Posts filed under 'Photography'

France Photos part 1

If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that we set off on June 1st in a camper van. Below is an approximate map of wheer we went for the first five weeks of our trip, and below that some photos. From Briançon we went through the mountains over into Italy for a couple of weeks, I’ll put photos and a map of the next sections of the trip up soon.

Travels in France Part 1 map

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Wimereux, between Calais and Bologne has some interesting buildings. Wild rocket near Paris! Gecko in Bourg-en-Bress
We stayed at Chavannes, near Bourg-en-Bress. beautiful campsite by a river and lots of walks in the area. Driving through the mountains towards Geneva we saw this beautiful lake. Bright and colourful architecture in Geneva (yes, we popped over the border into Switzerland for a couple of days)
St. Johns Wort flower at a herb garden in Geneva Stayed in Taninges in the Alps for a few days, it rained a lot but on the nice days we had some beautiful walks
Sculpture in forest at Taninges
A beautiful lake not far from the campsite. No rain on our last day in Taninges so we went for a long walk into the forest. Saw all kinds of wildlife and mushrooms (not sure what they were though) plus some fun sculptures.
Interesting mushroom at Taninges Another mushroom at Taninges Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in the Alps
Wild mushrooms, Taninges. Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is in the Alps, about 15km from the border with Italy. It was amazingly beautiful…
More photos of Chamonix. We also found the best wild strawberries here.
Interesting flowers near Briançon
A final waterfall photo at Chamonix. Le Petit-Bornand-les-Glières was a random stop on the way to Annecy. Tiny campsite in a sleepy village, very pretty. In the mountains near Briançon, beautiful area and interesting town with great market and several good organic fruit and veg shops.

3 comments August 9th, 2010

Walk by the Rio Ebro

Today I walked from Tortosa to Xerta mostly along the Rio Ebro and then back along the Via Verde (green way) which is a dissused railway line which has been converted to a footpath, the roundtrip was about 30km.

Rio Ebro

Water wheel

Food for the day:

For breakfast I had a mix of sprouted seeds (hemp, sunflower and pumpkin) with soaked goji berries, figs and apricots

Throughout the day I had about 5 kakis, 8 satsumas, a few dates and cacao beans plus an orange and some carob pods I found along the way.

When I got back I had a custard apple and then a large salad with wild greens I picked during the walk, courgette, olives, a tomato, some fresh dulse, sprouted rye and some onion basil and olive cracker.

More photos on Flickr.

2 comments November 8th, 2009

Photos from Tarragona

I’m currently travelling in Spain and thought I’d post some photos from my trip.

Cactus flower

I’m in Tortosa in Tarragona Province and I was very supprised to see Booja Booja raw ice-cream for sale on an organic stall in the market. There were two organic stalls, one with fresh fruit and veg where I got some delicious cherimoyas (custard apples). The fruit here is just divine, eating lots of kakis (persimmon) at the moment. Tomatoes with lots of flavour, so different to the UK!

Add comment November 7th, 2009

Edible beech nuts from Epping Forest

I was walking in the forest when I heard a pitter-patter sound, like the sound of water dripping from the leaves after it has rained. But it hadn’t rained recently so I stood still and watched to see what was falling. Beech nuts! I’ve seen the empty outer shells before but never the actual nuts – I think the squirrels get them if you’re not quick.

Beech nut outer shell

The individual nuts were falling out of the outer shells onto the ground. I picked up a nut and found that unlike most nuts it was very easy to open with my finger nails. The nut looks a bit like a pine nut, and surprisingly it also tasted a bit like a pine nut.

Beech nuts in shells

I’ve done a little research and found that beech nuts (also called beechmast) are high in tannins and shouldn’t be eaten in large quantities. Soaking them for 8 hours or more and then rinsing them removes some of the tannins and probably makes them easier to digest.

Beech nuts

We opened and then soaked the ones we collected and made pesto with them, not quite as creamy as when made with pine nuts but still delicious.

