One Perfect Day

While in Belgium (visiting Aileen) we endured a week of sullen grey skies and intermittent rain. It was ideal for squelching about in wellies or staying inside but didn't hold much promise for photography.

Then finally one perfect day dawned - glorious light, blue skies and Magritte-style clouds. This was the view from my bedroom window early that morning.


As an added bonus the waterbirds decided that it was spring and time to argue about territory. This year the lake has a new pair of swans, younger and more athletic than its former inhabitants. The cob (male swan) put on a great display, claiming the lower end of the lake and its island as his own, and trying to chase away the Canada geese. This was a largely futile effort since there were dozens of geese and they seemed to take great glee in taking turns to taunt the swan. The geese are smaller and generally more agile than the swan, but a couple were surprised by the cob's speed.

We also had the rare treat of seeing the swan fly. The cob is a massive heavy bird: it takes great power for him to achieve liftoff - see the continuous sequence of shots. In contrast, when he circled back to land he skidded across the water at enormous speed while holding his wings aloft to slam on the brakes.

Though the show was fun, it might be unwise to argue with a territorial swan :-)

Prague Photos (complete)

The Prague photos are all up now - let me know which ones you like best.

I'm also glad to say that all the South African miners made it out of Elandsrand.

Prague Photos

Most of our Prague photos have been posted, and I hope to post the remainder in the next day or few.

Somewhat inconveniently for the viewer, I have not been publishing the posts in chronological order i.e. an 'older' post might appear on the site after a 'more recent' post - so something published tomorrow may be further back in the blog's history than what's already there. (I hope this makes sense... it's 4 am and it's not clear if I'm perfectly coherent).

Apart from innate disorganization there are a couple of reasons for this:

• Collating pictures - we went to the same spots on several days so I took multiple shots of whatever-sight-it-was (e.g. the Astronomical Clock, the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, etc) - to spare the viewer deja vu I've collated the shots for each of these.
• Choosing pictures - I still haven't decided which of the umpteen shots of Prague Castle at sunset to post, but we're getting closer.
• Binning pictures - playing with the new lens I took an awful lot of experimental and simply awful photos. It takes stamina to go through 800+ shots, even when a lot of them are simply junk.

... thanks for your patience gentle readers.

As a side note, even in the shoulder season of early September, Prague was heaving with tourists and Irish soccer fans. This made it tricky to take clean shots - either a tourist/s would pop up in the frame, or there would be a mob of people elbowing for position to take their own shots. The Astronomical Clock is pretty cool, but every hour there would be a horde of people waiting for Death to do its dance - being crushed by a mob is not my idea of fun. From a safe distance it was amusing to watch a gathering crowd of people wait for ages - 20 minutes or more - only to disperse within a couple of minutes after the hour. Clearly marking off boxes on the must-do Prague checklist.

The crowds also explain why I won't be posting too many shots of the old town square or of Charles Bridge as a whole, and why my Týnský Chrám (Church of Our Lady before Tyn) shots are not of the famous front of the church, but rather from around and behind... these angles are more interesting than the usual bog-standard postcard shots anyway.

Oddly while the major sights were overrun with people, there were some very cool spots that were simply deserted. I stumbled on David Černý's Hanging Out entirely by accident, and there was absolutely no one around. The only people in my later shot of the scene are my two companions - i.e. Peter and a Czech mate.

okay, my brain has obviously melted - back to bed for a few hours' sleep.

Prague Leprechauns

Upon our arrival in Prague we went out to Cěrný Vůl and took a nap, then went into the city to the main square Staroměstské Nám.

A surreal sight greeted us: a heaving sea of emerald green- (and sometimes flag-) attired young men. That evening Ireland was playing the Czech Republic in a qualifying soccer match for Euro 2008.

Peter, Nora and Jason decamped to a cafe serving strong Turkish coffee, and I wandered through the Irish crowd. The good-natured slightly drunk young men took me back a dozen years to nostalgic memories of my bartending days in Cork City. Though the Czech police were keeping watch there didn't seem to be any trouble beyond the occasional drink accidentally knocked over.

The Irish fans sang songs, kicked plastic soccer balls around and generally had a good time. They were just happy to be there, with a great atmosphere and no malice in mind. Contrastingly, I doubt I would ever choose to walk through a similar crowd of English soccer fans... Though Ireland lost 0-1 to the Czechs, quashing their hopes of advancing in the tournament, we didn't hear any reports of subsequent bad behaviour.