Maastricht

Jul. 5th, 2025 04:51 pm
[personal profile] swaldman
After my day in Aachen I took a short train ride to Maastrict and spent most of a day there. It's odd, insomuch as it's a Dutch city with hills... it has some interesting historical churches, city walls, etc., and was generally nice to wander through as the temperature had dropped from the >35C of recent times to the mid-20s.

I took a tour of the "caves" - actually old limestone mines - a couple of km out of town. It turns out there is a huge network of these tunnels - thousands of miles in total - that extend not just under a hill outside Maastrict but all the way under the border to Belgium. They've been used for smuggling people or things under the border at various times in history - apparnetly the Belgian resistance made especially good use. Looking at the map, it mostly made me think of the Tombs of Atuan.

Map painted on an underground wall showing a huge maze of roughly right-angled tunnels

I posted some more phonecam photos over on Pixelfed: 1 2

Heading home now after a couple of days with Dutch-resident friends; I'm writing this from the Aberdeen->Kirkwall ferry.

And breathe...

Jul. 4th, 2025 04:26 pm
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[personal profile] wildeabandon
Oh look, once again it's been forever since I posted. Since my last update I got hit by another rather tough challenge, albeit this time largely self-inflicted, when my application for Belgian residency got turned down because I was a bit late with some of the paperwork. This led to a certain amount of panic, but fortunately I had just enough visa free days left in the EU after my provisional residency card expired that by returning to London and missing the last week of lectures (most of which were fortunately recorded and made available online), and shifting some of my exams around so they were all the same week, I was able to take them all.

I got my results on Wednesday. No perfect 20s this time, but two 19s, two 18s, and four 17s, which gives me almost exactly the same 89% average as the first semester's rather wider spread. The highest accolade available at KU Leuven (summa cum laude, with the congratulations of the examination committee) kicks in at 90%, so I need to slightly up my game next year, but now that I've got a much clearer idea of what's expected of me I think that it should be achievable, especially if I don't have quite so many curveballs to deal with as I did this semester.

One of favourite modules this semester was Syriac II, where instead of an exam we had to produce a portfolio, the largest part of which was a translation of a portion of a text chosen in consultation with the professor. I did a part of the "Syriac History of Joseph", which retells the story of Genesis 37-39 with various additions. I enjoyed doing this sufficiently that, having done the first three pages for my portfolio, I am going to try and do the remaining 16 over the summer. The same professor is teaching Coptic next year, which is not a language I realised I was interested in learning (nor, for that matter, was Syriac), but he's such a great teacher that I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm now back in London for the whole summer, which hadn't been the original plan, but I am enjoying seeing more of [personal profile] obandsoller and looking forward to doing so even more when he emerges from the pile of marking and admin that accompanies the end of term for the teachers, when we students have finished our exams and are enjoying sitting on our laurels...

Aachen

Jul. 3rd, 2025 08:00 am
[personal profile] swaldman
I'm on holiday!
I haven't been blogging much on this trip, because it's mostly a trip to see friends and family. But yesterday was all about tourism, and I spent the day in Aachen, Germany, in 36C heat. I came here once before with friend L, when she showed me the place briefly, and I knew I needed to come back. Six years later, here I am.

My favourite thing about Aachen, although I've no idea how true it is, is this quote from Wikivoyage:
"As Aachen is a legally recognised spa, it could call itself Bad Aachen, but refuses to do so, as it then would no longer be first in almost all alphabetical lists."
My second favourite thing about Aachen, and the reason I'm here, is undoubedly the cathedral. It's unique, and beautiful. The central octagonal part dates from the 9th century, while the gothic "extension" is newer. It was built as the seat of Charlemagne (and this is why the octagonal shape - it resembles an Orthodox cathedral and he was making a statement about being equal to the rulers of the eastern empire). The throne that was allegedly his, and almost certainly wasn't, is present in the upper level. But it's not really the history that interests me so much as the look of the thing, with wonderful mosaics on the ceilings and a general sense of opulance that actually - in contrast to most Catholic opulance - manages to look well-designed. I didn't bring my good camera on this trip, but here are some phonecam photos.