Add comment October 8th, 2009

Photos from Fresh Food Festival, Sweden

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, we went to Sweden and Lithuania with a day trip to Denmark – I’ll post photos from the rest of the trip soon, but I will start with the Fresh Food Festival, Scandinavia’s first raw food festival.

There’s only one place to start, and that’s the food – it was amazing! As you can see from the photos, it was top quality gourmet raw food – pizza, nori, flax crackers, pates, soup, etc, etc. The day started with yoga, then breakfast of a selection of fruits. Throughout the days there were a selection of talks, given in various languages with an English translation, a wild food walk and some food demos.

Apart from the food, the best part of the festival was connecting with raw fooders from a different part of the world – I know what is happening in the UK and US raw food world but I never really knew about the growing network just across the water!

The coast was about half an hours walk away and we found lots of local wild food including raspberries, red currants, various greens and a new berry for me, the June Berry (Amelanchier lamarckii), which is delicious, I’ll be on the lookout for that here in the UK. I have some photos but they are on Jolita’s camera so I will post them as soon as I can.

While I’m on the subject of festivals, don’t forget the Funky Raw Space of Love Gathering coming up very soon (15 to 18th August)…

Add comment July 23rd, 2008

Edible Wild Flowers – Colour and nutrition for your salad

Spring is here, brining with it lots of wild flowers, many of which are edible. Here is a selection I found yesterday. Click on an image to enlarge.

Hawthorn flowers are a good flower to start with, they don’t have a strong flavour. White dead nettles are another easy flower, not too strong and can be quite sweet. They are not related to stinging nettles so they won’t sting you!

Dandelion flowers can be a bit bitter and can take a bit of getting used to, but I like them now. Wild garlic (ramsons) flowers have a delicious sweet garlicky flavour while Jack by the hedge flowers have a stronger flavour – garlic and mustard with a little bitterness.

As always, take care when picking wild food and make sure you are certain about what you are eating.

1 comment April 23rd, 2008

Spring Flowers

The wild garlic (ramsons) is just coming into flower. The leaves are great in salads or made into pesto.

Wild garlic with flowers

The flowers are delicious, they have a strong garlic flavour with a nice touch of sweetness and creaminess.

Wild garlic flowers

Tulips are beautiful, this is taken in Nunhead Cemetery. According to Twinkel’s article in the latest Funky Raw magazine they are edible but somehow they look too good to eat!

Tulip flower closeup

I don’t know what this is but it is very pretty. It’s in Peckham Rye Park.

Peckham rye pink flowers

Close up of pink flowers

(Click on any photo to enlarge.)

Add comment April 16th, 2008

Nature Photos at Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery

Here are some photos I took about a week ago when the sun was shining. Click on any image to see the larger version.

Bluebells at Brockley and Ladywell Cemetry

Crocus

Primrose

Ladybird

Add comment March 22nd, 2008

Update and Festival Photos

AnastasiaIt’s been a while since I last posted, I’ve been at the Funky Raw festival and then Festival of Life. Back to my reasonably normal life now so maybe a few more posts! One of the things I love about my job is that I only sell products that I really value myself and want other people to share, so I am really excited that I am now selling Tony Wright’s book Left in the Dark and the Anastasia series by Vladimir Megre. Both are massively important in different ways (follow the links to read more about both). Tony’s book explains from a scientific view what is happening with our brains and Anastasia gives us inspiration for living in harmony with nature.

Here are a few photos from the festival, I’ll put a full album on the Funky Raw site soon, if you have any photos you want me to include, please send them over.

Face painting at Funky Raw
Beautiful face painting by Mary

Oriental Food Preparation Demo
Chan Yu’s Oriental Food Prep demo (assistedby Carme)

Music by fire
Music from Harmony by the fire

Add comment September 7th, 2007

Spring is here!

The weather over the weekend was beautiful! I went walking and took these photos:

brockley-crocus.jpg

brockley-crocus-fly.jpg

brockley-crocus-closeup.jpg

brockley-daffodils.jpg

1 comment February 6th, 2007

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