Through The Light

The latest anthology from Cosmopetry is Through The Light described as:
COSMOPOETRY INTERNATIONALS XX:
WITH OR WITHOUT EINSTEIN,
THROUGH THE LIGHT!

-dedication to the International Year of Light 2015
by SARM's Cosmopoetry Master Club and Friends-
My own contribution is a haiga based on a view of the bandstand in Victoria Park, Denton.
well beyond the light
twenty-two miles a second
Spooky whizzes by
and is a reference to the comet/asteroid that passed by the Earth in 2015.

Mine is only one of many contributions of astronomical photographs and poems featuring cosmic events that happened in 2015. Credits go to
Coordinator Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
Technical counsellor Valentin Grigore
Literary counsellor Arlene Carol
Web design Florin Alexandru Stancu

With the support of some admirable members of the
Science Fiction Poetry Association, Astronomers Without Borders
and International Meteor Organization

*

© 2015 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy)
A contribution to Skywatch Friday.

August evening

August evening
so many colours
so many swirls

words & image © Gerald England

This is one of two of my haiga that are included in International Master Festival, a project by SARM's Astropoetry Master Club coordinated by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe and Valentin Grigore in partnership with Astronomers Without Borders with the support of some members of the Science Fiction Poetry Association
and International Meteor Organization, the astronomical circle of Bucharest National Children Palace and SRCSTV ("Youth for Future" Romanian Society for Culture and Science)

The project celebrates 20 years of existence of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM).

The pages contain a wealth of photography, poetry, haiga from all over the world.

A contribution to Skywatch Friday.

The Weekend in Black and White:Sunset at St Anne's-on-the-Sea

(Click on image to view full-size version)
Taken in August after a day of heavy rain.

The structure in the centre is the remains of a jetty that use to be alongside the pier until 1982 when after a fire a third of the seaward end of the pier had to be demolished.

See a full colour version on sithenah.

For The Weekend in Black and White.

Shadow Shot Sunday:Stockport Bear Pit

A cold Monday morning in Stockport. A strong sun casts low shadows. In the background is Mersey Square, the front end of the Merseyway Shopping Centre built over the culverted infant River Mersey. In the foreground are the icy steps leading into the bear pit which overlooks the emergence of the Mersey. Bear baiting was abolished in the 1830s but prior to that bears were kept in large caves cut into the sandstone at the foot of High Bank Side.

For a more extensive and coloured view of this scene see Geograph.

For more shadow shots visit Hey Harriet.

ABC Wednesday:N is for Norwegian Rain

With apologies to Rune of Visual Norway.


It rains a lot in Norway - here we saw it arrive as we looked down on Bergen.


Back in the city it teemed down.


A year later and I was in Oslo, overlooking the quay.


The rain didn't stop me taking a boat trip up the fjord though.

That was in 2005 and 2006.

I am supposed to be away on holiday in Jersey right now but ... At least we not stuck somewhere trying to get home.

For more N posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC WednesdayH is for Homer Tunnel

This week I'm returning again to my archive of photographs from our journey to the Land of the Long White Cloud.


On Day 14 we travelled to Milford Sound with Ron Peacock a National Park Ranger. It started to rain as we left Te Aneau and steadily got worse. As we headed towards the Homer Tunnel we saw waterfalls appearing over what is normally just bare rock. Then as the rain got heavier and the surrounding rock-faces got steeper the waterfalls multiplied into an almost continuous curtain.


As Wikipedia informs us, the tunnel pierces the main divide of the Homer Saddle connecting the valley of the Eglinton and Hollyford Rivers to the east with that of the Cleddau to the west. The tunnel is straight, and was originally single-lane and gravel-surfaced. The tunnel walls remain unlined granite. The east portal end is at 945m elevation; the tunnel runs 1270m at approximately a 1:10 gradient down to the western portal. Construction of the tunnel began in 1935 but it wasn't completed and opened until 1954.


Here is the Eastern portal after we had passed through it on our return journey. Yes there it is down in the bottom right of the photograph. At the bottom of the mountainside are piles of dirty snow.



