Liverpool, UK, mid-July 2008

Top: reflection in the shop window, Catholic Cathedral

Next 2: a pair of the marvelous metal sculptures inside the Catholic Cathedral, which contains many works of art in various media. Both it and the nearby Anglican Cathedral are magnificent structures, well worth exploring

Bottom: 2 couples at the Tate Liverpool - one kissing (by Rodin), the other not so interested

Nr. Liverpool, mid-July 2008

A rarity on the blog: pictures OF me, and not taken BY me either. Here I am in my flag shirt and Svan felt cap, presenting Georgia to a large group of late-teenage sudents in a town school where a friend of mine teaches Russian. (I'm even wearing the same shoes which carried me 111 km through Svaneti in June 2007... still going strong.) They seemed to be quite interested, had some good questions, and some of them even expressed a strong desire to visit the place. Come on in, I'll see you there! Just give me plenty of warning...

Liverpool and Erddig, UK, July 2007

Silly me, I forgot to take more past blog images with me when I went on more travels from Somerset to near Liverpool! But, borrowing friends' digital camera, I still found new images. So, goodbye to Indonesia for the moment and hello to some UK scenes.

Top: the entrance to Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, a magnificent structure, huge and classical but made in the 2nd half of the 20th century

Next: Shop window, Liverpool Chinatown (oldest Chinatown in the UK)

Next: Liverpool Docks detail

Bottom: Mother and son, near the entrance to Erddig (pronounced Erthig, with the "th" as in "this"), an 18th century stately home in N Wales

Indonesia, December 1993

Fruit on the beach!
Water lily!
Palm bark closeup!
Sand texture!

Gotta love this country.

Indonesia, December 1993

Top: What on earth could THIS be?! Looks like some sort of strange landscape, except the focus (depth of field) is so shallow, it must be a closeup of something. Right - it's a detail of a palm tree, showing the texture of the bark.

Next down: Water lily, no points for this one.

Next down: Bamboo closeup - again, fairly obvious.

Bottom: Just the beach with a wave about to expire, looking at the different textures of water and sand.

By the way, greetings to the 2 newest countries' viewers to stop by the blog, China and Kazakstan!

Indonesia, December 1993

It really was a feast for the eyes.

Top to bottom:
Parrot plant
Aloe plant
Palm climber
Seascape (never mind the vignetting)

The active volcano whose name I couldn't remember earlier was Mt. Bromo, as I rediscovered from a recent issue of National Geographic. The reason why the locals were experiencing the coldest temperatures of their lives in its vicinity (i.e. 20 C instead of 25 or 30+) was simply because of walking up higher than they'd ever been before.

Luara Aprasidze, 1963-2008

This was one funeral I had to miss, being away in the UK now.

Luara Aprasidze was the youngest of 4 children, never married, and a good friend of mine. She grew up in this house, in Ladreri, Svaneti, and often hosted me there - it's become a home to me in the village. She hated having her photograph taken, and rarely consented. But here she is: in the top photo, far right, with other immediate family members, in 2001. Her surviving brothers and sister are the 3 at left. Her father and brother-in-law, also both deceased, are to the right of them, and the rest are nieces and nephews. In the bottom photo, seated front left, in 2002. I don't think I have any other photographs of her.

Luara got cancer some time ago, spent a while in Tbilisi, and died there a few days ago. Her funeral was yesterday, in Etseri. I last saw her about a month ago, soon before I left Tbilisi - she was still on her feet, and I had hoped to see her again in August. Not to be.

A beautiful woman, brave soul, far too critical of herself, hiding many gifts. Rest in peace, dear sister, and see you in heaven, I believe.

Indonesia picures will be back soon.

Indonesia, December 1993

The top three from an active volcano on south-east Java which my family and I saw (I don't remember what it was called). We were revelling in the slightly cooler air (being almost exactly on the equator), while some of the locals were buying balaclavas to put on for the coldest weather they'd ever experienced! It's all relative.

Bottom - a hibiscus and local Javanese landscape.

the w()rd: Welsh singer

Duffy:
http://www.iamduffy.com/index2.html
Check her out. Amazing voice.

the w()rd: New Zimbabwe Link

http://zimbabwesituation.com/
If you don't know why I'm posting this link at this time, get yer head out of the sand and look into the world a bit. Start at the above link.

