Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Estonia. Show all posts

Friday, November 13, 2009

Friday Bench (24): Tallinn


For my bench this week I've dipped into my archives to find this long bench under the walls of Tallinn, Estonia.

This bench can be found under Loewenschede Torn. A path leads under the walls to Laborootiumi.

My favourite benches discovered last week include Rune's old bench, Barbara's at Lake Agnes, Leatherdyke's at Hartland Abbey, Zyzzyz's in Inverness and Stine's at Lake Ontario.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

The Sons of Camus Writers International Journal #6


Laboratooriumi --
grass in cracks under wooden doors
so quiet



Russia's Venice
from this one bridge
eight to be seen



fish market
next to the herring stall
second-hand books


These are just three of my contributions to the latest issue of this journal for writers over 55. You'll find in it nine "charcoals" based on photographs of Tallinn, Saint Petersburg and Helsinki.

John Light contributes a story which he says is extracted from a novel under construction. It is an enthralling piece and I enjoyed
I distrust experts. They see everything with a trained eye and the trained eye sees only what it has been trained to see ...
Raymond Humphreys has an essay on Poetry in Translation whilst Herbert Williams asks Who are the British?.

There is more artwork with a series of collages by Alan Perry as well as short stories, reviews and poetry to be found in the journal's 200 pages.

Editor, Ann J Davidson, is currently considering submissions for the next issue by email at scwijournal@gmail.com

Read the review of issue #5

Read reviews of issues ##1-4 on NHI Review
The Sons of Camus Writers International Journal
Rubini Publications
Gropious St #30
Limassol 3706
Cyprus
ISSN 1705-429X
CY£5 [€9; UK£6; US$10; CAN$15 including shipping]

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

ABC Wednesday - T is for Travel

I could have gone T for Tallinn but you can see my photos and account of that lovely city here and here.

I could have gone T for Trondheim but you can see my photos and account of that lovely city here.

I could have gone T for Tenerife but you can see my photos and account of that island here.

People seem to have the impression that I am well-travelled but I have only visited 13% of the world.



This map and the others you can compile on the net are bit misleading but interesting nonetheless. For the first 50-odd years of my life apart from a week in Amsterdam in 1980 [which included a day-trip to Brussels] and one holiday in Denmark, I never left the UK. However we saw an awful lot of the UK from St Agnes in the Scillies to Unst in Shetland. Very few areas of the British Isles are unvisited.

We didn't start world-travelling until 1999 when we ventured across the sea to Ireland. Later that year we flew via Amsterdam to Los Angeles. On the visited countries map that is enough to colour in the whole of the USA from New York westwards including Alaska.

In 2001 we had our tremendous holiday of a lifetime spending a month travelling around New Zealand which puts some colour in the bottom right-hand corner. The dot representing Singapore, our only stopover in Asia barely shows up.

The following year, having had to give up driving, we took a coach holiday through Europe visiting 9 countries in 9 days. There were some highlights but, in some respects it was possibly one of our grimmest holidays. It certainly colours the map though.

It was three years before we ventured abroad again on a fabulous cruise to Ireland, Greenland, Iceland and Norway. In 2006 we went quite mad (and why not?). Firstly we had a holiday in February to Tenerife, which adds Spain to the map even though we've never seen its mainland. June saw us on our second cruise, this time to the Baltics. Although we only visit St. Petersburg, the map covers in the whole of Russia all the way to Siberia! Finally at the end of September we went to Crete, which adds Greece to the map even though we've never seen its mainland.

Our only holiday this year was a week in Southport. We have enjoyed a few day-trips to various places. The likelihood is that we won't be doing very much physical travelling in the future except for short journeys. Any regrets? Absolutely none. I travel Around the World everyday without leaving home.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Matrushka Dolls


Yesterday we finally got around to separating the Matrushka Dolls we bought on our Baltic Cruise in June.

We bought them, not in Russia, but from a stall in Tallinn, Estonia. The stall-holder's son looks just like Rodney out of "Fools & Horses".

Friday, November 10, 2006

Tallinn

I've now completed the Tallinn section on my Baltic 2006 blog.

I recently came across this video by Dileep Bhandarkar on YouTube.

Dileep visited Tallinn a year before us. He went to some places I didn't get to and concentrates on the livelier parts including the Town Hall Square which I passed through as quickly as I could. His video does give one a flavour of the place.