So Near, Yet So Far

© All Photos: Riihele. All rights reserved.

“The plant is so near,
yet so far …” thought Lumi, the Westie .

The plant puzzled me as well,
as to how does it stay put in the currents et al?!

No wonder, that Lumi, the Westie, was wondering, too!

This is the plant that
Lumi, the Westie,  was trying to reach at.

Images & Words: Seasons

© Photo: Riihele. All rights reserved

This week’s theme on the IMAGES & WORDS is SEASONS and as our season right now is SUMMER, hence this photo taken a couple summers ago. Tis the season of no night and endless sunlight … Aaaah.

JANE AUSTEN quote with my photograph suit so well together, methinks.

IMAGES & WORDS: distance

© Photo and image remake: Riihele. All rights reserved

I find that there is nostalgia somehow in this photograph taken in Ireland in the summer of 2006:
the tracks of the aeroplanes, the hills,
and the setting sun
add to the feeling of dreaminess and longing.

Yet, it is not despairing for the connection of the lovers is there.

Picture Perfect: Horizons

© Photo: Riihele. All rights reserved

Early morning HORIZONS view of the Israeli coast taken by yours truly!

“One summer night,
out on a flat headland,
all but surrounded by the waters of the bay,
the horizons
were remote and distant rims on the edge of space...”

(Rachel Carson)

Tender Moments – before the sunset

© Photo: Riihele. All rights reserved.

I do not wish to think of snow, that we have by the bucket load!
I do not wish to think of cold, it is only freeezing!
I do not wish to think of winter …

So hence, this

TENDER MOMENTS – before the sunset –
taken in Jerusalem a couple summers ago.

Do you feel the warmth and glorious glow of the hot day that was?

Aaah… those were them days, i say.

P.S.
The photo is totally untouched even though it looks like watercolour painting.

Bray Cliff Walk – Ireland

© Photos: By Riihele. All rights reserved.

Picture Perfect: Look-a-like

© Photo: Riihele. All rights reserved

The sky looks like the water,
the water looks like the sky,
looking like they were painted in
soft and muted watercolours…

This photo was taken by me in Ein Bokek by the Dead Sea last year. The pic is totally untouched for it is as it was.  Here is some interesting information on this spectacular spot:

The Dead Sea has a climate which boasts year-round sunny skies and dry air with low pollution. It has less than 50mm mean annual rainfall and a summer average temperature between 32 and 39 degrees Celsius. The winter average temperature is between 20 and 23 degrees Celsius.

The region has weakened UV radiation, particularly the UVB (erythrogenic rays), and an atmosphere characterized by a high oxygen content due to the high barometric pressure. The Dead Sea’s mix of bromide, potash, magnesium and salt is like no other body of water on the planet.The shore is the lowest dry place in the world. (iNFO: Wikipedia)

Picture Perfect: BROKEN

MORNING HAS
BROKEN
LIKE
THE FIRST MORNING…

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird//Praise for the singing,// praise for the morning//Praise for the springing fresh from the word

© Photo: Riihele. All rights reserved.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning// Born of the one light// Eden saw play//
Praise with elation//praise every morning//God’s recreation of the new day *

This week I am taking the word BROKEN, using it this way as in the new morning that has begun. This photo was taken in the sticks of a place very, very early morn one summer at about 4am!

Keep so grand and safe. Da Paparazii Rii

* MORNING HAS BROKEN:
The lyrics are by the late Eleanor Farjeon – pronounced farr-jon – in 1931 to the melody, that is a Gaelic tune from the 19th Century.

Mum You Are …

MUM YOU ARE...

Someone who cares
when others care less,

Someone who encourages
when others ridicule,

Someone who defends
when others condemn,

Someone with patience
when others are impatient,

Someone who appreciates
when others fail to notice,

Someone who gives security
in a world of insecurity,

You are a friend
for all time,
to cherish
and
protect,
and your achievements
will linger
for generations.

I LOVE YOU.

© All Photos: Riihele. All rights reserved.

These very moving and so poignant words are taken from a card Becki gave me one year for the Mothers Day in Ireland. I have kept it in my wallet ever since through all these years, through all the countries and places it has travelled with me. Heli gave me a most beautifully worded handwritten letter and a note which have also been doing the same ‘travelling’.

It is one of the greatest privileges in life to be a mum.

NOTICE THIS: that in the wide world there is a mother dying every few seconds – the Unicef article of 2003 states that 1400 mothers die every day because of the complications of the pregnancy and the birth. Here is what the UNICEF says about it all. It is nigh impossible to fathom for us in the west and in the parts of the world where the antenatal and the postnatal care are taken for granted.

That to me is the Pandemic Catastrophe of giant proportions and not the other things at the moment that are marketed for us as such worldwide.

I do feel very strongly for these mothers who die each day, for these babies and other children of these mothers who are left orphans for it was most, most difficult and dangerous for me to have children. Each time I faced the more than the likelihood of a miscarriage during the entire nine months. There was no certainty at all – will there or will there not to be a baby at the end of the pregnancy. It was nerve-racking to the hilt! Then the births – they were the riskiest of all, every time, I and the babies were at each birth face to face with death for both of us.

So, for the mothers – all the mothers in the world –

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Tis for now. Riihele xx.

Tomorrow will be my Mothers Day Take 2 for in Ireland it was already celebrated in March and tomorrow it is the Finnish one. Double the prezzies and double the blessings of being an international mum!

PICTURE PERFECT: INFINITE

Definitions on INFINITE:
“Unlimited or boundless, in time or space;
as, infinite duration or distance.”

Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant is over there in the distance. It was there where it was discovered that the Chernobyl accident had happened in 1986, for the Swedes thought that they had a ‘leak’ or whatever at first. I took this photo in the summer of 2002 during very hot weather.

On April 27, 1986, unusually high levels of radiation were detected in workers’ clothing at this plant, prompting concerns of a radiation leak. No leak was found, however, and the radiation was determined to have originated from Chernobyl, where a reactor had exploded the previous day. Chernobyl is approximately 1,100 km from this power plant.

Because of the sensitive instruments located in the nuclear power plant for the purpose of detecting local leaks, Forsmark was, on April 27, 1986, the first place outside the Soviet Union where the signs of the Chernobyl accident became apparent. When workers at the plant were found to carry radioactive particles, the origin of the leak was investigated and it eventually became clear that the contamination came from the atmosphere rather than from the Forsmark plant itself. (Wikipedia)

© All photos Riihele. All rights reserved

Nuclear accidents affect infinitely into the lives of all the people on the globe; even though, the usual presumption is that the effects are only local… Chernobyl still has its mark on the water we drink and bathe in, our soil where everything grows, and the air we breathe in, and will for a very long time yet to come!

This is my contribution on the Picture Perfect theme INFINITE.

Don’t use words too big for the subject.
Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”;
otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. (C. S. Lewis)

Do have a grand weekend and do keep so well. Rii xx

The nuclear meltdown provoked a radioactive cloud that floated not over just Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova,
but
the European part of the Turkey,
Republic of Macedonia,
Croatia,
Bulgaria,
Greece,
Romania,
Lithuania,
Estonia,
Latvia,
Finland,
Denmark,
Norway,
Sweden,
Austria,
Hungary,
the Czech Republic
and the Slovak Republic,
The Netherlands,
Belgium,
Slovenia,
Poland,
Switzerland,
Germany,
Italy,
Ireland,
France (including Corsica)
and the United Kingdom as well. (Wikipedia)