Good News for Bulls in Spain!

Normally I had planned to publish an other post but I've just received a news mail with *this good message. I really find it a relief.

Long ago (1970) I attended a bullfight in Barcelona and I can't really understand that someone can look at this barbaric event with pleasure. I can assure you I was not the only one who was really shocked to behold it.

I also can't understand that there's still so much cruelty towards other animals in even advanced countries. In this area they still seem to live there in the medieval times.

I find the dancing bears such a poignant case of it. Every time I see the television spot of the WSPA I turn the channel selector to an other channel. I can't see this cruelty and lack of empathy no longer.

How good that there exists Charity Causes for Animals and that there are people with the heart at the right place to support them.

We all can make a difference in the life of an animal.

As you can *see, even a signature can mean a lot!

PS:The promised post : "To a Dear Blogger Friend" will follow soon.

I've Updated my Blog

Actually I got this idea because sometimes I read other blogs with lots of interesting topics and I find it a pity that mostly you can only see their recent posts. If you don't dig deeper into the blog you will never know what they have written in the past, you will never meet the stories that might interest you.

Because I wouldn't like that my stories from the past would go lost or would disappear into thin air, but also for making the older stories of my blog more accessible to my readers I've made an adjustment as you can see below the posts.

I've placed a link within a link.

I find this a good widget, because so maybe also casual readers will be interested in what I have written in the past.

For the readers or followers who've missed some posts in the past or if you're dropping in for the first time, I hope you can find a subject that can captivate you.

Many topics to choose from, I think.

Enjoy reading!

PS: Oh oh, I see often the same posts on the links. That's something I can't determine myself folks!

The Place of the Scary Experience

I would like to show you pictures of the place where “it” happened the day before yesterday.

I show them to you to give you an idea of this area.

I couldn't find so much information in English, so I've translated a little part of what I found for you. The little cottage or little farm is called: Boshuisje. Literally translated: “little house in the wood”.

It's located and hidden in the middle of a beautiful nature reserve called: Zoerselbos. It's over 400 hectares wide. It has unexpected hiking and biking opportunities and a colorful variety shows of forests, meadows and fields. Very special is the protected brook the Tappelbeek, a medieval irrigation system. Typical are the meadow creeks, also a medieval agricultural system developed and improved over the centuries by the Cistercians (monks). Rare flora and fauna await discovery in an area that formed the backdrop for the conscripts, a werewolf and the gang of Zoerselbos from the books of the Flemish writer Hendrik Conscience.

Halfway in the 19th century (around 1833) Hendrik Conscience, the man who learnt his people read, regularly visited this area and the Loteling told him his story in this Boshuisje.

They say to be careful, because if what the elderly are saying is true, there is still a werewolf roaming about..:):)

Ha ha actually, I'd almost believe it!

There was more info, but actually it was too difficult to describe it to you and to translate it because they talk about so many local things which you probably don't know.

Therefore – I better show you the images, I think they speak for themselves.

Boshuisje

The interior

The terrace in the backyard of the Boshuisje where we had our lunch.

The couple was lunching under the umbrella far too the right, while the horses were grazing there outside, tied to the pole, just behind the hedge.

We had lunched under the umbrella left of them.

We had much luck, we went out through the gate there only a few minutes before the horse stampeded through this gate.

This -- just in case you want to know the direction towards the North Sea!:)

I regret that I couldn't find larger pictures of the forest and the environment. If I still find something better I will show it.

*****

As an encore: I just discovered these larger images, and I think they will give you a better impression.

The rules of Zoerselbos.

I know – it isn't so spectacular, but this is the simple countryside in Belgium in the *Kempen
*that's how the arae around Zoerselbos is called.

We're living in a very small country, so everything's in proportion.

Don't you agree that something small can also be beatifull?

Thank you for visiting the Belgian countryside.

See you!

Of course...... if the werewolf is no longer roaming about.:):)

A Very Scary Experience

Today, at the moment that I started to write this post, this happened less than half an hour before, and believe me I stood shaking on my feet.

At this time the weather is very nice here, actually it's even a little too warm. The last few days we had temperatures from 38° Celsius in the shade. It's even so hot that a few numbers of our outside thermometer melted from the heat (they are made of plastic).

So – we decided to go for a lunch in a nearby tavern. It's located in the middle of the woods in a very old little cottage. It's really a beautiful quiet and natural surroundings, a place to become at ease in nature.

