At small hours

Twenty minutes of the last day of the year have gone by. I'm listening to a lovely song and going through some papers from the passing year. Another jotted down word: SYKTYVKAR. Yes, I remember. It's the capital of the Komi Republic in Russia. I met a nice woman who followed her heart all the way from that distant city, leaving behind  her career in law, her family and friends.

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Squirrel and blackbird, no cat in sight!

Hard to believe it's Sunday. I woke up in London again: there was some sun. A squirrel was nibbling on something on the shrub by the window. A blackbird chose some other food. I didn't want to frighten them and took pictures through the window. No cat yet in sight!

I wish I had the time to go to see the 'Dick Whittington and His Cat' pantomime in Greenford today: http://partridge.orpheusweb.co.uk/HEOS/ The shows are only today, 30th Dec, at 2pm and 6.30 pm. You cannot fit everything into the day, can you?... Should anyone see it, do tell me how it was, please.:-)

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And the day is very nice:

However, troubled by mobility problems and busy with the housework, I could only appreciate it through the   window.
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Now, getting the next 'portion' of washing ready, I went through the pockets of my jeans and  I found a piece of paper with handwritten  "'Blonde Venus' film" note. At first, it didn't ring the bell, but after I googled it and looked up the summary here: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0022698/plotsummary, I think I remember how I got it. A man was buying some old video tapes with films in Kings Road, near World's End and he told me about the movie. It's his all time favourite. Another on my 'must see' list! I wish I could find the time to watch more films.:-) Time... never enough...  Anyway, the plot reminded me of the life of a beautiful woman described in the article I read on the flight last night. Both were beautiful... Both did things that are not accepted by our society. For different reasons, though...  OK, back to household duties!

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This picture illustrates my other task,  which took quite a few hours to complete:

I wanted to see how big it could grow, but finally gave up.;-) It took too much space.

Flying like a human being!

OK, let me first assure you that the day is sunny here, on the edge of The Holy Cross Mountains - not so much mountains, rather more hills representative of a glorious, but distant past.

This evening I'm returning to London and first time in quite a while with the respectful British Airways who hopefully treat passengers like humans, not like cattle.

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I think it was in the BA magazine I read about the Spanish equivalent of April Fools' Day observed on December the 28th! Instead of nicely dozing off or reading the book that I found so captivating on the outbound flight, I became engrossed in reading the free press! How ambitious! ;-) I think,  The Daily Mail article captured my attention. I recognised Inveraray Castle in the picture. It was the first of many Scottish castles I visited when working as a tour leader. So many memories, stories heard, people met....

But now it is already Sunday, plenty to do here and now!

Let's make it a good day!

:-)

The world smiles when the sun is shining!

Another sunny morning in Skarżysko-Kamienna!

And my easy- maintenance Christmas tree:

I am lucky!

How lucky I am, I thought to myself over the morning tea:

-I live in a peaceful (at the moment) part of the world
-I spent Christmas with my nearest and dearest
-There were presents waiting for me under the Christmas tree
-There was plenty of festive food
-My mother did all the cooking
-It was warm and cosy
-I can drink tea from a glass, the way I like it.;-)

There are many more reasons to consider myself lucky, but never enough time to list them all! :-)

Good night!

Boxing Day in the forest

The second day of Christmas was really interesting! Here are some of the pictures, I'll write about it later, too much still going on!

The morning blue sky disappeared later under the grey clouds...

Despite cloudy weather we set off on a hike around the various distant areas of  Skarżysko-Kamienna!

The road led us through the territory for decades occupied by MESKO Metal Works that used to provide employment to thousands of people. Not any longer. 

By the road I mentioned earlier, I was delighted to meet the playful guard dog I remembered from the summer.

Then we went through the districts of Górna Kolonia and Skałka passing the pre-war houses built for the engineers working at The Metal Plant:

From there we drove to Rejów and on arriving looked at the half-frozen lake:

To the left of the lake there is the railway connecting Warsaw with Krakow and The Baltic Sea with The Tatra Mountains!

We parked the car by the lakeside restaurant and took a long stroll along the open air museum and up the hill    past the original wooden dwellings of The Metal Factory workers built after WWII and still lived in.

A walk by Rejow Lake:

Rejow Lake Resort cat:

At that stage we were both ready for a cup of coffee ( I mean me and my companion, not me and the cat), but that was out of the question. Everything was closed. People were supposed to have coffee or tea at home on Boxing Day! We drove on, but the nice inn at Bór looked shut dead as well. We didn't stop to make sure and got to Bliżyn to show my friend the recently recreated Bliżyn Lake destroyed by floods a good few years ago. It didn't look impressive at this time of year and with no snow and frost...

However, far away, near the other bank of the lake we could see two keen ice-skaters and the sight puzzled us. To us the ice on the like looked far from reliable.

Our next destination was the the forest near Bliżyn. We left the car and went along the nice road taking us deeper and deeper among the trees.

 On return we stopped in Bliżyn where, acording to the legend, King Władysław Jagiełło with his army stopped to rest for the night on the way to beat The Knights of The Cross at Grunewald in 1410.

New housing estate in Skarżysko:

A few of Skarżysko Christmas trees spotted on the way home: