Callum's latest hits

I know this is boring, but I can't resist posting his latest pictures every time they appear on FB. Roy and I were wondering what his final eye colour is. With a blue eyed father and brown eyed mother he seems to have acquired dark grey eyes. Or am I not seeing colours clearly?

The Pioneers' Railway

Today we went for an outing, just Roy and me. The sun was shining, although the weather was quite hazy, so long distance photography was not optimal. We got on the number 6 tram, then on the number 61 tram which took us to the Pioneers' Railway (current non-communist name: Children's Railway) up in the hills. This leftover from the old days is still so sweet and quaint that nobody cares about its delapidated state, the fact that the children are running it is still the main attraction. The old diesel engines are driven by adults, but everything else, the signals, selling the tickets, starting the trains, saluting them as they pass the station are still the children's jobs. The train trip took 45 minutes and most of it followed a level course through lovely woods. There being no foilage we could see all the villages at the back of the woods through the trees.

When we got off at the other end we went for a meal in a restaurant up on top of the hill, followed by a good hour's hike down to the cemetery where Roy forgot to ask something the last time. The trip down was quite interesting without a map. I memorised the rough direction and took a picture of the map hanging in the restaurant with my phone.

We passed some palaces, mostly populated by the nouveau riche and embassy folk. Our direction was so spot on that at the bottom of the lane we followed all the way we found ourselves at the back gate of the cemetery. We did have one slight detour we had to take when we found one gate locked but we got back down to the cemetery office long before the cemetery closed. Unfortunately the office closed long before that, so we will have to go again some other time.

The picture of the grave above is only interesting for the bullet holes in it. Somebody must have had it in for this particular person as we saw no other damaged graves at all. Since then we looked him up on the internet and he seemed a nice XIXth century chap favouring co-operatives, so God only knows why his grave has bullet holes in it. Just before the main gate we found the part where many famous actors and writers were buried, which was also quite interesting.

Latest piccies from Canada

Callum has reached 6 months which is quite a milestone. He can almost sit unaided, he is still the happiest little darling on the planet and we still love him dearly. The pictures here show how cute he is and what excellent and doting photographers his parents are.

Over here life is getting a bit depressing: there's been illness, the winter doesn't want to stop and we dream of summer more and more. The only potential bright spot is that Stephen and Lucy are due in just over a couple of weeks. That should cheer us up.

Talking of summer, plans are already afoot for a busy programme, let us hope our health and strength holds to go everwhere we plan to. Croatia, Cornwall, France (?), Italy (?) and Transylvania are the possible places. Those with question marks will probably not happen, but we'll see.

The Museum of Applied Art

I have been meaning to visit this museum for years and now I got the chance with my current crop of visitors. The building itself is magnificent both outside and inside. The roof is covered with colourful majolica tiles in a fascinating pattern and the inside has a moorish and Eastern influence, a bit like the Brighton Pavilion. I had no preconceptions re: the exhibits, although I was expecting more industry than art due to the museum's old name being The Museum of Industrial Art. However, if you think about it, furniture, carpets, clothes and other similar items are not pure art, but practical and useful art. There were a lot of glass, pottery and china items as well, but all of it together was very pleasing. Unfortunately, nobody really knew how to present things, like telling you what things are made of or putting them into context in their period and style, but hopefully they should learn that sometime soon. One very friendly usher lady told us that they have just sent one of the young men from the museum on a course learning just that. Well, we all live in hope.

The pictures in order:

1. Looking up into the central dome.

2. Majolica tiles on the ceiling of the entrance porch.

3. The tiles on an enormous pottery stove.

4. A Zsolnay majolica bowl with butterflies.

5. A 500+ year old Persian carpet fragment.