Life & travel scribbles

...or already came? :) A few shots from my morning walk around the house, the neighbouring river Severn, fields and the Forest of Dean in the background. Stunning ^_^ "Our" backyard, gate to the fields River Severn. Forest of Dean it's like a meter high ;) looking at me for a good few minutes ;))) I moved and it was gone in a sec... Our house owner's son has only seen snow twice in his life, lying on the ground more than a few seconds that is. He is over 20 y.o. now. Isn't it awkward? Especially than in the adjacent, a bit more northern, shires snows like a shit ;) It is even now, i.e. Worcestershire, where even some schools are closed! Oh well ;)))

Some time ago we were invited, by our neighbour living on the same property, for juice making! He's been making it every single year since he was 18. So probably for over 30 years now! (although I am not entirely sure how old he is ;) ) The juice. It is made from apples picked from a few places where Sebastian works as a handyman and there are  sacks of them offered to him as the owners are not going to make any use of them. This way, every year at early fall, he starts his apple juice production in his hut, which is built in the furthest corner of 'our' garden. He lives there, in that hut. He built it himself many years ago out of recycled material and made it self-efficient energy-wise.  Now, to the point > about the juice: To start with - cleaning the bottles: Using branch shredder - apples are getting shredded to a pulp: then it's taken in a bucket to a tumble-drier (yep, the one for clothes) and part by part ...

Brain enema. Mind decluttering. Brain detox . These and more elaborate are the definitions given by teachers of Vipassana meditation technique I decided to give myself in again, for the 2nd time. 10 days in complete silence, without or at least with a very limited human contact of any kind, with absolutely nothing to distract from looking inward: no reading or writing, no physical exercise - except from one > sitting 10-11hs a day and meditating. I took up the challenge again. Vipassana is a meditation technique , which is not simply  about gathering up your mind, focusing and concentrating it. It is so much more! The principles are non-sectarian and n ot associated with any philosophy, therefore - utterly universal. What one is focusing on - for some for the first time in their lifes - is the reality, the present moment, as it is. As it is, not as one wants it to be. Purifying one’s mind by constant and very scrupulous observation of the breath an...

This Saturday (the 8th of July) we are setting off to Spain (Basque Country to be precise), where will be traveling for the next 2 weeks. We've got our tickets for the ferry: Newhaven to Dieppe in France: And that's probably...the only thing we know for sure with regard to our upcoming trip, basically ;) And that the ferry back is on the 23rd evening ;) Last Saturday we packed all our stuff we are thinking of having on us during the travel and on Sunday tested the packing it all up and riding, both of us, on our Kawasaki W650 while going all the way to Wales and taking a different route to go back.  That's all we had packed:  Nevertheless, we were still missing two mattresses back then, which had been shipped from Poland (arrived on Mon). They are v.compressed indeed, space-wise: Fjord Nansen TREKKER. We also gave up on taking two camping gas bottles. Otherwise it's all we are thinking to have for those 2 weeks in northern Spain :) Fingers...

SAGA. The dog. Name - derived from the old Scandinavian word expressing a "tale, story", usually associated with mythology and stories about Vikings' voyages. As a matter of fact, it has nothing to do with tea , and my alleged uttermost love for it, as some have suggested. :P Rescued from a dog shelter, in Gdańsk ( Promyk ) in January, the 21st. Must be around 8-10 y.o. according to the people in the dog shelter and the vet I consulted afterwards. When I first saw her on the shelter's website that's what I saw: http://schroniskopromyk.pl/aga-7 a bit scared, scruffy little black thing. Something drew me to look the website up, I was lingering such a long time with getting a dog, so I must have thought: When, if not now? Then I saw her behind the bars, in -8C cold, and went for our first walk together. It probably wasn't the most enjoyable morning she had, as it was quite windy and the freezing cold was getting into the bones. Her litt...

Jędrek vel. Jay started playing around with a thing called "kustom paint" which fits in to the Kustom Kulture movement. Click here for more reference :) Quite interesting, good-looking and... very absorbing. Both time- and space-wise. We are having more and more paints and chunks of painted wood around ;)) Here are some samples, attempts of his new hobby: a set of fancy paintbrushes - a gift from a mate, Wizu set of professional paints "Nati what do you want me to paint for you?" *Well... :D       magic mushrooms on a chunk of wood found in the forest <3 Some of the nice sneak peeks: Pretty cool, innit?^^