For more H posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Shot Sunday:Dog with Snowman

After taking last week's Shadow Shot, I met a dog attacking the remnants of a snowman.

For a fuller picture of the dog and its owner (and his shadow) visit Hyde Daily Photo.

All this snow has gone now and the green grass shows through again but it is still very cold with patches of ice in places.

For more shadow shots visit Hey Harriet.

ABC Wednesday: Z is for Zero

Zero degrees Celsius is when water freezes.

We have had sub-zero temperatures for the beginning of the New Year and as the sun has come out to raise the temperature above zero, icicles have formed on the eaves.


We are now into a very slight thaw and the icicles have, for the moment, disappeared. The temperature however is still hovering around zero and we may not have seen the last of the snow.


For more Z posts visit ABC Wednesday.

Shadow Sunday: Swains Valley

I took this photograph last Sunday after overnight snow covered the Swains Valley.

You can see earlier snow on this Christmas Day (click link to view) shot which is looking from a position to the top left of this viewpoint across towards the entrance to Haughton Street which is at the top right.

The first snow of the winter came in mid-December (click link to view) in which photograph you can see the path leading from Garside Street to the TransPennine Trail. Here we are looking at right angles to that path now hidden under the snow.

Today on Hyde Daily Photo (click link to view) is another photograph taken in mid-December that shows the trees whose reflections dominate this current scene.

For more shadow shots visit Hey Harriet.

Friday Bench (29): Clarendon Place again

This is the same bench as the one I showed you last week but with a fresh layer of snow.

See the full view on Hyde Daily Photo.

My favourite benches discovered recently include Leatherdyke's in Queen's Park, Dimple's in Idaho, Maryanne's in Cairo, Inverness Daily Photo's at Foyers Hotel, Tony's in Richmond and Rune's in Bergen.

ABC Wednesday - W is for White Winter Weather

Yesterday I had to go to Tameside General Hospital for a routine clinic appointment. All was well until I came out of the clinic where it was snowing heavily. The clinic I was visiting was at the back of the hospital and it was a ten minute walk from there to the hospital bus-stop.


It is normally an eight minute journey into Ashton under Lyne but it took 35 minutes in barely moving traffic. I got off by the inside market. This is the view from the Market Hall entrance looking over Bow Street towards the Parish Church.


I did my shopping, had a bite of lunch and exited to the market ground which was full of slush and compacted snow.


Even though it was only noon, many of the market traders were already beginning to pack up for the day.


This is the pedestrianised section of Warrington Street which leads from the market ground towards the bus station.


The bus station was almost deserted of buses though not of passengers. I joined the queue for the 330 which goes via Hyde to Stockport, normally at ten minute intervals. After we had been waiting for an hour, another bus was diverted from its own route to provide a service but only to Hyde. It was packed to the gills and the normally twenty minute journey took seventy.

On arrival at Hyde bus station it terminated. There were no taxis available and I had a thirty minute trudge through the slush to get home. I didn't stop to take any photographs on this last part of my journey.

For more W posts visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday - K is for Knightstown

We visited Knightstown on Valentia Island (NOT Valencia Island as marked on some maps) in April 1999. We were staying at Kenmare in County Kerry and had set off across country. The rain in Ireland can be fierce and as we drove into the town of Caherciveen the water was bouncing 18 inches high as it hit the road. We didn't take the ferry across but drove several miles to Portmagee where there is a bridge across to the island. We kept on driving until we arrived at Knightstown. Here we found a little cafe. We parked outside and decamped into it as quickly as we could. After refreshing ourselves I took this quick photograph looking down into town with its clock tower by the ferry to Caherciveen.


We returned in September 2000 on a sunny day and explored in more comfort.

The first transatlantic cable to achieve long term success was laid from Foilhommerum, Valentia Island to Hearts Content, Newfoundland on the 13th July 1866 by the largest ship of that time, 'The Great Eastern.' Queen Victoria and President Andrew Johnson exchanged congratulatory messages via the transatlantic cable on July 29, 1866 just two days after the Great Eastern arrived at Heart's Content.