Indonesia, December 1993

More from the beautiful archipelago. Top to bottom:

- Visiting from Lombok to an even smaller island
- Plant closeup
- People
- Bamboo

Indonesia, December 1993

More from this beautiful place, chiefly southwest Java and Lombok Islands. The former is the size of Ireland but contains roughly 100 million people. Somehow, despite this, it also has room for nature to flourish.
(Actually, I once calculated what the population of St. Petersburg, Russia would be if its average density everywhere was that of one of its crowded rush-hour buses. Answer: approximately 2 BILLION. So I suppose that there must be room on Java for a mere 100 million people.)

And now for something completely different from Ushguli, at last.

In December 1993 I was able to visit my parents in Indonesia, where my father was the site manager for a power station which was being built. Three weeks of tropics, sun, sand, exotic vegetation and friendly people - this was before Indonesia's later troubled times. Here are a few scans from slides of the trip, with more to follow.

Indonesia is:
- the largest Muslim nation in the world, with close to 200 million people (including Hindus, Christians, animists and others)
- an archipelago of some 13000 islands (most of them not inhabited)
- a land of hundreds of languages, with its official language, Bahasa Indonesia, thought to be one of the easiest languages in the world to learn.

the w()rd: Hi from Hanmer

As far as I know there are only 3 places in the world named Hanmer. There's one in Ontario, Canada, which I think is the youngest; Hanmer Springs in New Zealand; and then the original, a hamlet in North Wales, UK from which my family hails. I've just been up there for 2 days with my parents (visiting from Canada), staying with the Baronet Sir John, titled head of the family, and Lady Audrey Hanmer, first visit for me since 1990. I shot 4 rolls of film, frames from which will eventually make their way to this blog; but I must return to Georgia in late August and scan them first, so that won't be for a while. Before then, I must get round to posting some more photos from elsewhere to the blog, even if they're old ones. SOON.

the w()rd: UK break

I'm in the UK as of today, with a 6-hour stop in Vilnuis, Lithuania en route as that was the cheapest flight arrangement. Interesting fact: Lithuanian is regarded as the closest of the Indo-European languages to the original language from which they all grew. Vilnius has a beautiful medieval old city, but due to a cellphone accident a day before leaving Tbilisi I'm on this 2-month UK visit without a cellphone while it gets repaired. But I did take a large external hard drive with me, and intend to post some older scanned images from it to the blog. Meanwhile, Ushguli winter '07-08 themes are on hold. Stay tuned for more to follow.

Well, I found quite a few more cellphone images from my last weeks in Ushguli, so I'm not through with the village just yet. (Still scanning the 20 rolls of film from the winter - best work from them will come later. IF there's any space left on the blog...) Top to bottom:

- Some of my students outside the school, and the stone path which I helped build last October with my friends from Bulgaria. It's beaten up a bit from the ravages of winter, having nothing to stop the stones from moving around, but still there under the snow and ice.
- Melt in progress. This snow would all disappear a few weeks later.
- Our bebia (grandmother) attacking the veggie plot just outside my window; time to plant soon!
- Almost all of the school's 51 students and 10 or so staff in late April, closest thing to an official school photo for 2007-8. I'm on the extreme right; a few people left of me, in a purple winter coat and sunglasses, is the school's director and my boss, Nona.

the w()rd: 5000 visitors again...

I have two visitor counters on the blog, unfortunately separated by about 175 people as I added them at different times. So today's the day when the second one, which records countries, will reach 5k hits. When I noted the first counter's 5k here, there were visitors from 73 countries noted on the second one; now it lists 76. Welcome to those of you from Armenia, Colombia and Ghana who've dropped by! Plus the invisible guests from Papua New Guinea, who indicated to me that for some reason their country is included in Australia internet-wise... Anyway, as I noted before, I'm delighted with such a wide group of visitors to the blog! How many other countries can make their way here in the next 5k, I wonder?

This is also my 501st post since the blog began in the spring of 2007.

Time to post some more images from Ushguli's late winter/early spring, among the last before I left in late April.

Top to bottom:
Snow in our yard covering the fence, as the Rustavi 2 TV guys were arriving. MORE snow! Enough already!
Tyre fire as an attempt to melt some more of the massive ice canal from my last posted photos. Environment says, "Thanks a LOT."
Horseshoeing. Ross M, these people REALLY need your help. So do about 100 horses in the village.
Making a twig broom. Free, quick and multi-useful. Just keep it away from the cows, for whom it's a tasty hors d'oeuvre (did I spell that right?).

the w()rd: Ushguli on Squidoo!

HUH?!
Well, go to http://www.squidoo.com/ushguli to see. Trying another way to get the word out about Ushguli.