When we arrived there on the terrace there also arrived a man and a woman on their horses. It were really two beautiful tall horses, they were very at ease.

The man tied the horses to a pole in the meadow close by, only approx. five meters away from the terrace.

While we sat there waiting for our lunch I said to my husband: “I only hope that those horses don't attract stitch flies”. I said this because I react very allergic to such a stitch. (I can't find the exact translation for it, but we call this fly a: Daas. It gives a very nasty stitch. Actually they are very visious. A normal fly you can hear but this one makes no noise at all, you can't hear it buzzing, and you are bitten before you know it. They are also thinner than a normal fly. I wonder if you know them and how you call them. Do you have them also at your place?)

After we had our lunch we decided to do a little stroll in the woods. Meanwhile the man and the woman were still lunching and their horses stood very at ease grazing in the meadow.

We began to walk along a small path. Left of us was a small ditch and left of that ditch a wider path.

While we were chatting to each other, we were suddenly startled by cries of people and the neighing of horses on the background.

Suddenly we saw one of the horses running on the wider path. It rushed straight at us, it had stampeded. It dragged the pole to which it was tied with it. That really startled the animal, the pole hit in all directions, between the bushes and against the legs of the animal.

It all happened so fast, we both stood there, not knowing which side to choose to run away. I yelled at the horse, trying to send it to another direction, but despite this it rushed right towards us.

That was such a scary moment folks - when I think back on it I almost start shaking again!

Then – we had good luck with the animal's “bad luck”.

It crossed the ditch towards our side and then it stumbled in full speed and fell - head over heels into the ditch. It lay there with its feet up in the air.

That the horse stumbled was our luck, I mustn't think what could have happened otherwise.

The poor animal - it was totally in panic but it didn't take long before it stood back on its feet.

Very shocked it rushed off, now on the wider path, while the owners now also came running on. I yelled at the man that his horse had fallen head over heels into the ditch - he had not seen that this happened. They were now trying to catch the second horse, it also had chased away but it wasn't so scared as the first one.

Luckily the woman could catch this one very soon. The man kept running behind the first horse but it took no long before we couldn't see it no more. The fact that he had no transport (they arrived on the horses) made the situation very worrying. The wider path on which the horse rushed away eventually ends on a motorway.

Oh oh – I really had to do with the animal.

Then there arrived a man on a bike and he offered him his bike to search after his horse.

Meanwhile, someone had taken pity on the second horse and yet another cyclist also lent the woman his bike to search after her horse.

After a while – they both had disappeared out of our sight.

Oh -- I wished that there wouldn't happen an accident.

Imagine that the horse would hit a car in panic, this wouldn't be the first time that such thing happens. Then also some people would get hurt. I even wouldn't think on this.

Still very shocked we went back from were we came, and then I found one of the horse's stirrups still attached to its leather belt hanging in the bushes. I went to the man who had taken care for the second horse and handed it to him.

When we drove away with our car we were not at ease because it could be possible that we might encounter the stampeded horse but except from its “excreta” on the road we didn't see abnormal things. We wondered what would have happened.

And - what do you wonder?

Perhaps you know me already a little.

Maybe you can guess.

I was not at ease before I knew what happened to the poor animal.

Before I could end this post (hm hm:) - it takes a little longer than when you write a post) I phoned the tavern and they had good news.

The owners had found their horse and it was OK. Probably it was bitten and frightened by the nasty stitch of such a “stitch fly”, such one where also I was so afraid for.

Wasn't this a lucky end for the *three of us!

That good news – made my day!

Have a nice day too -- without such an encounter! :):)

See you!

PS: Of course: the three of us are, the horse and we both!

Problem Solved

LOL!!!

Wouldn't that be great if that was possible.

Yesterday I wrote the post about the problems with publishing pictures with the thought that It would take some time before I could solve the problem but it was much easier than I thought.

Actually if you know what and how to do it – then “afterwards” it's of course always easy. Thanks to the “blog-doctor” I could correct the errors very quick. It's so simple to do folks. Now the pictures always drop at the right place, with the possibility to enlarge them and there occur no more empty spaces in between.

Actually it often frightens people (thus also me) to work with things that they (or I) don't know, and working with the HTLM codes really doesn't seems easy, it really puts me off to do something wrong.

