Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Hello!

I’m just going to ignore the piles of photos still waiting to be sorted and edited, and post some photos of yesterday!

It’s been raining a lot here, but we were fed up of being inside the flat the whole weekend, and we decided to go out anyway. We drove to Thetford Forest and visited Grimes Graves. These are 5000 year old flint mines! It’s very impressive, especially if you realize what it would have been like to be mining 5000 year ago… They used antlers to get the flint out! They needed flint for making tools like axes etc. To get to the flint, they dug a hole in the chalk upper layer and then made small tunnels from which they mined the flint. There are more than 400 of those mines in a small area! They are filled up now but you can still see the edges and dips. It makes a very impressive landscape. They opened up one of them for visitors.

These photos are taken inside the mine. In the first one you can see one of the tunnels, now supported with wood. In the second photo you can see the middle of the mine from where the tunnels start. It might look like those are big tunnels, but if you look at the third photo you can see how low they are! It made me a big claustrophobic to think what it would have been like to work in there all day…

Here’s a photo of what the landscape looks like outside. Paul is standing in one of the filled up mines, and around him you can see many more of dips – mines. It’s incredible to see!

We walked around for a while, and I had fun with my compact camera taking macro photos. There were lots of wildflowers, insects and other critters around. Unfortunately it was raining and a bit dark so it was hard to get sharp photos, but some worked out well anyway 🙂

The rain also has its good sides, I found those berries with raindrops on them! I love the reflections in the drops, and in the second photo I was trying to get this Escher effect 🙂

The site was closing at 6, so we drove further into the forest and went for a walk near the Little Ouse river (they same one I visited with Patama last year, see this post – bit sunnier then!) We saw a big group of scouts canoeing/kayaking down the river. The picture on the right is the village shop/post office in the tiny village of Santon Downham. Also to show you what flint is used for nowadays: houses!

It was nice to walk through the forest in the rain, and get some fresh air!

More raindrops! I wish I had brought a small tripod, these photos could be a lot better if they were really sharp.

That’s all! It was great to spend some hours outside, even if it was in the rain. Actually I quite liked the forest in the rain, and all the photo opportunities it brought 🙂

Hello,

Sorry for the lack of updates… Time has been flying. I’ve been working a lot, I’m preparing for a conference. The conference is in Edinburgh in the first week of September. So far it’s going well, I’ve made a lot of progress and hopefully I’ll be able to prepare a good talk and poster.

Paul is working almost day and night on finishing his thesis so we haven’t been on many adventures. My parents visited for a weekend, so I’ve been sightseeing with them instead 🙂 And last weekend we went to London to visit Paul’s parents for the weekend, and we went to the Innocent Village Fete in Regent’s Park.

I’ve got lots of photos to share, they keep piling up but I haven’t had a chance to sort them out properly and post some here. So for now just some photos that I did edit/resize, they are taken in the garden of Paul’s parents. Last weekend was apparently the Summer of 2007 😉 It was great weather and I really enjoyed sitting and eating out in the garden… I miss having one!! Priority nr one for our new place: a GARDEN (and nr 2: a shower, I’m fed up of always having to take baths, they are not as refreshing). Anyway, here are the photos:

The last one is actually taken by Paul, I really like it!

And as a last photo, this is my new car:

Hmmm…. I wish… keep dreaming!! I love those cars, I’d really like to have one. I’ve always been crazy about Volkswagens. First the Beetle and later on the campers. It would be so much fun to have one! Every now and then I go through a phase of seriously looking into buying one, but then always someone comes along talking me out of it (usually my dad). Yeah they break down a lot and I’m not exactly a car mechanic so having a 40 year old car is probably not the best idea. I still hope to own one one day 🙂

That’s all for now, I’ll try to post some more photos next week! Have a good weekend!

Hanneke