Exterior view showing a tall but narrow octagonal section between a larger gothic bit and a tower (which is actually part of the city hall)

Interior, looking down at the octagon. A two-level space with marble walls and an intricate mosaic floor, seats for worshippers.

Tall choir in a gothic style. Stained glass either side, golden reliquaries on stands in the centre.

Blue and gold mosaic ceiling with a hanging lantern. Vaulting between marble-clad columns.

Mudlarking - 26 - Eyeball

Jul. 1st, 2025 08:59 pm
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[personal profile] squirmelia
Low tide and lunch time coincided so I headed towards Custom House.

The tide was out enough that the foreshore was a good size, but there was quite a lot of broken glass in the left direction and some sinking mud furthest to the right, but in between, there were pebbles and bits of Bartmann jugs and tiles and other wonders.

I also saw a few bits of seaweed.

It was a very hot and sunny day and as I walked along the foreshore, I thought about how the day was just spectacular and how happy I was to be there by the river.

Later that evening, the tide was up and the steps at Blackfriars already had water on them but a man not wearing a shirt stood in the water, throwing stones.

I looked at my finds when I got home and was convinced that what I had previously thought was a clay marble was actually an eyeball. It looked sort of white with a pupil and with red veins, and for a while I didn't want to touch it, before I convinced myself again that it really is a marble.

I found some interesting sherds of pottery on the foreshore - nice raised patterns from Bartmann jugs, a pipe that has initials, Westerwald stoneware fragments, another piece of flint, and some Metropolitan Slipware.

Mudlarking finds - 26
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[personal profile] squirmelia
A goose waddled up to me, inquisitively. The other geese, mostly Canada geese and a few goslings, lay on the beach, and I tried to avoid going close to them. The swans also loomed large. It was as if the swans and geese were guarding a patch of foreshore. When the tide went out a bit, I cautiously moved between them and the foreshore, not wanting to scare them away. “It's okay,” I told one goose, ”it's okay”.

One man, who I thought must be a pro mudlarker, quickly reached the third beach along when the tide was still fairly up, but it seemed that when he got there, he just took his top off and sunbathed on his own private beach, and I'm not sure he was mudlarking at all. A second man tried to get to the third beach along but wasn't paying enough attention to the boats and the waves splashed at him and he ran back.

I saw an ant.

The Canada geese swam away in a line and I watched as they floated past on the waves.

A white butterfly fluttered around the foreshore.

People were paddling in the Thames.

I was picking up pottery sherds.

A man said, “hello”, but I wasn’t sure if it was to me, as my back was to him and the sound of the waves splashing on the shore was loud at that point, and I didn't look around.

I found a lot at Limehouse:

A button, a cowrie shell, a stone that says “oy”, the most squiggly piece of combware I’ve found so far, a sherd that would have said “Staffordshire England” and another sherd that says “pottery”.

I like the colours of the pottery and glass I find in Limehouse - the sherds that are pale pinks and blues and yellows, and the glass that is light blue.

Mudlarking finds - 25.1

Mudlarking finds - 25.2

Mudlarking finds - 25.3

Arty stuff in London

Jul. 1st, 2025 02:22 pm
[personal profile] swaldman
HOT

But aside from that, partly in search of a/c, I went to the Royal Academy summer exhibition. Mostly it was stuff that did nothing for me, but clearly thought very worthy. That’s OK, art is about personal taste. THe things I liked were generally £15000 or more, but that's also OK, as I didn't go in with the intention of buying anything - I know that buying art at the Royal Academy isn't for the likes of me.

Except, right at the end, there was a screenprint of wind turbines that spoke to me; it really captured the amount of energy in the air in a way that photos of a wind farm can’t. I bought a limited edition print for a just-about affordable amount.

