Thursday Thoughts – Dogs I Met in Tbilisi

2 april, 20202 april, 2020 / Leya / 30 kommentarer

Dogs are a big part of my life – and cats too, when I grew up in Sweden. In Tbilisi there were so many cats and dogs – of which I have already featured some here. (Click the links) However, I have many more photos from lovely meetings with friendly dogs and cats. These galleries might give you a hint…of just how many dog citizens there are in Tbilisi.

This big guy was the first one I met, and he was relaxing just on the edge of some steps down to a tunnel under the road. I immediately noticed how well muscled he was and how impressive the thickness of his coat.

I had already learned that they are all vaccinated and friendly. The yellow ear button confirmed this fact.

And yes, the dogs were everywhere…sleeping in the middle of the road or path as well. This one was lying here.

Sleeping styles of different difficulty…

…and everywhere and anywhere. Preferences differed. For the heat, for the cooling down, for the view…I never asked – just guessed.

Some liked to play and some raised a bunch of puppies. Some were just thirsty !

I just loved the Georgian people and their concern for the animals. All dogs were not just vaccinated, but they also had their own lunch bar in Rike Park. At the end of Peace Bridge, you could leave your bottle in this bar and dog food would drizzle down.

A Happy Land for stray dogs – at least during the warmer seasons. We should all be that kind and caring. Clearly the citizens loved their animal friends. Harmony ruled.

And by the way…the dog in the header was the only one on a leash.

Friendly Friday – Funny Furry Friends

22 mars, 2020 / Leya / 17 kommentarer

Look what I found in your garden!

For Friendly Friday Photo Challenge hosted by The Sandy Chronicles: Funny furry friends

Another boring day of window shopping

7 mars, 20207 mars, 2020 / Leya / 52 kommentarer

For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #85 – Treasure Hunt

23 februari, 202023 februari, 2020 / Leya / 64 kommentarer

This week Tina wants us to go on a Treasure Hunt! Our challenge is to search for specific items – either from your archives or newly captured – from the list below. Extra credit items are a bit harder to find, as are multiple items in a single image. Focus on quality over quantity and hit us with your best shot(s)!

Challenge Items: Sunrise and/or sunset, Something cold and/or hot, a bird, a dog, a funny sign, a bicycle, a seascape and/or mountain landscape, a rainbow, a church, a musical instrument, a boat, a plane, a waterfall
Extra Credit Items: An expressive portrait of one or more people, a very unusual place, knitting or sewing, a fish, an animal you don’t normally see, a bucket, a hammer, a street performer, a double rainbow, multiple challenge items in a single image.

Sunset is a moment where all emotions are experienced: Melancholy, amazement, intoxication, casuistry, admiration, love, sadness…
― Mehmet Murat ildan

In the opener – sunset, seascape, birds and boats in The Netherlands. The other scenes were found in Bhutan, Tibet and Poland.

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame! – William Butler Yeats

Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms. – Twyla Tharp

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.– Roger Caras

This Boxer-like sweetie gave me a real fright. When I was passing this shop, he suddenly jumped up at the desk – the shop owner looked a bit shocked as well…I had to be quick to catch the moment!

Knitting not only relaxes me, it also brings a feeling of being at home. – Magdalena Neuner

An old photo, but I still remember these lovely Tibetan ladies waiting for market customers – and making a useful time of it. They were very shy, but smiling when I asked about their knitting and told them I knitted too.

All my images are self-portraits, even when I’m not in them.
― Nuno Roque

I met this beautiful lady on the pilgrim trail to Taktshang (Tiger’s Nest) in Paro. She stopped to offer some nuts and dried fruit (I was a bit poorly looking…), and then passed me with a vigorous step – reaching the temple at least half an hour before I did. She was 75, and no sign of panting in the thin air…

Each and every animal on earth has as much right to be here as you and me. – A.D. Williams

We were fortunate to see the national animal of Bhutan – the rare Takin. Folklore has it that the animal with a goat’s head and a cow’s body was created by The Divine Madman, a famous holy man from Tibet. The Takin lives in the alpine zones, at 1000-4500 meters height, and weighs about 300kg.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.
― Plato

I enjoyed these skilled street musicians for almost an hour, in Lodz, Poland. Not until after uploading the photos, I noticed the spooky thing behind the musician to the left…

Thank you, Amy, for the fun Narrow theme last week!

A Special Announcement: All of us at Lens-Artists are delighted to announce that the March 7th challenge (#87) will be hosted by our special guest host, Miriam Hurdle at The Shower of Blessings Please be sure to visit Miriam’s site on Saturday, March 7th to view her challenge. For the rest of February and March, we’ll follow our usual weekly schedule:

Feb. 29–Patti of P.A. Moed
March 7–Miriam of The Shower of Blessings
March 14 – Ann-Christine of Leya
March 21 – Amy of The World is A Book
March 28– Tina of Travels and Trifles

Thursday Thoughts – Strolling in Gdansk

6 februari, 20206 februari, 2020 / Leya / 39 kommentarer

I will always love Poland, and Gdansk is one of my favorite cities in the world.

Strolling along the water and the beautiful Mariacka street is a feast for all your senses.

I keep returning…about every second year. This year, the Sharpei beauty was sitting on his steps the whole day. Posted this one before, I am sure…

We came for the WWII museum this time, very well organized, but so depressing that I returned to Mariacka afterwards, to heal.

Details that intrigue me – the Gargoyles, the steps and stairs – and the beautiful doors.

Guess who was waiting there?

