Morning

Frog in back garden

And it is a nother rainy morning in the wilds of Switzerland, although it does not seem to bother my garden frog. He is still waiting for a princess with high hopes and then he will kiss the princess and also turn her into a frog and they will live happily every after in my garden. How could a princess resist such a charming guy and he has even brought his flower with him.

I don’t have anything again rain, the garden needs the stuff to make it grow, but currently it is slowly resembling a jungle with leaves everywhere. I hear the doo-dah of the ambulance coming closer. We live quite near to the next town of Solothurn where the main hospital is and often hear the ambulances when called to emergencies. We can follow the sound of their horn to the road that passes through our village as it gets nearer. Sometimes it stops in our village and you wonder if it was a road accident, or an emergency in the village. I always have a strange feeling when it stops. This time it travelled further, perhaps the next village or took the turn for the motorway. Sometimes the ambulance is followed by a second or a third and then you know there has been a major road accident.

Now all is quiet except for a few birds tweeting and the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the living room as Mr. Swiss is relieving his early morning boredom. We have already made our analysis of things to eat over the week-end and it is almost all systems go.

Front garden

I had a look at the front garden, but did not even bother to raise the blinds as I discovered it was also raining on this side of the appartment.

And now it is action time, although I should first of all continued the search for the hood to my rain jacket. I have still not found it. I removed it from the jacket as it was just hanging and doing nothing and now I could use it. I cannot hold an umbrella and my waking stick at the same time, I need a third arm for that.

Hope the sun is shining wherever you are. Keep you computer nice and dry, they do not like water, it blocks their keys. I remember once I cleaned my computer screen when I was working with a few squirts of window cleaning liquid for a perfect job. Unfortunately some of the liquid seeped into the connections and I only had a corner of the picture. With time it evaporated and everything was back to normal. The moral being just use a dry cloth and not window cleaning liquid – we all learn by our mistakes.

Wish me luck on my shopping tour that I find everything that I want.