shepherd’s warning

You’re probably familiar with the old nautical proverb:

  Red sky at night,
  Sailor’s delight.
  Red sky at morning,
  Sailor’s warning.

However, I come from a part of England where wool was a major part of the local economy for hundreds of years, until a rapacious king, Henry VIII, confiscated the accumulated wealth of the mediæval monasteries, including Furness Abbey, which had been responsible for introducing sheep onto the fells of the Lake District in the first place (fell derives from the Old Norse word for ‘mountain’—all the local words for topographic features derive from Old Norse). Nevertheless, sheep (and shepherds) remain a fixture on the fells, and locally the familiar wisdom attributed elsewhere to sailors I automatically assign to shepherds.

The purpose of this digression is to serve as an introduction to what I saw this morning. I always enjoy my morning coffee sitting on the roof of our house, where I can listen to the cacophony of the dawn chorus (mostly crested mynahs), but I’d no sooner put my coffee down than I had to rush back downstairs to get my phone. Here’s why:

I took both these photos at 6.10am, and the next two at 6.20am:

…with this one just a minute later:

I took the next two photos at 6.28am to illustrate how far across the sky the colour had spread. This was the view looking southwest:

…and this is what it looked like to the northwest:

I took my final photo at 6.30am, when the display had reached maximum intensity:

Notice what appeared to be a perfectly circular yellow curve (it was much more obvious in reality).

And as for the dire warning that is enshrined in the Cumbrian shepherd’s message? It’s been sunny all day!

oh! my god(s)

Although I first came to Hong Kong more than 50 years ago, there are still places in the territory that I’ve never visited. Stanley, a small town on the south coast of Hong Kong Island, fell into this category until last week, when Paula suggested that we pay a visit after we’d been to the Registration of Persons office in Kowloon to pick up my new ID card (I’d lost my old one over the summer). Mind you, in common with many Hongkies who live on Kowloon side, I don’t often cross the harbour to the Island side, which partly explains the omission.

Stanley’s main attraction, at least for tourists, is its market, where you can buy all sorts of exotic items. However, when we arrived, the first thing I noticed was a sign pointing the way to a Tin Hau temple (Tin Hau is the goddess of the sea in Chinese culture), so that is where we went instead:

The first thin I noticed when we stepped inside was the door gods, Yuchi Jingde on the left:

…and Qin Shu Bao on the right:

Although I’ve recorded many examples of door gods on the doors of ancestral halls, study halls and temples, this was the first new example I’d seen in quite some time, and the first thing I noticed here was that the door gods weren’t merely painted on the doors; they were embossed, in a kind of bas-relief. I also noticed that although the two door gods held ‘standard’ weapons—a halberd by Yuchi Jingde and a pole sword by Qin Shu Bao—they grasped these weapons with both hands. It is much more common for the pair to hold these weapons with just one hand while holding a sword, still in its sheath, with the other hand. These door gods are also facing squarely forward, when they should be facing slightly inwards to ensure that intruders cannot sneak in between them.

I then took these photographs just inside the entrance:

I cannot offer any information regarding the subjects of these photos, although you might notice the dragons on the vertical panels in the third photo.

Then we ventured into the rear hall of the temple, where I spotted a sign that read ‘photography available’, which I interpreted as meaning that photography was allowed—we’ve visited temples and monasteries where photography is explicitly forbidden. And I certainly wanted to photograph what we saw here! My final five photographs show the array of gods along the back wall of the temple (from left to right):

I don’t know who or what the array of figures in the next photo represent (scholars and warriors?), but we saw a similar display in the China section of the Royal Ontario Museum when we visited Toronto back in August:

Notice the red signs on the walls behind these figures. These are the names of the various entities, something that I’ve not seen anywhere else:

And that was the Tin Hau temple in Stanley. Well worth a look inside, although the building itself is singularly uninteresting.

hong kong surprise

I’ve often said that, more than anything, what I like most about Hong Kong is not knowing what may be around the next corner. Even if I’ve been around that corner several times before. And it happened again a few days ago—in my own neighbourhood!

The area between Sha Tau Kok Road, the only road out of Fanling to the east, and Lau Shui Heung Road, a relatively minor road that heads off (eventually) into the mountains to the south, is densely populated by rural Hong Kong standards, although there are just two named villages: Kwan Tei and Fu Tei Pai (‘fruity pie’). Paula and I frequently walk through the area, which has a maze of paths and alleyways, after eating breakfast in Queen’s Hill Public Housing Estate.

One path that we hadn’t walked along for quite some time brings us to the eastern end of the single road that leads through Fu Tei Pai. I couldn’t help but notice that there was some construction taking place here, although to what end I couldn’t begin to guess. Not more housing though. And I was immediately struck by the gaudy colours that had been painted on the wall on the right: alternating bands of yellow, pink and blue (the construction site is on the left):

You probably can’t make out the giraffes on the left, so here they are in closer detail:

A short distance past the giraffes is the entrance to a car park, with a horse all saddled up and ready to ride:

Immediately to the right of the entrance to the car park, we came across these strange creatures, which I’m unable to identify with certainty:

…although my guesses are (from left to right) a lion or similar big cat, a crocodile (standing on its hind legs) and two rhinoceroses, which have hatches on their backs, for some unknown reason.

A rough translation of the Chinese writing is as follows:

This path is closed. There is a fierce dog. Please do not enter. If you do, the consequences are your responsibility.