Until next time! ♥

Wordless Wednesday

15 januari, 202014 januari, 2020 / Leya / 17 kommentarer

Lens – Artists Photo Challenge #75 – Nostalgic

7 december, 201920 februari, 2020 / Leya / 37 kommentarer

I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest. – Robert Wyatt

Tina is hosting this week, and she wants us to be Nostalgic. This is a feeling that easily comes to me, touches me, just like tears do. Nostalgia is such a unique phenomenon because it fuses both positive and negative experiences and emotions.

The word nostalgia is a Greek compound, meaning ”homecoming”, a Homeric word, and ”pain” or ”ache”, and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Today its meaning is a bit different. So, my Nostalgic will be entirely about my own life.

I don’t have any digital photos of my grandmother, but my childhood was so much about her. My nostalgic memories always take me to her garden and the flowering apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees, plum trees and …her sweet voice and contagious laughter.

I always make a distinction between nostalgia and sentimentality. Nostalgia is genuine – you mourn things that actually happened. – Pete Hamill

After my grandmother, my first Lagotto, Mille, evokes my nostalgic memories. He was such an impressive dog who hit all your senses already in the first blow. You did not stand a chance. He will be forever remembered by everyone who met him.

Tropical Pointer

Can you feel nostalgic about one single flower? I can! Many years ago I had a fantastic favorite orchid – a Cattleya hybrid, ”Tropical Pointer”. I had it for several years and it came back again and again with a multitude of flowers. I think of it as a He – don’t know why. He just flowered himself to death (if you can say it that way…). And like everything else in this world, you can never get the same thing twice. I kept searching for a new Tropical Pointer, in every garden center, in every country I visited, but new hybrids come every year – and the old ones are forgotten…

Nostalgia is a very human trait. – Stephanie Coontz

My beloved apple tree – a bit of a warden tree for this house (about 100 years old). Nostalgia hits me when looking at it in its former glory. You who follow my blog know it is the same tree (but lying down, 2019) in the Creepy post.

Finally, we had some foreign guests in town when the children played in different orchestras, some 15 years ago. A big meeting with other European countries brought a couple of young guys our way. They stayed at our house for some nights while the festivities lasted. This young man was an avid accordion player – every time I look at the photo, I can feel his love for music and for his instrument warming my heart.

In the header, one of the very few photos of my whole family together. Nostalgia over all those years we still traveled together, and how excited we were over reaching our dream – Tibet.

Thank you, Tina, for hosting this week instead of me! And, as always, Amy, Tina, Patti and I thank you for your continued support of our photo challenge.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #71 – Creepy

9 november, 201920 februari, 2020 / Leya / 219 kommentarer

Halloween some days gone… I thought you might still have some interesting thoughts and images left for us and this challenge – things Creepy!

If you look up ”Creepy” in a dictionary, it says ” causing an unpleasant feeling of fear or unease”.

Here are some of my creepy nightmares… and in the header my worst scenario. Just how many spiders were at work weaving all those nets? And that – in my own garden…

When a sudden look down a side street – reveals an abandoned house – or, maybe not…?

When it is raining men…

…or they suddenly dissolve in a haze – right in front of me.

Or – I have to pass through dark tunnels …and I notice someone lurking inside.

I also avoid walking in the forest late nights…no option…when there are tree trolls towering 2×5 meters high and wide.

Seeing a giant Gunnera waking up…gives at least me the creeps…

And, Totti…? Is that you?

According to a recent study, the creepiest job was working as a Clown, and among the creepiest items mentioned, were dolls. Personally I clearly can relate to ”unpredictability” as an important component of creepiness. If you are interested in reading more of this study, On the nature of creepiness, here’s a link.

We just have to remember that being ”creeped out” is deep down a good thing for our ability to survive! So – now we are looking forward to seeing Your Creepy answers!

Thank you for the many inspirational and varied entries for Patti’s Monochrome challenge! Some of you were not much used to monochrome before, but found your own ways to answer to the challenge – clever and innovative!

Have you seen these:

Photo Robert sends us an elegant flower gallery
Jeremy of Picks of Pics lets us in on breathtaking views
An interesting study of what filters can do, we get from Laura of Poetrypix
Olga of Stuff and what if...sends almost ethereal images and verse

As always, Amy, Tina, Patti and I hope you will join us.

Wordless Wednesday

30 oktober, 20196 mars, 2020 / Leya / 14 kommentarer

Lens-Artists Challenge #69 – Seeing Double

27 oktober, 201924 februari, 2020 / Leya / 52 kommentarer

Tina’s challenge for the week sounds like this: ”Double trouble, double-time, two’s company, take two …. the world is filled with references to twosomes. This week, let’s double our pleasure and focus on things that come in twos.”

In fact…my first thought was of shoes – they always come it twos! These art clogs stand in a street in Malmö as a memory of one of Sweden’s most beloved actors at the beginning of the 20th century. He was from my part of Sweden, Skåne, where clogs were the only footwear needed in the old days.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, one of the most common things to see in twos are…dogs! But in the header, two lovely young women as well, peeping out from an art studio.

As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. – Audrey Hepburn

And people talked to the stray dogs, took time to feed them or to just give them a warmhearted pat. I loved how this young man kept his hand resting on the sun warmed, relaxing dog, and with his other hand using his modern, electronic device. Overall the people in Tbilisi did not use cell phones that much. ( If someone did, you almost knew it was a tourist…) They seemed to care more about the living beings around them.

Some years ago we had a pair of swans often landing at our summer house, and we were kindly allowed to admire their young – if we kept the distance of course.