新年快乐

Last light of 2015. May the new year be one of justice, peace, joy.

Ahem

I'm sitting here between years: my Australian and Asian parts are already in 2016, and Europe will ring in the new year in just a few hours, long before the laggard West Coast. 3 days into next year I'll fly from California's sweet air to Shanghai's relatively (for China) sweet! 

Christmas is over!

I wonder what's happening in Crest Canyon? Took the new camera down to see the spirits of flora past, present and future.

Pewsillanimous

In the USA wealth doesn't free you from the fear of God. (Source)

Looking at you

Can't take their eyes off my new DMC-ZS50, 

even through a screen and window blind reflections!

 The day a phoenix came to Del Mar!

Del Mar beach, at several scales

Zoom zoom zoom

Guess who got a new camera (another Lumix) for Christmas! Can I really have got by with borrowed cameras and cell phones for 8 whole months?

Heilige Nacht

We celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th. Before greetings and carols and toasts and presents someone reads the Christmas story from Luke. This year I pulled Anne de Vries' Großes Erzählbuch der biblischen Geschichte off the shelf. Nobody remembers how we got it (it's as old as I am) but it tells the story well, resonant - as so many Christmas stories this year - with the plight of refugees today.

Complicated Christmas Eve light show at Torrey Pines State Reserve.

Natatorium

Should anyone else also have been wondering what the H-shaped set of pylons exposed on the sandless beach were, I nipped into the Del Mar Historical Gallery to check. It was almost certainly the "Natatorium"!

Bright edge

Long walk above and then along the mostly sandless beach from Torrey Pines to Del Mar at low tide... wonders animal, vegetable and mineral!