A cable station in Knightstown opened on September 20, 1868 and was closed in 1966 by Western Union International. The cable station is now a factory and the cable houses are now private homes. The buildings are situated on the lower road from Knightstown to Chapeltown.

There is more information about this on the Atlantic Cable website.

Later we went back to Portmagee and took a boat out to the Skelligs from the Skellig Experience Centre but that's a tale for another day.

For more K posts visit ABC Wednesday.

First Rainbow

On Mayday I showed you my first Skywatch picture from our new apartment and the following week I showed you a brighter view.

Today as my contribution to Skywatch Friday I'm showing the first rainbow we've seen from our new abode.

Skywatch Friday: Brabyns Park, Marple

More than 300 blogs regularly contribute to Skywatch Friday.

My contribution this week was taken on Tuesday afternoon.

It had been raining heavily for a few days, as the puddles in the ground attest , but on Tuesday, as the shadows attest, the sun came out strongly.

This photograph was taken on a delightfully warm walk from Marple to Compstall through Brabyns Park.

Brabyns Park in Marple was formerly a private estate with a hall but it has been owned by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council since 1947. More information on the Stockport MBC website.

Since then the weather has turned and as I type this just before 7pm on Thursday, cold winds are blowing and rain is bucketing down again.

Typical spring weather really!

Skywatch a week on from last week.

Last week's Skywatch photograph showed the view from my window about midday on Thursday.

Today's photograph was taken around 6pm this Thursday.

After some cold and wet days, Thursday was sunny and warm.

More than 300 blogs regularly contribute to Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday: A New View

This was the view from my window about mid-day this Thursday.

We moved a month ago. I won't bore you with gory details, suffice to say there were lots of minor mishaps and hassles along the way. But with patience and help they all got sorted out in the main.

We had no phone for two and and a half weeks and it took another week to get the internet connection back. Mind you with everything going on I didn't even unpack and connect the computer up for about ten days.

Still a lot to be sorted but there isn't much that we are missing about the old place. We like our new location very much indeed.

This is a contribution to Skywatch Friday.

Sky Watch Friday: Manchester Rain

Here is my contribution this week to Skywatch Friday.

Where is the sky?

Well you don't always have to look up to see the sky - when it rains you see it reflected in the puddles, especially in Manchester which has a reputation for rain second only to Bergen.

The lights are on green, the arrow points left, we are on our way to find a new sky to view.

Skywatch Friday: Brookfield Church, Gorton

Rather a grey sky this week, but I wanted to show you Brookfield Unitarian Church. It lies off the busy Hyde Road in Gorton, its spire a prominent landmark.

A few days ago I finally spent a little time exploring its environs. This shot is from the quiet area at the rear where old gravestones lie strewn around above Gore Brook. To the left of the church is the mausoleum of Richard Peacock (1820-1889) who was a Liberal MP for Manchester Gorton and responsible for the construction of Brookfield Church.

You can see the other photographs I took that day on the Geograph website.

For more shots of the sky from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday: Gorton Lower Reservoir

Last week I took a walk through Debdale Park on the Eastern fringes of Manchester. Beside the park is Gorton Lower Reservoir which was almost completely frozen over. I took this photograph which includes a whole line of birds on the ice.


I was thinking of zooming in to get a closer view, but noticed there was a large flocks of birds flying in from the East. I moved a few yards to try and view them more clearly through the trees. With no time to frame or focus a shot, I just pointed the lens and clicked. The birds in the photograph number around 40% of the flock in the air.


I don't know what species these birds are, but further along my walk, at a partially unfrozen section of Gorton Upper Reservoir, I found a pair of swans.

For more shots of the sky from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday: Haughton Green

On Monday, after all the snow had melted away, I went on a photo-shoot around Haughton Green. I found myself on the recreation ground which was now somewhat squelchy.

It was still quite cold but the sky was bright and the sun was casting long shadows. Over the trees I captured these lovely clouds.

For a view of the soggy field and the sky in the opposite direction see Winter Haiku 2008/2009.

For more from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday.