Swedish icy mystery

My friend and colleague, Tom, was visiting family in Sweden recently and on a forest walk he came across this remarkable and so far unexplained icy feature and photographed it.

Surprising sharp edge around a patch of ice. 

At first glance it just looks like an icy puddle, but when you look more carefully it has some very peculiar and surprising features.

Closer view of the upstanding edge - Swedish icy mystery!

Tom described it as follows:

I have never seen or heard of anything even remotely like it before. I probably saw about a thousand other frozen puddles that week, and none of them had any unusual features at all.

Stalks of grass through the mysterious sharp ice feature.

It had snowed about 10-15cm some days before we got there and this had largely thawed by the time of this forest walk, after several days of the temperature being about -2°C overnight and 0 to +2°C during the day.

There are many deer in the forest, and a few dog walkers. Several other puddles showed evidence of the water level having gone down under the ice crust before refreezing. I now see that where some larger grass stalks had lain through the developing ice wall, presumably wiggling in the breeze, they have made round holes in the wall. The little ones are just frozen in position as I described the other day.

Another view - including a reed passing through a melted hole.

Perhaps the explanation for the large green reed having melted a hole is more related to it being a dark colour, and thus collecting more warmth from the sun, but how this sharp edge was formed is still a mystery.

So . . . are there any arctic explorers out there who have an explanation please?

Polka-dot trees

Visiting Aix en Provence, I found that many of the trees have been wrapped in red fabric (with white spots).  Was this frost protection?

Aix-en-Provence, joining Marseille's year as City of Culture

No, apparently Aix is joining in with Marseilles which is currently the European City of Culture. This photo was taken in the evening sun. It was 10 degrees C, which is warmer than it was at home.

Emergency entrance!

How's your French?  I was surprised recently to pass the office of one of my Swiss colleagues and see this sign.

Entree de Secours - emergency entrance!

If you travel in Francophone countries at all you will probably have noticed signs saying 'Sortie de secours' - meaning 'Emergency Exit'.  So this sign for an emergency entrance is both humorous and delightful.  It suggests that if you need help you have come to the right place.

Small note:  The gentleman concerned in invariably helpful too.

Two-headed puzzle

Following advice from French friends, this week has given the opportunity to visit a few more new places in Paris.

One asked me "Why would an Englishman want to see Napoleon's tomb?  To spit on it?" and I replied that the past is a foreign country and that I didn't need to go there to gloat any more than I boast that I went to the same school as William Wilberforce (who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery).

Two-headed

You can find photos of the tomb anywhere, but this carved head provided a moment of surprise walking back out of the Hotel des Invalides.

What is the point of representing two heads in one like this?

Any ideas?  It must mean something.

Surprisingly embarrassed by a name

Naming our daughter 18 years ago, it never crossed my mind that she would go to university in Paris, or that that chance event would give me a chance to get to know the city so well.  This is my fourth (and longest) visit this year.

More than that I would never have realised that the French have terrible difficulty in pronouncing her name.

Further still, it has taken over a month for her to discover that the French word for deer mating (like the English word 'rut') sounds very similar to their attempts to pronounce 'Ruth'.

You can't blame her for considering using her middle name for the next three years.

Small note:  I'm not laughing at her, but 'sympatising' with her.

Surprising Parisienne souvenirs

A six-day trip to Paris got off to a bad start, while trying to negotiate the ticket barrier at the station with luggage.  The advice is to push your luggage ahead of you.  The gates close immediately behind you, trapping the luggage very effectively - almost irredeemably!

What they don't warn you about (and I should have thought about) is that if the luggage that you are pushing hits something and stops, you end up tumbling to the floor, and in my case putting out my right hand to arrest my fall.

Net result - a visit to hospital and a souvenir from Paris that I didn't expect.

An X-ray of the author's right hand, from two angles!

Nothing was broken, just bruised and somewhat 'pénible' - or at least that is what I think they told me, and they were right and still are.

Only one word was spoken in English during the visit to the hospital, and that one didn't help.  The experience tested my French language skills to close to the limit. 

I can even claim to have enjoyed it!

Typing was a bit slower than usual for a day or two.  Over the next few days a few more Parisienne delights will appear . . . probably interspersed between other things.

Small note:  Now waiting for the bill to arrive in the post!

In-Seine lovers

If you jump into the river in Paris, are you in-Seine?

So goes the old joke.  (If you are not a geographer, you may want to Google to find out the name of the river flowing through Paris . . . or read on.)

Here is a photo from Pont de l'Archevêché bridge in Paris, looking toward the island which hosts the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Pont de l'Archevêché in Paris - padlocks for lovers.

 
Thousands of lovers from all over the world, have secured padlocks to the bridge, before throwing the key into the River Seine (pronounced 'sane').

Padlocks on the Archevêché Bridge in Paris

Surprisingly romantic!  These have only appeared during the last two years or so.  The original favoured Paris spot was the Pont des Arts, but overnight the tokens mysteriously disappeared one night in May 2010.

Apparently it's not only the authorities who expressed doubts about the attractiveness of this feature in the middle of the city.  From time to time a dejected ex-lover has been seen desperately hacking at a padlock with a pair of pliers.

Good luck with the pliers.  Call an engineer (with a pair of bolt croppers)!

