Passed this interesting-looking cafe in Bridport, Dorset in summer 2019, the last time I was in my native Britain:
I was in Bridport ('Port Bredy') following in the footsteps of Thomas Hardy's Fellow Townsmen from his Wessex Tales collection of short stories. Like many Hardy novels and short stories, Fellow Townsmen focuses on the cruel twists and turns of human fate.
Can't wait to get to Hardy country (Dorset/Wessex) again, this summer with a bit of luck.
My latest curry effort, a kind of beetroot madras:
This time, the trick was crumbling a beetroot burger into and adding curry paste to a pan of simmering vegetables, and then stirring everything for a few minutes to get a thick curry:
Kotek in his box in the kitchen watching my wife doing the washing up:
In reality, he was waiting for my wife to take some medication, because it contains the ingredient that all cats love, valerian.
The other day, Kotek was spotted opening a cupboard door trying to take the top off the medication bottle that contains the valerian. Thus, the medication bottle has been locked up somewhere, as human medication containing valerian can be dangerous for cats.
Because of the virus (or whatever it is) situation, I'm forced to ask when I will be able to visit my hometown of Bury, Lancashire again.
The Parish Church is one of the most prominent features in Bury town centre:
Next to Bury Parish Church, there is another building which appears in my visual imagination whenever I think of Bury:
Just think that the building on the left above is one of the most striking features in Bury town centre.
Also, near Bury Parish Church, there is the old market square below:
Can't wait to be able to have a pint of Real Ale and a curry in the Wetherspoons on the right-hand side of the main building above.
Passed this wonderful building a few weeks ago. I always recognise it as it used to be the Serbian Embassy where I taught a few lessons in about 2004.
This is the curry paste that I use to make my curry.
After simmering my vegetables for about half an hour, I crumble a vegetable burger into the saucepan to make things thicker and add 2-3 tablespoons of the curry paste above.
Below, there is a vegetable madras that I made:
I made the vegetable rogan josh below through adding a can of tomatoes to the mixture:
Never dreamed that one day, I'd be turning out such good curry.
Passed this Franciscan church a good few weeks ago before all the snow and very cold weather arrived in Warsaw/Poland. This was the first time that I had a close look at the crucifix in front of the church:
I'm now over 250 pages into Charles Taylor's A Secular Age which tells a long, complex story of how exclusive humanist (non-religious), blueprint worldviews have gradually risen throughout Western history to now dominate the contemporary world.
Overall, Taylor discusses a complex myriad of factors that have helped to bring about modern secularisation process that originate in medieval times, and at the moment, I'm at the point in the book where he focuses on how 17th and 18th century Enlightenment thinking provides significant roots of disenchantment which prompt secularisation in the future.
From the book, the following four interrelated roots of disenchantment from the Enlightenment stick out for me:
(i) The creation of a meta-topical public sphere which gave people many more ways of viewing and interpreting the world
(ii) A pursuit of mutual benefit in commercial activity which started to outweigh the value of religious/ transcendental truth
(iii) A movement away from heroic, warrior type behaviour towards more diplomatic and civil/polite communication process
(iv) A revolutionary sense that human beings themselves (rather than the grace of God) provide the motivation for seeking universal justice and benevolence in the world.
However, my own interest in religious conversion shows me that many modern people want to transcend the disenchantment of our secular age, and do this through religious-seeking. Thus, I can't wait to reach the part of the book when Taylor deals with this fascinating phenomenon.
I passed this memorial to Father Roman Indrzejczyka a few evenings ago:
Having passed the memorial, I had to look up who Father Indrzejczyka was. Through doing this, I found out that he was ordained into the priesthood in late 1956, and at one point, served as a priest at St. Alexander's church in Warsaw. Between 1986 and 2004, he was the parish priest at the Church of the Infant Jesus in Warsaw, which is very near the memorial above:
Tragically, at nearly 80 years of age, with many others, Father Indrzejscyka died in the Polish air disaster in Smolensk, Russia, on April 10th, 2010, as from late 2005 onwards, he was the Catholic chaplain to the Polish President, Lech Kaczyński who also lost his life in the disaster, of course.
Passed the Ronald Reagan stature in Warsaw the other week:
Despite it having been targeted by left-wing extremists recently, the statue looked okay.
Always thought that this small house in Canterbury must've been really warm and cosy to live in:
Lived in Canterbury for a few years between 1999 and 2003, and miss the labyrinthine streets there:
Below, there is a nice pub that I used to go in while studying at Christchurch University College:
And a church that was nearby:
When a new lamp arrived, Kotek was naturally curious about it:
He stood on top of it to study it more thoroughly:
Which resulted in him giving the ornate lampshade a bite:
Below, there is the building that greets you as you enter the Old Town in Warsaw:
Walking through the Old Town in the middle of the night allowed me to notice many beautiful buildings that I wouldn't usually pay much attention to:
Normally, during daytime, I would be too busy dodging tourists to notice such great buildings.
Of course, it's amazing that Warsaw Old Town was rebuilt after being destroyed by the Germans during the 2nd World War.
The Barbican below is a kind of dividing line between two halves of Warsaw Old Town:
Just after passing through the Barbican, you encounter two churches.
The church of St. Jack (below) is run by the Dominicans and is popular with young people:
Beyond the two churches, there are some other interesting buildings that I wouldn't usually focus on during the daytime:
And in the New Town Square of the Old Town, there is some kind of theatre:
Which seems to be guarded by some kind of mythological creature with a shield:
As always, it was good to see Christmas decorations still up deep into January:
Really enjoyed this nightime venture through Warsaw Old Town, as it provided a sense of enchantment without any hustle and bustle.
Had this American Pale Ale on Friday night.
Anybody who likes a beer with a hoppy taste, will love this APA. It's made by the Amber brewery in Bielkówko up near Gdańsk in northern Poland.
The Amber brewery only dates back to 1993, but it makes an interesting, wide range of beer.
The archcathedral of St. John the Baptist in Warsaw Old Town looked truly spectacular in the middle of the night:
Have just read that a church was originally built in the 14th century, and that much of it was destroyed by German bombing in 1944.
Still, like much of the rebuilt, post-War Old Town in Warsaw, St. John's Archcathedral is stunning:
Nearby, I saw an amber jewellery shop:
And what looked like another church right next to the Archcathedral:
These pro-life posters in Warsaw were out of reach when a left-wing mob passed them last Friday.
Love the interior of the Capuchin church, near the Old Town in Warsaw:
Was passing this church the other day, and it was possibly the first time that I'd properly noticed the encased Madonna and Crucified Son statue outside the church below:
The Warsaw Capuchin church is probably most famous for its crypt:
Where, before the virus situation, the monks fed poor people who formed a long queue outside.
Let's hope the Capuchins have come to find an alternative means of feeding those in need in Warsaw:
