Nullum est iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius......

       

     (All Photos in This Post by Tavarua)

       

Each flower is a soul opening out to nature.

- Gerald De Nerval

       

       

None can have a healthy love for flowers unless he loves the wild ones.

- Forbes Watson

Natura Artis Magistra

Bahrain.......

(All Photos in This Post by Tavarua)

...visual perception is your minds eye...

Art enlightens our minds...our senses...and our human experiences are immeasurable...like the water in the river flows..the journey of life is to live...so simple is the answer....but few people live...as their expectations takes their minds away from life...in art you can lose yourself and find yourself as it is perhaps an expression of who we are....or a guide for our thoughts and emotions...and what we think is what we understand...

Change is not necessary for life....it is life.....

Without imagination...Your life is as dry as a desert .....

Kingdom of Bahrain....located in the Persian Gulf....West of Qatar and East of Saudi Arabia...

(All Photos in This Post by Tavarua)

...Pearls are classified to their color, size, shape and lustre.....unfortunately - there are no more pearl diving here in Bahrain as it ones was ....

Bahrain had some of the purest and finest pearls you could find due to the oysterbed locations close to the underwater - sweet water springs...the most excellent pearls was the "Jiwan".....Bahrain in Arabic means Two Seas and Bahrain has the first sea surrounding the island and the second is a sea of groundwater...

Of course there are/were other pearl classifications as well - the Yaka and Qolo which followed after the Jiwan......

Tobacco leaves....

from Oman.....

Traditional clothing from National Museum of Bahrain...

Destination......Bahrain...

(Photo by Tavarua)

“If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

- Henry David Thoreau

White Hunters - Jim Corbett (1875 - 1955) Officer, Author and White Hunter...

Jim Corbett (Edward James Corbett) British, born in India in 1875 in the foothills and jungles of the Himalayas which he explored from an early age,he killed his first leopard at the age of eighth. His jungle experience would later be practiced in his hunts for game, he was a man with a strong independent personality.  – Could we call him eccentric? 

A hunter of India’s many man-eating tigers for over a thirty year period. Tigers were his most sought-after prey and in 1906 he started receiving requests to assist where tiger attacks had taken place. Both the Indian villagers themselves and the government of the Indian state of Uttarakhand would petition for his assistance. His best-known book about his adventures is "Man-eaters of Kumaon.” In his books (he wrote a total of six books, three of them man-eater stories) he explains the skills how he tracked the man-eaters down.

Jim Corbett was known to never kill a tiger where he felt the animal was not a proven habitual killer. He was part of establishing the first Indian Tiger reserve in 1936. Corbett was a colonel in the British Indian Army. He served in both World Wars in the battlefields of Europe in First World War and as a jungle expert training soldiers in jungle warfare in the Second World War.

 India gained its independence and Jim Corbett settled in British East Africa in 1947. He died on 19th April 1955 and is buried at the base of Mount Kenya, Kenya, Africa

You asked.......What does "Under Canvas" mean???

Hunting Breakfast "Under Canvas"................

"Life Under Canvas"................ It is when you pack up your life in steamer trunks, cases, and kit bags and move on ......perhaps from continent to continent........Your "life under canvas"...Collapsible and compact furniture to be carried and assembled on site, these includes tables, folding chairs, desks, carpets, travel library beds/cots.....and your Tantalus.... we need those sundowners....

and you said ...It is 2010...Well, I will think and reflect over that........Cheers

Women who dared to take a different path - Lady Idina Sackville (1893 - 1955)......

..they say she was irresistible and had a seamless elegance to her – Lady Myrna Idina Sackville, daughter of Gilbert Sackville, 8th Earl de la Warr, her cousin was Vita Sackville-West (If you have an interest in V. Sackville-West read a "Portrait of a Marriage" by Nigel Nicholson). She was most definitely a rebel and one of those women who lived outside of her society's acceptance… After causing a society scandal due to her divorce and marriage to Josslyn Hay (later Lord Erroll) they moved to British East Africa in 1924, lived a reckless bohemian wild life. Known for her wild parties at her house Clouds, near Gilgil above Rift Valley which, was the center of the Happy Valley set.. When the sexual scandals of the Happy Valley reached the world's press, Lady Idina was the most famous and scandalous guiding light of them all. The “Happy Valley Set” was a group of British aristocrats and adventurers - expatriates - living in British East Africa who became notorious for their wild parties of wife swapping, promiscuous sexual encounters and drug abuse.

 She was married five times - 1923 to 1930 to Josslyn Hay - 22nd Earl of Erroll -  one of the oldest peerages in Scotland…………He was handsome, charming and a notorious womanizer ....... hereditary High
Constable of Scotland and Kenya's Assisstant Military Secretary. Later he was murdered in the early morning of January 24, 1941...but that is another story.... 

Smooth - Jamaican Blue Mountain ......Coffee........

Here I am sitting in my kikoy and at the moment drinking a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee....those canvas and leather cases traveling around with me has sometimes hidden treasures of small things you forget about..found another bag of Jamaica Blue Mountain....thought I was running out of some good coffee... I use to bring back to "Under Canvas" from  my trips to South America and Jamaica which is located in the Greater Antilles and the third largest island in the Caribbean after Cuba  It is extremely rough and mountainous and it is also immensely fertile and the beauty and cool climate of the mountains  provides a stunning backdrop for the exploration of the region’s hidden secrets.....Coffee......the cool temperatures,fog and rainfall in the mountains provides the coffee to grow and mature slowly. An island in the shades of tropical greenery, fantastic cooling rivers, valleys and rough mountains and a eco-system were you find a tropical flora, rainforest, cloud forest and pine....a beautiful shoreline with precious nice white sand beaches...Jamaica, once populated by Arawak Indians.....who called it "Land of Wood and Water". There are sugar, tropical fruit and coffee plantations and of course Jamaican Rum. An do not forget the sun faded grandeur of the british colonial houses (in 1655 it became British and later a colony).....

Actually, this post is just about a another cup of coffee....

maybe the best coffee in the world, a coffee synonymous with excellence, perfection. meticulous and precise harvest and the coffee in itself -  a smooth balanced exquisite taste that is complex, rich and elegant..........

Have a great day.....

d'objets d'art africain.......

(All Photos in This Post by Tavarua)

 I always liked the different tribal headrests and when I occasionally find a piece - I bring it back to "Under Canvas" and add them to my small collection(s). Dogon as well as the Tuareg nomads of Sahara (silver jewelry) - has inspired Hermès - for their simple and sophisticated collections. The Dogon people live in the central plateau region of Mali. Here is a few photos of a sculpted Dogon head/neckrest which, are traditionally used by the Dogon but also serves a symbolic purpose. Dogon art is very collectible and old pieces are hard to come by... 

In Alexandria you can find me at....

(All Photos in This Post by Tavarua)

"The Entrance to Kadoura"

the local seafood restaurant - Kadoura - for lunch.....Alexandria is definetly famous for its seafood...

You choose your own fresh Seafood - A delicious mix of Sea bass, Red smelt, Squid, Clams, Crabs, Prawns and Lobster - charcoal grilled and fried to your taste...The seafood is served with salads, baba ghanoush, hummos, pickled vegetables and bread.

The Kitchen

The stairs leading to the upper dining room....

Lunch table for a simple "traveller"....

 and then.....would you care for some refreshments at El-Salamlek Palace which was built in 1892 as a "Austrian" hunting lodge -  overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Montazah bay. Once surrounded by "jungle" and game for the pleasure(s) of hunting...