A garden can become a place to surprise you

It's not like I woke up one morning, and they were there, but I knew something was growing, and that was also something I've never planted myself, or at least that was something I didn't remember having purchased for my garden.

I'm talking about two bushes of roses.

I always loved those flowers in my life, and they've always had a special place in my garden:

Yet, when I moved first in this house and the garden wasn't at all set, I planned a special place for them, together with other species of flowers to create a lovely bouquet of colors and scents. Now, I also know what kind of roses I've chosen, and white roses weren't much on the list.

A few years later, something started to grow, and I was wondering whether it was one of those roses which I thought they died out and found new life from the roots I hadn't remove, or they were something new. I didn't eradicate then because they were not harming, and they filled up nicely the empty spaces. Now, thy never made any flower, so I was really wondering about their origin and their specie.

I did wait, and meantime, I kept trimming them every fall and spring. They were growing nicely yet no flowers.

This until this summer, when finally they started to bloom and to show their beauty. White roses:

Indeed those were roses I've never planted myself; the only explanation is that the seeds have been brought to my garden by the wind or the birds.

I was pleasantly surprised and happy to see them blooming after many years of just having the bush. I cannot say which kind of specie they belong to, as I haven't purchased in the first place, but I believe they make a great addition to my garden.

Once again, when you let nature help you with the choice of flowers for your garden, you will undoubtedly get fantastic surprises.

Do you have a garden? What do you plant there?

Stay safe and tuned!

Something to lighten up the mood

Recently, the coronavirus that has been spread like an oil patch in the calm sea has taken over social media. Undeniably, talking about it it's positive and gives he right awareness to a problem that touches everyone on this planet.
Nevertheless, as in many other cases, there is a lot of misinformation spreading on the internet. People are strongly suggested, for their own sake, to follow only the recommendations of their local healthcare institutions. Refrain from believing that lemon will save you from the virus or to start producing at home a cure that might compromise your health, and also your life.

Today, I wish instead to bring something to light up the mood of the people. It's my contribution to lighten up the mood and give a safe medication: A smile.
I know there isn't any proven medical effect on diseases, but if you are quarantined at home, having something that brings a good mood is better than being reclused and sad.
I have two things to offer:
My pictures, a passion that has been with me since I was a little child, and my books.
So, today I will share them with you, and I hope you will like them:

Photography is also a fuel for my writing. 

What I see, inspires me to write the next story. It can be a scenery, a bird, or a particular shade from where flowers seem to glow with their own light.

It's on the people I meet during my travels or the stories they tell. Whatever it is, my books reflect my experiences, not just as a traveler, but as an observer of this planet.

If you, just like me and many others, are forced to stay home and be in quarantine because of the virus, I guess there isn't a better way to pass the time then by reading a good book. 

Something that can bring you far away from the dullness and sadness of forced confinement. 

Better than toilette paper! 

You can find them here:

https://www.amazon.com/author/pjmann

or visiting my website:

https://www.pjmannauthor.com

Take care of yourself and of those close to you be them your neighbor, your family or the elderly lady you haven't seen today.

It's a magical world!

Today I am going to tell you about one of my passions besides writing: photography.

I believe there is a very close connection between all forms of art. In my case, the three things that go hand in hand are writing, traveling, and photography.

How do they relate to each other? Well, writing needs inspiration right? What better inspiration than visiting new places, experiencing cultures, meeting people, reading other countries' newspapers.

Photography offers inspiration. This one helps me to think outside the box, see the world from different perspectives, and clear my mind whenever I feel stuck with a page or chapter.

Here, the weather started to be quite unstable. It began with a chilling period, when we had the first snow, to the time we are now with temperatures that raised far above the seasonal average.

Despite this, during this winter, I was lucky enough to have a camera with me right when I needed it and could get some interesting shots that helped me going through the last few weeks.

Due to stress at work, I couldn't proceed with my writing, so I just got out and took a walk in the forest.

What I found was really stunning, and I spent most of the time taking shots of those crystals. 

The perfect harmony between the white of the snow, ice, and the blue of the sky (believe me, it's quite rare) was extremely inspiring. I could have spent the whole day there.

 And that was exactly what I did. Not caring about the temperature, I stayed the whole day out, to take pictures, and admire the sceneries.

I also got the chance to take a shot of a hawk, who was taking a rest on a tree, checking the food situation on his territory.

Undeniably, days and walks like this give a lot of inspiration, besides offering the chance to unwind from the stress of everyday life. 

With those images, I greet you for this weekend and wish you a great day.

A city and its Jazz festival: Pori - Finland

Finnish Summer is a short season, but full of interesting events all over the country that give the chance to rediscover places we’ve never been, or we’ve skipped during our journeys.

One of these is the city of Pori, located on the west coast of Finland, and founded in 1558 by a Swedish duke, who became king of Sweden in 1568 with the name of John III. In the beginning, the residents were only 300, and they were not voluntary residents, who were relocated from other places.

Nevertheless, they soon recognized the advantages of their new city and soon started profitable trades, which the most important was the building of ships.

During the years from its foundation to modern times, Pori has suffered a few conflicts; it has been destroyed and rebuilt, but generally, it has lived a fairly quiet existence.

Nowadays the city has a population of 84318 inhabitants, which makes it the 11th largest city of Finland with a density of population of 101 inhabitants per square kilometer.

The city itself is something recommended to be visited and seen, because of its beautiful parks, cozy urban area, and summer happenings.

