ImageOTD – Page 2 – Journeys of Heart and Mind

Geese on the river

The buildings along the river bank … stand where the medieval priory once was, and the modern building to the left of the tree is ‘The Priory Centre’.

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Image of the day – 158

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Before moving to Cirencester in April 2017, we lived for many years in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. One of the things I miss most (and there are several) is the River Great Ouse passing right through the centre of the town. This photo was taken from the town bridge; while looking ninety degrees to the right would reveal the Market Square, just a hundred metres away.

I like this photo because it has so much interest packed into one scene. You might not see the geese at first; they form a small in-line flotilla at the bottom right. The reflections in the water are lovely, and the surface rippled enough to add a sense of movement. The willow on the bank is typical of the trees in the Riverside Park which is out of sight but stretches behind and to the left from this position. The tree also divides the buildings along the river bank; they stand where the medieval priory once was, and the modern building to the left of the tree is ‘The Priory Centre’, the town’s major meeting and activity centre where Open Door Church used to meet on Sunday mornings. In the far distance you can just make out the Marina.

From priory to a new church building

While we’re thinking about the medieval Priory and the modern Priory Centre we might also think about the way church has changed since the year 313 AD. Prior to that year, the expectation was that church meant people gathering in homes without formal leaders like bishops, deacons, elders, pastors, popes, priests, rectors or vicars. There were informal leaders, confusingly with some of the same words being used to describe them – apostles, deacons, elders, evangelists, prophets, shepherds and teachers. But Christianity was illegal, persecuted, and therefore often hidden from public view.

When Christianity was legalised in 313 AD, and made the state religion in 380 AD, everything changed. It’s possible that by that time, burgeoning, even explosive growth in Christianity had reduced worship in the Classical Greco-Roman temples to a low ebb. The buildings were expensive to maintain, and the solution would have seemed obvious, legalise Christianity, hand over the buildings for Christian use, let them modify them for their new function, pay the maintenance costs, and manage the administration. Problem solved for the Roman state.

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Churn flood plain

Hen Brook

Gentleness takes courage and strength

In the lemur enclosure

It was an opportunity for Donna to feed the lemurs and see them up close, and for me it was an opportunity to take some photos in a very unusual setting!

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Image of the day – 157

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

I have another animal photo for you today, this is a fairly close shot of a ring-tailed lemur taken from inside the enclosure.

Donna had booked a visit to Paradise Wildlife Park near Broxbourne (now Hertfordshire Zoo), signing up for an opportunity to enter the lemur enclosure with staff, armed only with slices of apple. The lemurs are not tame, but they are habituated to people. They are visited often by parties such as ours so they are used to people, and nobody has harmed them or frightened them and they are very fond of sliced apple so they will happily approach, even sit on your shoulder, take the proffered apple and eat it.

It was a wonderful opportunity for Donna to feed the lemurs and see them up close, something she’d wanted to do for some time so a dream fulfilled. And for me it was an opportunity to take some photos in a very unusual setting! I have to say, it was quite an amazing experience.

Habituation

All animals (including humans) can become habituated to many kinds of stimulae. For example, someone who is scared of spiders, if exposed to very small spiders regularly, will react less and less to their presence because the small spiders have never done them any harm. Then it may be possible to graduate to slightly larger kinds of spider.

If you live near an airport you will probably be habituated to the sound and appearance of low-flying, large aircraft. Your visitors may be alarmed, but for you it’s an everyday experience and you hardly notice it.

And of course it’s easy to become habituated to situations and behaviours that might be harmful, for example driving too fast. If you’re habituated to something inherently unsafe, you probably need to think it through logically and carefully.

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Image of the day – 93

A bird called Jenny

Image of the day – 35

Cow and calf

I was using the footpath and this cow and her calf were close up against the fence. I was able to take the photo without even stepping off the path.

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Image of the day – 156

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Here’s something you may never have seen, unless you’re a farmer or a vet – a calf suckling from its mother. When we lived in St Neots, there was a footpath running past our back gate in Eaton Ford and running very straight to the churchyard of St Mary’s in Eaton Socon. The path led past a large field, Bedfordia Meadows, and sometimes cows were kept in this field.

On one particular day in 2012 I was using the footpath and this cow and her calf were close up against the fence. I was able to take the photo without even stepping off the path. I’ve been working my way through my photos from July 2012 recently, looking for images for articles like this one. And it seemed to me that many of you might like to see this moment from a summer’s day 13 years ago.

For the cow and the calf this is a matter of life and death. Without the mother’s milk a new-born calf would not survive long. Milk contains the water and all the nutrients needed for the calf to grow and become capable of drinking water and eating grass for itself. In the wild, like all mammals, the cow would stop producing milk once the calf stopped needing it. But domesticated cattle have been bred to produce milk for much longer and a cow would quickly be in pain and in danger of serious infection if not regularly milked twice a day.

Mammals provide milk, birds lay eggs

Both dinosaurs and mammals developed from early reptiles. At the time of the Cretaceous extinctions caused by the impact of the famous asteroid, when all the large dinosaurs died out, there had long been early mammals and some of the smaller kinds survived. One branch of the dinosaurs survived as well and we are all familiar with them, they are called birds! A number of small reptiles and amphibia survived too so today we have toads and frogs as well as crocodiles, alligators, lizards and the snakes. But most air-breathing vertebrates in the world today are either mammals providing milk to their young, or the egg-laying birds.

That asteroid changed everything!

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Dinosaurs and the Bible

A bird called Jenny

Enigmatic computer

Once it was realised that a letter could be coded as any other letter except itself, even this tiny clue could help point the cryptographers in the right direction.

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Image of the day – 155

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Why is this old computer enigmatic? Some of you will know, some might guess correctly, others may have no idea. I took the photo in July 2012 at the Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park where highly secret work was done during the Second World War to break the German Enigma code as well as other enemy codes and ciphers.

This is a working replica of the famous Colossus computers used to crack those very difficult codes. And computer power alone couldn’t do it, it required clever minds to look for little hints that could make the ‘unbreakable’ code breakable. As an example, once it was realised that a letter could be coded as any letter other than itself, even this tiny clue could help point the cryptographers in the right direction. And there were always cribs that could help, the knowlege that a particular operator always began with the same phrase was an enormous help.

No original Colossus machines exist, after the war ended, Churchill gave strict orders that they should all be dismantled and the parts broken into small pieces.

The idea behind Colossus was the brainwave of Alan Turing, a mathematical genius who worked at Bletchly Park during the war. The Bombe that preceded it was originally designed and built by Polish engineers. Turing and his team designed and built a British version, physically different but doing the same job.

CSO (then based at Bletchly, now at GCHQ) intercepted the coded messages, while teams produced the German plain text, translated it into English and passed it to the British government and military planners.

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War, survival, victory

A conversation with ChatGPT

Rotated parking

Consider the poor removals staff when it comes to picking up or delivering a whole houseful of furniture.

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Image of the day – 154

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Today’s photo is slightly giddying. This is Paradise Square in Sheffield; I took it in July 2012 when we were visiting family there. Here’s an amusing thought, but perfectly true – more car parking spaces are available in Paradise Square than had it been on level ground! But that doesn’t mean it’s a car parking paradise. Make sure your handbrake is firmly on and if your car has a manual gearbox, perhaps leave it in gear for added safety. Be careful when opening the door, too. I wonder if car insurance is more expensive if your address is on Paradise Square?

And consider the poor removals staff when it comes to picking up or delivering a whole houseful of furniture. Those hydraulic lifts at the back of the vehicle, usually so helpful, would be almost worse than useless! Would it be best to park across the slope? Or would facing uphill or downhill be better?

This must be one of the steepest car parks in the world. If you’re aware of one with an even steeper slope than Paradise Square, leave a comment. Thanks! (I found one, linked below, but I bet there are more.)

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Image of the day – 59

Category: ImageOTD

Geese on the river

Image of the day – 158

From priory to a new church building

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In the lemur enclosure

Image of the day – 157

Habituation

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Cow and calf

Image of the day – 156

Mammals provide milk, birds lay eggs

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Enigmatic computer

Image of the day – 155

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Rotated parking

Image of the day – 154

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