This is a closer look at the two blue elephants on the right:

In case you thought that one of the creatures to the left of the elephants is a bear, not a crocodile, check out my final photo:

The horse is just around the corner to the left.

And that’s my Hong Kong surprise. I cannot predict when the next one will occur.

favourite photos: summer 2024

Paula and I will be heading back to Hong Kong in a few days, and as I usually do, I’ve put together a collection of what I consider to be the most interesting photos that I’ve taken during the summer. I took more than 600 photos during our two trips to Toronto last month and this month, but with two exceptions (see below), I’ve not included any of these in this collection. These will be used next month to illustrate things that we did in this fascinating city during our visits.

We often go for walks (if we’re not cycling) when we’re in Penrith, and we frequently visit the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve during these walks. On one occasion, we saw a rainbow as we emerged onto Bowerbank Way, part of the Gilwilly Industrial Estate, on our way to the reserve:

The entrance to the nature reserve is marked by the litter bin on the right of the photo.

One option after we’ve exited the nature reserve on the far side is to continue along Thacka Lane in the direction of Newton Rigg Agricultural College. We frequently see horses in the fields bordering the lane, including this pair, who appear to be looking for attention:

Foxgloves are common on the fells (local name for the mountains of the Lake District), but I was surprised to see this specimen growing out of the crack between a wall and the pavement in front of Penrith Methodist Church:

I spotted this splendid example of a stile as we cycled through the village of Reagill, south of Penrith:

Notice that no mortar has been used in the construction of the wall, which is standard practice around these parts. The rock is limestone. You can also see this technique being used in a wall alongside the road leading out of Penrith towards Great Salkeld, where the principal rock is sandstone (although some boulders have also been incorporated, sourced from boulder clay, the ubiquitous glacial deposit around here):

The next photo shows a view of Blencathra, one of the few Lake District mountains with a Cumbric name (although it is often referred to by locals as ‘Saddleback’) that I took while out cycling:

This road used to be the main road to Keswick, but it was replaced by the A66 more than half a century ago, making it ideal as part of a cycling route nowadays.

‘Sunset’:

When I asked Paula which bike ride she would like to do to mark her birthday, she immediately replied: “Haweswater”. I took several photos here, but I particularly like this one, looking back towards the head of the valley:

When we flew to Toronto last month, I had a window seat, and I suddenly noticed that we must be crossing the southern tip of Greenland. I always switch my phone off when flying, and in the time it took to get it up and running again, I probably missed the best shots, but you can still see the glaciers in this photo:

On our second flight, the plane passed many miles south of Greenland, so there was no opportunity to take more photos.

The walk along the River Eamont, from Eamont Bridge to Brougham, south of Penrith, is a pleasant excursion, and we followed this route on a walk at the end of last month. The river appeared to be flowing unusually fast, but the water level didn’t appear to be higher than usual:

Notice the three ducks in the bottom left corner of the photo.

The day after our Eamont excursion, we did a bike ride north of Penrith that included a road we’d never cycled along before. At one point, I noticed an unusual plant that dominated the verges on both sides of the road:

This is Himalayan balsam, an invasive species that, in this location, was almost the only plant on both sides of the road for about two miles.

This photo shows a quaint road bridge over the River Lyvennet in Morland, southeast of Penrith:

I discovered just this summer that there’s a skate park next to Penrith Leisure Centre. I took several photos of the colourful graffiti on the sidewalls supporting the ramps, including this one:

On our second trip to Toronto, we were taken to watch a major league baseball game, and on our way to the stadium, we passed this installation, which I saw as a ‘must’ photo opportunity. Paula took this one with my phone:

Another ‘must before we go’ was a bike ride to Ullswater, which we tend to avoid at the height of summer because of the sheer volume of tourist traffic. On this occasion, we approached the lake from Matterdale End, and where to take a photo from was self-evident as we descended the hill towards the road that runs alongside the lake:

The subject of my final photo is a tiny flower that I spotted just a couple of days ago growing out of a crack in the external surface of the low wall surrounding my neighbour’s backyard:

I have no idea what kind of flower this is, so if you can enlighten me, please leave a comment below.

on the trail #1

After the first two hectic days of our trip to Toronto, we were left to our own devices on the third day. Why not explore the neighbourhood where we were staying? So that’s what we did. A quick survey of Google Maps showed that the Moccasin Trail Park was nearby. As you can see from my first photo, it appeared to be a typical park:

However, as you can also see from the photo, the path divides a short distance ahead. We decided to turn right and soon found ourselves on a road that descended a steep hill through a thickly forested area:

At the time, I had no idea what Paula was attempting to photograph, but I soon discovered the reason:

Black squirrels like this one turned out to be extremely common, and we did see quite a few during the remainder of our stay in this remarkable city, including several in the residential neighbourhood where we were staying. I even saw one as I sat in the window of our room!

At the bottom of the hill, we found the start of a trail into the forest:

It isn’t obvious from the photo, but you can just see a small lake through the trees on the right. This lake doesn’t appear to have any amenities, but it’s certainly scenic:

The trail quickly contracted to a mere footpath:

I took several photos of wildflowers as we followed the path:

I’m still trying to see whether I can identify any of these flowers, although the white flowers in the first two photos do resemble cow parsley. And the yellow flowers alongside the path in the next photo look like golden rod:

Shortly after I took the last photo, Paula said that she wasn’t feeling well, so we turned back. But we did see another squirrel before leaving the area:

This was our first experience of a forest trail in Toronto, but we walked two more during our visit, which I will be describing in due course.