I find there to be profound wisdom in proverbs, sayings and quotes and I marvel at the way they are so succinct in communicating messages to the reader. Mostly anonymous, they come to us from past generations and from across cultures.
They speak of the experiences of lives lived and lessons learned. Quotes, like proverbs, make us think more deeply about something.
Each Thursday, I post a Proverb or Saying and a Quote that I find thought-provoking. I hope you will too.
If you light a path for somebody, it will also brighten your path -
Chinese Proverb
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult -
Seneca Indian
and a final thought from Buddha to ponder about, this Thursday –
It is Week 4 so we’re invited us to post images from a selection of topics using our mobile phone. In my case, it is the Nexus 4
Lens and Pens is where you can post your own link for this topic
Street Phoneography
This street entertainer claimed he stood like this for up to seven hours. I think he had a seat in the pants!!!The kids were particularly interested in how this performer managed his tricks.
Street Performers’ Secrets are Something to Ponder About
Each Monday I post a mystery photo, or occasionally a mystery object on my blog. I would encourage you to leave a comment if you think you might know where this week’s mystery photo was taken. If you guess correctly, I will credit you the following week and post a link to your site/blog.
Where in the World is the following photo taken? Can you guess?
Last week a multitude of correct responses correctly identified Singapore’s Esplanade Theatre, taken from the always popular River cruise. Not a difficult photo to recognize, so I have tried to come up with something a little more obscure this week.
Here are the clever geography sleuths from last week:
Singapore has many amazing architectural gems, not the least of which is the Esplanade Theatre and the Marina Bay Sands complex.
If you are in Singapore:
Join The Esplanade Walk to find out how the Concert Hall can be acoustically tuned to sound like a small room or a huge cathedral; how venues like the Concert Hall and Theatre are able to block out every possible external noise and vibration; how the iconic “durian” cladding allows the building to have a transparent facade while blocking out glare.
A small recreational area next to an estuary that looks more like Lord of the Rings than something in the littoral zone of south-east Queensland! I might just see Gollom somewhere nearby…
I try to keep in mind the Rule of thirds when taking photographs, but it doesn’t always work. My old point and shoot Cannon used to have a grid overlay that I could see in the display, assisting me to frame and compose photographs.
The weekly photo challenge asks us to use a SLR or smartphone to produce a Bokeh effect, which is my assignment this week. This is what I have so far, and I’ll hopefully add one or two more in coming days…..
If you are watching any edition of Aussie news at the moment, it would not have escaped your notice that Queensland and the “Territory” are experiencing the effects of a tropical cyclone of monster proportions.
Most of us had to wait for the Weather bureau’s radar to tell us a cyclone was bearing down on us, and exactly where it would hit, but for some, their own version of the news bulletins have been screaming warning messages for weeks. So who are these intuitive, all – knowing metereologists? Animals, and nature, of course.
For weeks, the turtles have been emerging from the creek beds and creeks, plodding ever so slowly, (well, they do have to start early, don’t they?!) on their way to higher ground.
The Cockatoos, those screeching white birds with the sulphur crest, clearly possess a sixth sense, that we humans, missed out on as they have been flying inland in flocks during the last week or so. (When there is drought, they immigrate to the cities in search of food and water). If a lot of rain is expected, they will head inland to feed on the drier grassy areas, as they are doing now.
I even heard the Kookaburras laughing their ‘heads’ off, all last week, a sure sign of the onset of rain.
And the Ants, well there are ants everywhere, and I mean everywhere they are not supposed to be, like in your kitchen cupboards, in your laundry, and even in your bed!! Someone should tell them that there are higher places to hibernate than in my low set, one-level house!
And these creatures are always correct, which is more than I can say for the Weather forecasters!! Funny to think that an animal such as a turtle, or ant could replace a tertiary-educated professional or the highly sophisticated computer software!!!
