Castle Thun

My talented daughter Carol in Sydney, Australia, has decided to paint the castle in my home town of Thun in Switzerland.

She is putting the final touches onto the canvass.

The castle is in the town of Thun, in the Swiss canton of Bern. It was built in the 12th century, today houses the Thun Castle museum and is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

The castle was built between 1180 and 190 by the Duke Berthol V of Zähringen, who constructed the still preserved keep to the level of the Knights' Hall. In 1218 it was inherited by the House of Kyburg.

Tragedy struck in 1322 when Count Eberhard committed fratricide by killing his brother by pushing him out of one of the castle windows. He then had to ask for help of the town of Bern and the following year was forced to sell Thun and its castle to Bern.

In 2006, the castle was bought by the city of Thun from the canton of Bern. Until 2009 the Bernese Overland regional court was based in the castle.

Here is Carol's finished oil painting.

The final painting

A River Walk

The Blogger thought I needed a walk. So we jumped on a train at Kuraby to Roma Street. On the way, I discovered I left my SD card in my computer and didn't take a spare one with me, so our last talk at the camera club came in very handy. "Phone Photography." So all those shots were taken with my iPhone, except the bridge with the train was taken by the Blogger.

At Roma Street we changed from the Beenleigh Line to the Ipswich Line for one stop to Milton.

The station is in Park Road, a yuppy Restaurant and Cafe street. It was getting onto lunch, so we stepped in at the Coffee Club for lunch.

After lunch, we ambled down to the Brisbane River for our  walk back into the city, along the river bank.

Outside BWS Bottle Shop

Park Road Milton is wall to wall restaurants and Coffee shops.

Milton has a new ferry terminal 

View of Brisbane from Milton

Two city trains cross the Brisbane River

Officially the Kurilpa Foot Bridge, also known as the fiddlestick bridge

 There is a cycle way and footpath all the way from the city to Toowong (3.8km)

The cycleway and footpath along the river

The Gallery of Modern Art across the river at South Bank

At the Brisbane Plaza, every Wednesday the farmers market is on so we took the opportunity to buy some natural honey. 

Finally we walked over the Victoria Bridge to South Brisbane station where we took the train back to Kuraby.

We walked a few kilometres today. I know the Blogger is happy. Me? I'm happy when the Blogger is happy!

Cheers.

A New Office

We have decided to hold a U3A class here at our place as the library meeting room was not available at the time we want to hold the Movie Making Classes. So we had to renovate my office from where I ran my business for many years. It may not look it, but for us it was a major task.

You do accumulate a lot of junk over the years.

A very cluttered office - All had to go

First, I spent a lot of time shredding old business files, invoices and contracts and other sensitive documents.

Shredding old documents

We collected lots of boxes, to store stuff we were going to keep. Other boxes were filled with stuff to go to the dump. We have new neighbours in the street behind us, he runs a Handyman's outfit. He agreed to take everything to the local tip for us.

All the desks and drawers are going

Geoff, the neighbour came with his offsides to load up everything to go to the tip. He filled up his truck and trailer.

As it happened, our Interior Designer daughter Carol-Ann was up from Sydney, working in her Brisbane Office but was staying with us. She offered to design my new office in a way that it can be transferred into a classroom whenever I have students.

Carol-Ann designs my new Office/Classroom

The old carpet was worn out where my chair was at my desk, so it needed replacing. We got a carpet layer in to rip the old carpet out and replace it with new carpet tiles.

The carpet layer at work

We had asked the painter who painted our house last year to come and paint the new office. He came, gave us a price and we told him to go ahead. Then he told us he couldn't do it for at least three weeks. Well, that's no good as I start teaching classes in two weeks. Diane mentioned it to Carol in passing and to our surprise, Carol suggested she and David would come up from Sydney on the weekend and paint it for us. We gladly accepted their kind offer.

Of course you have to have some fun

Carol and David at work, painting the new office

 So, finally my new office/classroom is ready for work. Just need to hang some paintings.

Option A - My Office

 I only ever take 8 students for my 5-week U3A Movie Making Course

Option B - The Classroom

I'm set up

Today my brand new iMac is being delivered. I'm ready for my first students

Sydney Harbour National Park - North Head

We're in Sydney for a few days. Carol and David took us to North Head National Park today. The first time the Blogger and I have been there. It was a glorious day out.

I don't know who 'Cliff' is, but he's been warned.

View across the harbour towards Vaucluse

Naturally, we had to stop for coffee

Fairfax lookout

Interesting rock formations

View of Sydney

The Blogger at work

Some of the Fauna and Flora in the Park

North Head near Manly, Sydney

Natural Light

We're starting another year in our camera club tomorrow. Our first topic for the year is Natural Light in photography and how to use it for our photographs. Here are some of the pictures we're using in our talk tomorrow:

Backlight produces halo effect

Mountain mist can portray drama, mystique

Harsh light will show details of subject

Take advantage of backlight to create silhouettes

Light to dark creates sculpture effect

Monochrome in harsh light can produce dramatic effect

Tell a story using directional natural light

Misty mornings can produce great pictures

Natural light on shiny surface creates reflections

Shadows can be used to tell a story

Pictures taken by Diane and Bill Bohlen with Canon IOS 1000D, Sony HX60V and Lumix TZ60 cameras. Diane did the research for tomorrow's talk. You'll find the lesson notes on our camera club blog:
http://loganu3acameraclub.blogspot.com.au/

My new Lumix TZ60 - An amazing camera - I love it

Happy Australia Day 2015

For our overseas readers, it's Australia Day today. What better reason to bake some ANZAC bikkies. So, the Blogger got me into the kitchen this morning, even though it's 30 Deg C in the house. Outside it's 35 Deg C.

We start off melting butter

In a bowl we mix flour, rolled oats, sugar and coconut

We add bicarbonate of soda mixed in water

We add the liquid to the dry mixture

Mix it all together

Form small balls

Bake in a low oven for 12-15 minutes

And get some nice ANZAC biscuits

Which we enjoy with a cup of coffee

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY