Nature - - Page 3

02 Jul

Strange days

11415470_10205826143266849_1252669487698795569_o The internet didn’t melt away yesterday, nor did I. However, roads melted as the mercury clocked 36.7C, the highest in July since records began in the mid 1870s. The hotspot was Heathrow. Very fitting.

This has been a sad and strange week over here. In the sweltering heat yesterday the first bodies of the victims killed by a gunman in Friday’s beach attack in Tunisia were flown back to the UK. Most of the victims were from here; it hasn’t been confirmed yet but it’s likely that 30 of 38 victims were British.

It has been agonising to listen to the survivors speak about their ordeal. It brings back memories of the 2011 Norway attacks when Anders Breivik killed 77 people. Like then, people under attack in Tunisia tried to play dead as the gunman passed and many of them were calling home from hideaways to say goodbyes to their loved ones. At the same time it’s moving to hear how people would selflessly put them self in danger while helping the injured and some even died protecting those they loved.

All of this is affecting the nation even more due to the fact that next week marks the 10 year anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attack. The stories from those who survived back then blend in with the stories from last Friday.

Meanwhile, news from Iceland about earthquakes and a possible volcano eruption near Reykjavik are scaring the living daylights out of me. For some reason news like that affect me more when I’m over here than when I lived in Iceland.

I guess all we can do is try to enjoy each day, each moment. One never knows.

22 Jun

My beloved Primrose Hill

11415470_10205826143266849_1252669487698795569_o In the words of William Blake ‘I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill’. It’s my heaven as well. One of my favourite places in London. It’s such a privilege to be able to take a stroll up Primrose Hill most days. It has one of the best panoramas the capital has to offer, but also fields of green, beautiful trees, and yes… tourists. However, they usually just visit the same spot so it’s easy to walk a bit further and be alone with your thoughts. You can read more about Primrose Hill here.

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757 – 1827)

Poems and Prophecies. Everyman/Dent, 1950.

From Jerusalem, Chapter 2 (To the Jews) p.190

The fields from Islington to Marybone,

To Primrose Hill and Saint John’s Wood,

Were builded over with pillars of gold,

And there Jerusalem’s pillars stood.

Her Little-ones ran on the fields,

The Lamb of God among them seen…

The Jew’s-harp-house & the Green Man,

The Ponds where Boys to bathe delight,

The fields of Cows by Willan’s farm,

Shine in Jerusalem’s pleasant sight.

[Show slideshow]

17 Jun

Happy Independence Day Iceland!

Icelandic National Day. Brings back memories of wearing your best dress and sporting bare legs in spite of the cold, slightly out of tune brass bands, nervous scouts, boring speeches and small children high on sugar, holding balloons and Icelandic flags. My favourite moment of the day has always been when Fjallkonan, the woman of the mountain, recites a poem. She represents the fierce spirit of the Icelandic nation and of Icelandic nature. You can read more about why and how Icelanders celebrate their Independence Day here.

My thoughts are back home and I’ll be celebrating here in London by watching this spectacular video.

29 May

Bad weather… really?

This morning my neighbour moaned about the weather. The spring has been so different from last year and even the year before, he complained. He went on about how cold and windy it was and said he couldn’t wait for the summer, although he was beginning to think it would never turn up.

I’ve heard so many talk like this during the last weeks and usually I just bite my tongue so I don’t compare the spring over here to snowy Iceland. But this morning I couldn’t resist showing him a photo from Iceland on my mobile. June is almost here, but it’s still snowing from time to time and really cold everywhere. It’s the coldest May in Iceland since 1979 and the third coldest since 1949 as you can read about in this article. My neighbour smiled and told me he was slightly happier now with going for a walk in the rain.

I’m constantly happy with the weather here in the UK. But everything is relative. I can imagine how a person from Greenland feels when she hears an Icelander moan about the weather in Iceland.

22 May

Icelandic swimming pools

Apart from friends and family, there are not many things I miss from Iceland. However, swimming in Icelandic swimming pools gives you a unique feeling of pleasure, different from anything else. I miss that sensational feeling.

Bathing in the geothermally heated water is a luxury not to be missed if you travel to Iceland. Chatting to the locals in the hot tubs is recommended as well.

Three useful links if you want to go swimming in Iceland:

Geothermal pools – An Icelandic tradition

Swimming in Iceland

What to expect in an Icelandic Swimming Pool

17 May

Unusual jewellery

Had a lovely day at the annual Primrose Hill Spring Festival. There’s always a variety of tasty street food from different corners of the world, music playing and stalls where artists, designers and antique dealers are selling their products.

Today I spotted quite unusual jewellery and was told it’s made from Vegetable Ivory. It’s a seed produced naturally by the “Phytelephas Macrocarpa” palm tree which only grows in the tropical rainforest of Colombia and a few South American countries.

Vegetable Ivory has become increasingly important as the only natural, ethical and sustainable alternative to elephant ivory, because the texture and colour are almost identical.

I talked to the designer, Martha Lizarazo, who is born and raised in Columbia but has lived in London for a long time. She is passionate about elephant conservation and says the use of this special seed also stimulates the economies in South America and preserves the rain forests. She founded Caliz London some time ago and it is growing fast.

Primrose Hill Spring Festival

16 May

Spring or summer

The warm rays of the sun cover my face and the roses in the garden are blooming. My neighbours call it spring. I call it summer.

Last month I enjoyed the mesmerising beauty of the cherry blossom and magnolias. On the 21st of April 1960, Sylvia Plath wrote in a letter to her mother; ‘They are mowing the lawns everywhere, and the smell of cut grass, plants, and warm earth is delicious. Nothing is so beautiful as England in April’ (Letters Home. Faber, 1990. p.377) I couldn’t agree more.

Photo: Hörður Jónasson

It was still snowing in Reykjavik earlier this month and up north the snowfall hasn’t quite stopped. The wait for spring in Iceland can be long but when it finally arrives and nature awakens, nothing is more welcome nor celebrated.

14 May

Mesmerised by sheep

10404342_850710088347526_6383692773440495462_n The Icelandic nation is mesmerised in front of the screens at the moment as The National Icelandic Broadcasting Service (RÚV) has begun its first foray into so-called “Slow TV”, popularized by our cousins in Norway. The Norwegian state broadcaster has in the past had live feeds from f.ex. ferry sailing. The first Icelandic slow tv broadcast is from the annual birthing of lambs. It is being shown live for 24 hours.

Meanwhile the Icelandic film director Grímur Hákonarson is bringing his new film, Rams, to the Cannes Film Festival. It has been selected for the Un Certain Regard section. Rams is set in a remote Icelandic farming valley, where two brothers who haven’t spoken in 40 years have to come together in order to save what’s dearest to them – their sheep. The film was shot in the remote valley of Bárdardalur in the north of Iceland this past winter. Grímur has told Variety all about it.

Here in the UK, the news do not focus on rams at the moment. Not exactly. However Nigel Farage and prince Charles have been on the news a lot today. The former leader of UKIP, Farage, doesn’t seem to know if he’s coming or going these days. You can read more about it here.

Prince Charles 27 letters to then Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of his government between September 2004 and March 2005 have been in the spotlight. The question is if the letters influenced the government. The prince obviously cares about farming, cause writing to Mr Blair, he expresses a “growing sense of anxiety” that the Hill Farming Allowance, which supports farmers working on Britain’s uplands, could be scrapped. On the BBC news website you can read more about the letters.