The next day I met up with friend L and we went to see the musical of Benjamin Button. I was a little sceptical of this, but it won me over: An intimate show in a small theatre, and not a typical West End show. Musically it's folky, trying (and succeeding) to be anchored in Cornwall. There is no orchestra per se. The actors all play instruments - usually more than one - and switch between singing, acting, and playing, fluidly, sometimes within a line of a song. Must have been a nightmare to cast for. If I have a criticism it's that the lyrics don't have great depth, but that doesn't really matter. It's good music, it's good storytelling with impact and humour, it's nicely lit, and most of all it is really well directed - with the exception of the titular character it's an ensemble piece where the audience’s attention has to be guided slickly around the stage, and it accomplishes this with ease.
Worth a visit if this appeals to you. Act 2 is a tearjerker...

Mudlarking 24 - Trick or treat

Jun. 25th, 2025 09:21 pm
squirmelia: (Default)
[personal profile] squirmelia
It was nice to walk by the river on a hot day and the foreshore at Blackfriars was entirely mine to start with, but then it suddenly got busy with people: children picking up stones and throwing them into the river, people taking photos, people sitting on the beach, and so on.

I did not pick up the blue Croc that is still at the top of the Pile, nor the coat-hanger, nor the bricks that say Starworks on them, which it seems are from Glenboig in Scotland.

I did pick up a sticker that says “trick or treat” and a star that was also probably once a sticker, and my first Lego brick! It's a little blue one.

I also found a cute piece of combware, and two larger pieces of misshapen greenish sherds that look like they may once have been part of the same thing. At first I thought one of them was a crab.

Mudlarking finds - 24
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[personal profile] squirmelia
My plans for mudlarking on Saturday were thwarted when all my trains were cancelled. It took me three hours to get to Lincoln’s Inn Fields where I was going for a picnic so I didn't have time to mudlark as well.

On Sunday, I broke a bowl, dropped it on the floor and it smashed, and I held up a triangular sherd and wondered whether people would find the sherd from my bowl in the future, with a peri-peri flavour. I wondered if I should take it to the foreshore.

On the Sunday though, the trains were running again, so I headed to Blackfriars. The blue Croc was still there that I saw on Friday. I walked along a wooden plank that had washed up. It was a hot day but at that time I was the only one on the foreshore.

I picked up more small black tiles, but one had the corner damaged.

I heard music from a busker by the station.

I was no longer feeling how I used to when I started mudlarking, no feeling of Flow, no clearing of the mind. I wondered if I'd grown bored of it and should play more Ingress.

I seem to have trained my eyes to spot pottery sherds but I would like to find other things more as I have a lot of sherds now.

I found a cork and when I got it home I realised it said “Kylie Minogue” on it. I hadn't realised Kylie Minogue wine existed and you can buy it at Sainsbury's.

I found a red piece that could be a bit of brick or tile that looks like it says “Taylor” on it.

I found some glass that looked like it said “ord” on it. Ordinary?

I found a sherd that says “don” and presumably once said “London”.

Mudlarking finds - 22A

--
I headed to Wapping after that, as the tide got lower.

While I had been to the Prospect of Whitby (the Pelican Stairs) before I hadn't been to the other bit of Wapping - accessed through the New Crane Stairs.

The steps there were missing at the bottom, replaced with boulders, so I used the green slimy wall for balance.

I thought I was alone there on the foreshore until I noticed the people fishing, with their lines cutting off part of the shore. I walked in the opposite direction and walked along the foreshore to Wapping Pier.

I saw Canada Geese and goslings lying on the foreshore.

I passed one set of stairs that had been removed - Wapping Dock Stairs. There were a few concrete steps to start with but the metal stairs that were once there were no longer.

King Henry's Stairs at Execution Dock, near to Wapping Pier were actually just a metal ladder.

I walked back to the New Crane Stairs.

I saw a duck with five ducklings following, moving fast across the foreshore.

I saw a man in the Thames, water up to his shorts, spear fishing.

I enjoyed Wapping as it was somewhere new - maybe that was the problem earlier, lack of novelty at Blackfriars. It also felt vast and quieter without all the tourists walking past.

I found a lot of pottery sherds in Wapping - I am collecting blue and white ones currently for a mosaic, but there was one that looked almost like a nose, one with a letter ‘E’ and various pieces with patterns I haven't seen before. There was also some glass that had degraded and looked so pretty.

Mudlarking finds - 22B

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Abigail Brady

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