Glassy Shiny Gaudy

I have become infatuated, made somewhat foolish, by the brightly lit bits of shiny glassy stuff I see around me. I'll get over it. But in the meantime I may post a few results. This was when this morning's low sun shone on a lamp in our dining-room. I shot it at a very high ISO and liked the texture as a result. But when I went back in the room a few minutes later to do it again at a lower ISO, the sun had moved. Moving the lamp was too much trouble so I'll wait for another day and get a different picture. :)

Language historians believe that a source of our modern word window is a borrowing (a thousand years ago) from one of the Scandinavian languages (Norse, Danish, . . .). That borrowed bit was a word meaning "wind-eye" or opening through which the wind might come. This bit of a window at the Landesmuseum in Zurich won't let any wind in or out. But it is suggestive of an eye.

It was a bit dusty so I washed the green insulator before I laid it up on the windowsill. The window glass is very dirty, something I really only notice when I point the camera at it. I am looking forward to the spring because we have already bought a new window to go in this spot. I'll be able to take pictures through it.

We got between 25 and 35 cm of snow yesterday. The Weather Office was not very exact as it varied from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. I think ours got near the top of the range. We like to light the tree outside our kitchen door during times like that. So this was the view from our kitchen about twenty-four hours ago.

Some years ago I found this in the garden, under several inches of soil. No doubt, some decades before, it was a child's alley -- a "marble." Almost all its paint was worn off when I found it. It has sat in the pencil drawer of my desk ever since. Tonight I shone a flashlight up through a loupe on which the alley was balanced. I liked what I saw. The amber colour is a result of the paint on the lower side.

The Short-Days Tree is still up and decorated, though it may not be so for much longer. I thought a self-portrait in one of the bulbs might be a good idea. ("Oh, those bulbs -- they add thirty pounds to you!") (They also make the living-room look three times as big as it is.)

Each year at this time, I become attentive to how short the days are and -- slowly -- to the daily growing of the light. So, as irreligious as I am, I have lots of Christmas things I tune into. The idea of candles (if only, as here, plastic electric ones!) is one Xmas thing I feel very comfortable with. These sit in our kitchen window, with a couple of Impatiens ("Patience") slips growing for the 2025 season.

One of our neighbours has made a Christmas tree out of what I think is a weeping birch. Or, maybe it is just a fake one. . . .

You probably cannot, but I have no trouble interpreting the reflection of my kitchen in this bubble rising from my beer when I opened it before supper. There is the floor. And the back-splash on the counter. Oh, the fridge, there it is. And the two doors, one to the outside, the other to the dining room. And so on. I am in the middle.

I have, pretty well all my life, had a thing for coloured glass. And electrical insulators have been part of that thing.

Insulators overhead on my walk this morning.

This was a scene from a boat travelling down the Rhine just SE of Cochem a couple of weeks ago. The balls were hanging in a window. I did turn the picture upside-down. Weed is legal in Germany these days but we did not avail of it.