technicolor

or: the bit of the bunch of flowers in the vase that has survived the feline onslaught. after a week stuck in the vase, the buds have finally opened up. now all that's left for easter is the cherry blossoms to come out, too.

it's sunday. before i return to yet another fabulous amy dillwyn novel, there be cat pictures. perhaps i should put these on the adverts for the room i've been advertising to let for the past three weeks. spots of light generate cats. perhaps spots of cats generate new flatmates...

birds are calling. skunks are crawling... well, maybe not the latter, granted this is central europe. but spring is here no less and i took the camera for a first outing around the park -- and later on joined kati and her parents for the official annual commencement of the barbeque season in their garden. now all that's left is for the temperatures to pick up some more. but let's not rush it and just enjoy the first sunshine that's drawing all the people from their wintry hiding holes.

the past weekend was spent with yet another bout of 'extreme o'tooling'. meaning that saturday kicked off with a revisit of the ever so spectacular lawrence of arabia (only briefly interrupted by a lunch featuring roast rabbit -- provided by yours truly) and then on sunday followed the equally magnificent the lion in winter (1968). although i still think that peter o'toole was robbed when he didn't win for his portrayal of t.e. lawrence, twice the amount is true for his second tackling of henry plantagenet opposite a crackling katharine hepburn who won her third oscar playing eleanor of aquitaine. on top of the brilliant performance by the entire cast, this film also sports the most quotalble of quotable scripts. and no small wonder, since it's based on an actual drama. however, the addage 'you can't miss when you have great material' has sadly been disproven by the 2003 remake with patrick steward and glenn close. watching their version produces severe physical pain. but this is no time for complaints, here be screencaps!

i've been back from london now for about a week and am beginning to emerge from a fever and drug-induced delirium. as always when i've spent  more than just a day in the city, i've returned sick as the proverbial dog. i can't remember when i've last been sick to such a degree. it must have been at least some 10 or more years ago. but my amazing special powers of producing unimaginable amounts of mucus were simply magnificent. within four days, i had gone through a whole pack of paper tissues. that's 100 in just four days. by day five my nose felt like sandpaper and was ready to poart company with my face. now, a week later, i still sound like a hoarse banshee. to make a long story short: photos from london had been a while in the pipe and i now find the time and am in the right muse to share them.

after one week of siberian weather fronts, germany is still in deep-freeze. though not in the same state of lockdown as britain with its three crumples of snow. the following pictures were taken last weekend when i opened the curtains some time in the morning -- only to find one of my 1950s double framed windows frosted over. and even though the temperatures have risen now by some 15 °C, that window hasn't actually defrosted the entire past week. that's what good old wooden frames do for you. gosh, i wish i had double glazing!

it may well be that autumn in new york is so inviting. but considering that the east coast has been hit with their first flurries of snow -- thanks but, no thanks. i rather stay put where there's sunny and autumny and colourful and simply a pretty season in the mountains. as seen from that hilltop above bernsbach.

at long last, here is the final part of birgit's and my epic trip through wales (and some english places). our last stop brought is to beautiful oxfordshire before heading out to the ferry back to the continent. although a couple of clouds were threatening us with rain, we always managed to get out of which ever spot before it started to get wet. the pictures show some of these very impressive clouds of doom.

the beowulf hikers were out and about again after a much too long break. the walk took us from leisnig in the Mulde valley to Tragnitz and then some iddy-biddy tiny villages whose names you read on the traffig signs when you enter them -- but forget again instantaneously. we also celebrated a new addition to our group who, saddly, will only stay in town for the duration of her master thesis. be that as it may. the weather was fab, so was the company. and as was already the case last year in late summer, early autumn, we went home with our bags filled with fresh fruit. in my case, nearly a kg of juicy read apples -- and a pear.

the last entry promissed pictures of the uffington horse. but i lied. because this is not uffington but exeter. there's the slight difference of a couple hundred of centuries and a fair few miles between the two.

edith's and my final adventure took us to biwmares. our initial plan was to hitch a ride across the waves to puffin island -- but, alas, since the island does not exist but is a mere sham to lure me into town over and over again, attempting in vain to buy tickets for the boat tour -- well, you get the idea ... we didn't end up nowhere near puffin island, but instead went to gaol.

avoiding the boredom of an aberystwyth weekend alone in the town for the second week in a row, i made my escape up north to bangor. first to visit my second supervisor and bring him up to date with my current research. and second, but most importantly, to spend the weekend with edith in pursuit of north walian adventures. and of course, mathias cooked again. (seriously, i would hire him as my personal chef if i ever won the lottery!) the north walian adventures brought two things: traeth niwbwrch (AT effing LAST!) and gaol (mind the victorian spelling).the first you find in this post below the cut. the second one merits its own entry. and besides, it would only lead to image overkill.

the second return to talgarreg and tania's casle of welsh comfort and welcome brought three things. 1) an ironed man; 2) llandysul show and wellies; 3) hunting for graves of obscure welsh authors from the nineteenth century. especially the latter bit was a rather accomplished feat. it took the combined efforts of tania's swim club, an iphone, another mible phone, the brother of the woman who runs the allen raine appreciatoin society and directions to penbryn graveyard and church.

epic holidays of hiking in wales over (birgit stayed behind with ben and mathias for another evening of partying), i headed down to aberystwyth in anticipation of my three-week stint of extreme research in the national library of wales, aka. ruining my eyes some more over badly printed victorian newspapers on microfilm. but first, there came a bank holiday. right after i had sorted out all the stuff i needed to get sorted out for the library, like sending out orders for books, newspapers and manuscripts, i snatched my cameras and gps to log my walk through the town. 5 hours and 10 km later, i had walked from one end to the other on the water front. including climbing yet another hill. compared to snowdon, this one was miniscule with its slightly more than 100 metres, but the climb was much steeper than it looked from below. but i was awarded with a spectacular view of the town below.

the last weekend of the epic hiking holidays in wales were spent in ben's cottage on the fabulous lleyn peninsula. just as in the year before, the beaches were fabulous, the food divine thanks to our own private chef who'd been specially flown in, and the company was unsurpassable.