The past is a foreign country

They say that the past is a foreign county, ans I, for one, believe them!

Sitting in Madrid's glorious Plaza Mayor we enjoyed a dinner.  Unfortunately it was punctuated by the inevitable (and completely resistible) offers to make purchases of useless gimmicks, or to donate to the inevitable beggars who frequent every city environment.

Plaza Mayor, Madrid.

Madrid's friendly atmosphere and glorious architecture seem slightly foreign but only in a friendly and cosmopolitan way.  Zooming in on that scene you find a surprisingly light hearted sight.

Headless man - apparently!

But a chance visit to the Museo Nacional del Prado art gallery a couple of days later reminded me that the past is a much more foreign country to the Spanish than present-day England is!

Spain may still be a Catholic country, but it is one where the dreadful strangle-hold of the Roman Catholic Church has been relaxed.  Many different cultures exist in the city now, with the blessing (I assume) of the Spanish people.  But just a few hundred years ago the Spanish Inquisition ruled the country with terror, and Plaza Mayor was the centre of its diabolical work.

Rizi's painting - Auto da fé in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid in 1683 represented 'The Inquisition' at its diabolical worst!

This is a reminder that, whatever the trials of present-day life might be, this is the best time in history to be alive.  Not very long ago, in most of the world, we would not have been free to express our heretical views without being in fear for our lives.

Who says that religion does no harm?  (But of course I keep being told that Christianity is not a religion!)

On a slightly lighter note, later in the week at another tourist attraction, I was in a group with some Maltese people.  Our guide spoke English well, but she was surprised to learn that Italian was not the main language spoken on the island.  The Maltese gentleman explained to her that they had had several hundred years of English rule.

"You're lucky" I said.  "We've still got it!"

Of course he asked where I came from.  I'm glad to say that he laughed heartily when I revealed that I come from England.  As you see - the past really is more foreign than the present!

Trilobites in 3D

We've all seen pictures of fossilised trilobites, from the Early Cambrian period.

The classic view of a trilobite

But in the Madrid Museo Geominero there was a small but fascinating exhibit.  A fossil had been carefully excavated from the surrounding rock to show the animal in 3D.  I don't mind spiders in the bath, but something like this would be much more disturbing.  This creature, the size of your hand, is viewed from the underside, with its legs and curly antennae revealed.

Trilobite from underneath, in amazing 3D

Exhibits like this bring the fossil world back to life in a way that I found surprising.

Seven Spanish Surprises

I have just enjoyed four relaxing (and yet exhausting) days in the Spanish capital, Madrid.  I had never been there before, and one of the delights of going to a new place is to see what surprises you.  Some things are just surprising to us foreigners.  Others are fascinating facts that I will try to remember.

First of all something that would have seemed normal to English visitors to another city, but Madrid residents found it to be a surprise.  It rained some of the time!  Generally speaking it rained rather softly, but on Wednesday morning when the guard was changed outside the splendid Royal Palace it rained in English style.  Still, it was an impressive spectacle.

Madrid - changing the guard, almost London style!

There was so much rain that the roads were awash.

Madrid - unusually rainy!

Second surprise - it is hard to buy bottles of wine with screw tops.  In UK these days it is almost un-necessary to own a corkscrew.  Even in France the standards are changing.  But on holiday in a nice hotel in Madrid, where no such tool is available, there was no point buying a bottle of wine to enjoy in the evening.

Thirdly, architecture built in marzipan, seen in a shop window in Toledo (of which, more below).

Built out of marzipan!

Fourth, on various menus I saw the words 'jamon de york'.  The dictionary was not much help with the word 'york', but I didn't need it to translate jamon as ham.  My host in Toledo, (of which, more below, really!), told me that this was a type of boiled ham, rather than the cured variety, and that 'york' literally meant the place, York.  Having grown up in and around York I was unaware that the city was so famous in Spain, or that the city had a particular tradition with boiled ham.  However, I did notice the similarity between the Spanish pronunciation of 'jamon' (with the j being an h sound produced at the back of the throat), and the English word 'gammon'.

Fifth, was a splendid utilitarian set of double sided pews seen in the cathedral.  I can only assume that one side should be used to face the alter in transept for smaller services, whereas the other would be more appropriate to face the main alter in the centre of the church.

The Cathedral in Madrid - face the other way
if you don't like the sermon perhaps?

On the other hand, if you did not find the sermon to your liking perhaps you could choose to face in the opposite direction - at risk of ex-communication of course.

Sixth was delightful illusion seen in the city.  The guy sat there as though floating in the air with a fascinated crowd around him.  He waved at passers-by - but only with his left hand.  Perhaps that gives you a clue?  I wonder whether he employed someone to hold up a screen while he got on and off the contraption.  It would be a shame to spoil the illusion.

Illusionist floating eerily in mid air. 
He never seemed to wave with his right hand.

And finally, the very best surprise of all was that a dear Spanish friend and her husband collected us from our hotel one evening and drove us to the historic city of Toledo.

Historic Toledo

They showed us around the Christian, Jewish and Islamic influenced areas and then introduced us to a delightful restaurant where they generously entertained us for dinner.

After delicious Spanish cuisine

Nobody could have hoped for better hosts.  Thank you to both of them.  I'm looking forward to attempting to return the favour when they visit England.

I hope it will be soon!