One of these is quite famous and attracts tourists from all over Europe.
I am talking about the Pori Jazz festival, which was established in 1966 and is one of the major jazz festivals in Europe and one of the largest cultural events in Finland. It is a festival that lasts for nine days, and it is held in July, the warmest (we are stretching here a bit) month in Finland, together with the main holiday season.

Many international artists performed here such as B. B. King, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Kanye West, Santana and yesterday Christina Aguilera.

The festival is held all over the city but mainly in Kirjurinluoto Park, which arena can hold an audience of more than 30000 people.

Pori is about 220 km away from Helsinki, but regardless this, yesterday after work we took our car and left for the concerts that were scheduled for the day, and we spend the day in the beautiful atmosphere of the park.

Despite the fact that we returned home at 3:00 am when the sun started to rise (well it didn’t really set), I considered it a great way to start the weekend, and I am wondering how could I wake up after five hours of sleep without feeling tired at all. That must be the magic of the open-air concerts.

After the break of the Blog-Hop

Good Morning everybody.

The Blog-hop gave me the chance to take a short break, from this blog, and the reason why I didn't post anything during this two weeks, was to make sure that whoever participated to the competition could find the blog right away without going to search through the directory.
Now that the blog-hop has concluded I would like once again to thank all those who participated and joined the fun.
I really hope you also found some great read between those offered.

So what’s new here? Well, as a wandering writer, I can feel now the time for the big trip to Africa arrive. This journey that will bring me to the core of the voodoo practices will not just be inspiring for the topic I can show you on this blog, but also for a novel idea I had in my mind.
The genre will be a paranormal thriller and will bring you in the heart of black Africa searching for its mysteries and cults.
As a traveler, this is going to be an incredible chance to return to places I love and to meet new people, discovering new places and cultures to enrich myself, so the countdown is now set for about a couple of months.
One thing I have started to get excited about is aerial photography, and for this purpose, I have got myself a drone.

Now, I have never ever had a drone in my hand, and I had no idea about what to expect or whether it would have been easy to learn using it or not. For this reason, I decided to start with something that would have been cost-effective, suitable for a beginner but enough developed to get started with aerial photography.
The first thing I had to do was orienting myself in the jungle of the offers and see what actually would have been the best budget drone. Millions were the offers ranging from a few bucks to thousands of bucks. Now, as a first experience, I kept my budget low, but I wanted to have something that could fly for longer than just five minutes. I also wanted it to have a decent camera.
With these requests, it started to be obvious that I had to invest a minimum something like 300 $, which was already out of my “beginner’s budget.”
Like I always say, never stow at the first offers, search and get as many information as possible, particularly when you are approaching something new. The best is always giving yourself the time to study and gather as many information as possible, so to be able to get better oriented on your choices and the offers.
That said, after a few months of search, I have finally found something that could suit my needs. The drone costs 52 $ has a 21 minutes flight time, voice control, HD camera. Practically something I could definitely start with and eventually also fall in love.
Here is the little fellow:

Let’s say that the first approach with it was a bit dramatic but the drone is revealing itself is resistant even to the clumsy user like me, and despite the initial crashes, it still works like a charm.
I would like to spend some more time about the adventures of a clumsy beginner drone operator, but it might require a longer blog. Therefore, to avoid getting you bored reading an endless blog, I will break this topic into, at least a couple of blogs, describing my first experience from zero to excitement.
Stay tuned!

Spring is here and it's time to grab back the camera!

Photography has always been a big passion for me, and I cannot really pinpoint a real moment from where it started. Maybe it was because my father brought me out to take pictures and then together we were developing them in our darkroom.
Yes, those were the times when digital cameras were not even invented, and if you wanted to have your pictures, you needed to take good shots, of which quality you could know only once you’ve spent money on developing them. The worst part was when you were on a journey, and you took something like 200 pictures, and then when you came back home and developed them… only 10 were of decent quality (LOL).
Despite the fact that we lived in Italy and the weather is fairer than Finland (where I do live now), my father hated winter, and barely wanted to go out on those gloomy days, not even for taking pictures.
Spring and Summer were the times when we were always out together, at least until I started to hang around with my friends and have other interests too.
Life has brought many changes in my life, but there is one thing that remained the same, and that is the passion for photography.
My favorite subjects are either flowers, insects or other animals, and the moon.
Here are some of the pictures taken at this beginning of Spring:

However there one fellow which I love to photograph, and it is a wild hare that took his home in my yard. Now there are several hares and wild rabbits that come spending some time in my yard, but this one is among the others my favorite. I also gave him a name Pörrö (hairy/fluffy. Some dictionaries wrongly translate this word as ‘pussy,’ which is not!).
Here is he:

Spring offers indeed limitless possibilities for those who love being in the outdoors and also to those who need a reason for exercising. Most of the best subjects are found inside the forest, where you cannot access with a car, so you need absolutely to go walking, and in many cases also climbing.
A challenging subject is the moon, I am looking after the perfect shot of a full moon, but it seems like I have to get a better objective for that purpose . In the meanwhile, I have taken great shots of the half moon when in very dark conditions, so be prepared and go far from the city and source of light not to get the pictures flawed.

Something I am still learning is how to take good shots of stars. I guess that for that I need to try when I am in places with low or no human settlements. The incoming trip to Africa might give me that possibility, and honestly, I cannot see the time.