Even non-living things seem to have an edge on what the weather will do: if you cast your eye upwards and see cloud formations that look like a mare’s tail, or sheep’s wool, you can bet your bottom dollar, there will be rain within three days. Guaranteed!! The mare’s tail clouds are particularly accurate, unless you live in the tropical areas, which has a unique weather pattern all of its own.
In any case, the rain arrived yesterday, and continued all through today, unrelenting for hours and hours. There were no less than five ( clearly a bit below par as far as animal intuition goes), toads, swimming in my backyard swimming pool this afternoon. Stupid, poisonous creatures, that obviously don’t have the intelligence or intuition of the turtle! (Although the toad is an introduced pest, so perhaps I’ll excuse them for this).
So what are we doing? We batten down the hatches and await the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Marcia (anyone who has ever watched the Brady Bunch TV show is now chanting Marsha, Marsha, Marsha), and the joke is tired already!! The cyclone made landfall at Yeppoon this morning as a Category 5 – with 260 km/hr winds. It sounded like a freight train passing over, and there is much structural damage like you see in this video.
Tropical Cyclones are severe weather systems that strike the Australian coast during the summer months. They usually consist of a central eye, in which the wind is fairly mild; there may be no or little cloud, or perhaps even sunshine. This is surrounded by a rapidly rotating low pressure storm system which produces enormous amounts of rain and wind. The systems spin clockwise, in the southern hemisphere, and counter – clockwise in the northern hemisphere.
Residents in affected areas need to stock up on candles, matches, a generator perhaps, batteries, battery operated radio, torch, non-perishable food supplies, and tape up their glass windows, as well as remove any debris in their yard that could be flung about causing damage in high winds. STAY indoors, in the strongest part of their house, perhaps under a table or in the bathroom with mattresses and blankets for protection, should the roof be blown away. Most houses built since the devastation of Cyclone Tracy, (which flattened an entire city on Christmas day 1976), are built to cyclone proof standards, but in a Category 5 cyclone, Queenslanders have had to hold and barricade doors and windows on near new homes to prevent them from blowing in!
Here is some basic information on Cyclones from Wiki:
Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface, which ultimately recondenses into clouds and rain when moist air rises and cools to saturation. The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of angular momentum imparted by the Earth’s rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they rarely form within 5° of the equator.[5] Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 4,000 km (62 and 2,485 mi) in diameter.
At the center of a mature tropical cyclone, air sinks rather than rises. For a sufficiently strong storm, air may sink over a layer deep enough to suppress cloud formation, thereby creating a clear “eye“. Weather in the eye is normally calm and free of clouds, although the sea may be extremely violent.[11] The eye is normally circular in shape, and is typically 30–65 km (19–40 mi) in diameter, though eyes as small as 3 km (1.9 mi) and as large as 370 km (230 mi) have been observed.[12][13]
[Marcia’s eye was 70 km wide]
The cloudy outer edge of the eye is called the “eyewall“. The eyewall typically expands outward with height, resembling an arena football stadium; this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the stadium effect.[14] The eyewall is where the greatest wind speeds are found, air rises most rapidly, clouds reach to their highest altitude, and precipitation is the heaviest. The heaviest wind damage occurs where a tropical cyclone’s eyewall passes over land.[11]
Many, many thanks to Millie Thom over at Bringing History to Life for nominating me for the Versatile blogger award back in January, when I was off gallivanting around the southern capitals.
Whilst I am very honoured by her attributing the award to me, I will fulfill some of the conditions of award in disclosing seven facts about myself, and nominate several blogs I feel are definitely worth a visit.
However, having said that, I recognize that everyone is time poor and whilst grateful to Millie and others for award nomination, I hold no expectations nor requests to fulfill the award conditions of the nominees I list. In fact, some of those in my blogging community, intensely dislike the whole award thingy!!! So, for that reason, I am not including the hyperlink on the list of names.
Should you think my opinion is of value and are interested enough to want to hop over and check out their blog, there is several keyboard shortcuts that will help you. You know the ones….(Think Control c and Control V) of the url….
Wanting also to be a bit creative in announcing this award, I have created a new logo for it. Feel free to copy and paste this if you so wish, or save to your desktop. You may use this without fear of infringing copyright.
