Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Source : Doctor Who Christmas Cards at the BBC website  Awesome picture !!!!! I love the works of Vincent van Gogh and being both a Doctor Who fan and  a Vincent fan, I absolutely loved the Vincent and the Doctor episode (season 5) where Amy and the Doctor paid a visit to Provence to help Vincent fight an alien creature. Simply had to share this picture... Will have to remember where exactly I found it and link to it!

Source: Google

Having already posted a few shots on my blog, I guess saying I take photos of nature and animals is obvious. The only photos I've made so far this month are all at a friend's place - mostly kids playing and pets, which means these are personal photos and not ones I wish to share online. Some photo I would like to share are these: The photo was taken at Vogelpark Avifauna , a bird park in Alphen aan den Rijn here in The Netherlands in August last year. This amazing animal walked right onto the terrace we were sitting at, and while I have to admit I was a bit freaked out - really, how often does the wildlife walk to the table! - it was also amazing to see so many birds up close. Another photo I'd like to share is one I took in my home town. I love being near the water, and have lived near the sea for most of my life. My home town is sadly not near the sea, however it does have lots of water, which means lots of opportunities for photos! This photo was taken in July ...

Unbelievable. As most Dutch people today were enjoying the sunshine and the warm weather, a gunman went on a rampage in a crowded shopping mall and killed several people before shooting himself. At work today, I got a text message about what had happened from a friend who wanted to know if I was okay. We headed straight to one of the computers in our break room to find out what was going on. And were totally shocked. Violence is definitely not unknown in The Netherlands. We're an outspoken bunch and tend to speak before we think our words through. We argue, we fight, we scuffle, however we aren't very prone to simply killing in cold blood. There is also a lot of tension between Dutch people and immigrants, however mostly that's contained to gossip, nasty comments and people simply refusing to take the time to learn to understand each other. Violence like this - a gunman on a rampage - is something I hear about happening in the US, Iraq or Afghanistan; not this close ...

Reading "River Marked", the sixth book in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, I came across ley lines. There were several scenes set at the Stonhenge replica by Maryhill in Washington State, which got me thinking about the original Stonehenge, and books I'd read set in the British Isles by authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana Gabaldon and Manda Scott. Living in Europe now, I could actually take a mini-break and go visit some of the places described in the books I've read. Places like Tintagel, Stonehenge, and for instance locations from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I'm trying to come up with a list of places that I'd really really really like to go to. So far, the list is still a *very* long one and mostly still in the "what if" stage, but still...! Just knowing I can hop on a train or an airplane and see these places, or other amazing places like Berlin and Rome and Paris... It's a pretty wonderful feeling! I've g...

One really cool and unexpected "side effect" of reading Patricia Briggs ' Mercy Thompson books is learning lots of new and interesting things. One of the things I'm learning about is Washington State. I'm currently reading the sixth book in the series, River Marked, and wanted to get a better idea of the area Mercy and Adam went to. Now sure I could take the "short-cut" way of learning more and get my information from the Forum on the website , however doing a Google search tends to come up with lots of interesting info as well. I knew the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer were set somewhere in the US. I'd looked Forks up on a map once, just to get a general idea of what it looked like. What I didn't know was where it was in relation to other places. Such as Canada, state lines, and such. Reading Mercy Thompson meant doing more research into Washington State, and this book, being set mostly away from the Tri-Cities, meant checking out more ma...

I've been reading the first few books in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs these past few days. Some of the things talked about like vampires, werewolves and fae I have a pretty good understanding of through folk tales, fiction books, movies and TV series. Other things, I'm learning lots about! Some of the things I'm learning about are now also things I've Googled. What does a coyote look like exactly, or a VW Rabbit, and oh yeah - how about a map of the area the stories are set in?! As I'm looking these things up, I figured why not store the links / photos / descriptions in one easy place. And where better to store something than here, my very own blog! Coyote  First, of course there's Mercy. She's a walker. Something I've never heard of before. Patricia Briggs' website links to a forum (which I just discovered about 10 minutes ago... Oh Bliss !!!) that has a page with lots of info on walkers . Basically - she can shapeshift/...