In accordance with the award –
Seven Facts about Myself are:
Sometimes I feel addicted to my blog and writing.
I would choose to live in Scandinavia given the chance.
I love highly saturated colour in art
I had seven different jobs before I turned 21, and found the perfect job when I was just shy of fifty.
I discovered I was related to my best friend (who was born in another country), via a cousin’s marriage some thirty five years after we first met
My favourite colour is Prussian Blue
My biggest regret is not travelling overland from Kathmandu to London when I was 19
I find profound wisdom in proverbs, sayings and quotes and marvel at the way they are so succinct in communicating messages to the reader. Mostly anonymous, they come to us from past generations and across cultures, and speak of the experiences of lives lived and lessons learned.
Quotes like proverbs, can make us think more deeply about something.
Each Thursday, I post a Proverb or Saying and a Quote that I find thought-provoking. I hope you will too.
Two Danish perls of wisdom this week, although the proverb to me seems a little harsh!
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Danish Proverb
Den de vover, mister fodfæste for en tid. Den, der intet vover, mister sig selv.
He who dares, loses his footing for a time. He who dares not, loses himself
Internal rhyme in a an acrostic poem about trust…. ahh… that is difficult. Yet that is just what the assignment from Writing 201 dished out. Finding no joy in rhymes about trust, it was so much easier to rhyme about the lack of trust and use it as an end rhyme. But it is dark, so you have been warned….
I’m a pretty private kind of person so for me to share my wall is special, but oh, gosh it has to be done in the name of Rosemaling….
Which is? ….. (you might ask)…
The traditional folk art of Norway is called Rosemaling and you can read more about it here.
Perhaps you would like to read about a medieval church decorated from floor to ceiling with Rosemaling here
There are a multitude of different styles from differing regions of Norway.
Here is a close up of the Telemark style:
It is a dynamic art form, always appearing to move and flow….
But back to Wally…. No it is not Wally, but the daily prompt of Wall to Wall .
The featured wall comes with a plate rack, holding a series of wooden plates that I have painted. In addition, there are some treasures and trinkets from my travels, special photos of Denmark and Norway, and several framed pieces of art, that I painted some years back. The corner also has heirlooms from my Danish family, and my Swedish great grandmother would be very pleased to even see I have painted some Dalarna horses to complement the Nordic trifecta of mementos.
This wall feels cosy, comforting and is a place impermeable to the challenges of everyday life. It also is the caretaker of things that are bigger than me and will continue to exist, long after I am gone. Heirlooms, hand-me-down mementos. They might be seen as dust collectors, or clutter, and drive others up the wall, but this is my wall of memories. A legacy to the art form and my pastime.
Thanks to Blogging 101 for the prompt and Something to Ponder About
Each Monday I post a mystery photo, or occasionally a mystery object on my blog.
I encourage you to leave a comment if you think you know where this week’s mystery photo was taken. If you guess correctly, I will credit you the following week and post a link to your site/blog.
Where in the World is the following photo taken? Can you guess?
Last week, Drake correctly identified that we were in my beloved Denmark, waiting for the oldest operative steamship the “Hjelen” to take us along the idyllic Gudenå river to the highest point in the land, Himmelbjerget, (The Sky Mountain).
It is over ten years since I first sailed down this river, admiring all the picturesque, summer glass-walled pavilions, decorated boat houses and manicured gardens of the thatched and ‘oh-so-Danish’ homes, on the river bank.
On the top of Himmelbjerget, you’ll find a tower with a height of 25 meters, which is what makes it the country’s highest point!! The tower was erected in 1875 to honour King Frederik VII (who on June 5 1849, gave the Danish people a free constitution).
There are many walking tracks in the area, and kayaking/canoeing on the lake is popular in the summer months.
Here is a glimpse of what it the river cruise is like:
The kids were particularly interested in how this performer managed his tricks.
Originally posted on 
I write about things that interest, puzzle and frustrate me and issues that are important to share with others. 