But I think if I don't try new things then I will never proceed and improve, and although I'm old I'm still eager to learn.

So – if you want to know more about it, I have written a very simplified “how to” about it.

(So simple that even I understand it:):).LOL)

Just ask me if you are interested in it, then I will explain it in a very easy way.

Oh oh, I'm breaking my Head!

Again I have problems with placing the images, and this time in the new post of Pipke's life story. This time I can't enlarge them.

And – oh oh, now I discovered what goes wrong.

Because I have to publish so many pictures in one post and I also have to place them between the text at the exact place, I must drag them and thereafter drop them there where I want to place them and that's the problem. "Dragging and dropping", It breaks the HTLM code of the picture.

I'm trying to correct it. I found some advise on the site below.

Maybe it can also help you if you have problems.

http://tips.blogdoctor.me/2007/10/tips-on-pictures-in-blogger.htm

To find the correct page there click on: CLOSEST MATCH.

I will adjust the new post in Pipke's life story as soon as possible, at least if I'm capable to understand what to do.

First I must study the text from the blog-doctor very thoroughly. I hope I will succeed in it.

Wish me good luck I would say!

New Things are Certainly not Better

Actually – this is my experience.

Not so long ago I started working in the new blogger Editor with the thought that this would be easier for me to work with, but I do regret that I must say that for me this is certainly not the case.

I went to the new editor because I need more time than someone who's native language is English to write down my text, so writing in Draft is a very good solution for me.

Actually the thing that I really could appreciate in the new editor was that I could work in draft and that I could publish the post on the last date that I worked in it, (and as far as I know that's not the case in the old editor).

At first everything seemed to work well, but as I said before from the moment that I started to publish pictures the misery began.

I wanted to place them in the center of the page and although I clicked on the correct preference it sometimes only appeared on the left. I also had a problem with the size of the pictures. Often when I chose “small” it appeared on the post “large”. There also appeared empty spaces there where they were not supposed to be. What's also very annoying is that when I saw the post in draft and in preview everything seemed to be OK, but it's not “what you see is what you get”. After publishing I had to change the post or even had to redo the whole post because it was such a mess.

Because I had so many problems I went back to the old editor and now “I hope” I will have less problems.

Maybe it can be that I'm not skilled enough in blogging, so I'm going to figure out what I'm doing wrong, although – there are many people who have the same problem as I.

It's only a pity that I can't use the draft in the old editor as long as I don't know "how" and "if" it's possible to change the date. Actually – I found so many questions around this subject on blogger-help, but (till now) no one could give a solution for it. Many bloggers who use the old editor have tried to change the draft date but didn't succeed in it, they even had problems with publishing in Scheduled.

Actually I have yet one other big obstruction and that's the timezone. I'm living in Europe and thus that's a problem. They say that you need to change the date of the draft just before you publish it, but the timezone needs to be correct and I don't know which timezone I must take on to be correct.

I can't find the answer on blogger-help, so I would appreciate it if someone who knows more about it can give me the answer to this question.

I'm always ready to learn, so I still hope that I will be capable to use the new editor in the future.

Blogger is a wonderful tool, but you must know how to work with it, you must know the ins and outs. So I still have a lot to learn.

Thanks for your attention.

PS: To my followers! Sorry for the mess on your dashboard. Probably you have seen that I was experimenting with publishing posts in Scheduled but also in this I didn't succeed.

Wrrrrr! I'm only angry at myself folks!

Have a good weekend!

A Very Intriguing Subject

The Human Brain.

As you know I'm not a real book reader and you know *why. I prefer to read about various topics in magazines and I especially like the columns.

This week I've read an article in my weekly magazine (I don't want to make publicity so I won't tell names). I only can tell you that it's a magazine with all kind of interesting articles. It goes from easy subjects such as sports to, arts, politics, knowledge, culture, economy, medical science etc.

On this last subject I've read a very interesting interview with the american neurologist Kent Kiehl. The subject was: Psychopaths.
It's a pity, but I can't find the same text of the interview for you translated in English.

It gives a whole other view on this kind of criminals, and now they really know for sure – and they even can proof – that their brains don't function like normal people. Probably they will never be in the possibility to cure those sick minds. How to deal with them will be a very difficult and precarious point.

In the interview – Hare, a colleague of Kent Kiehl says: they understand the rules and the usual meaning of the terms "good" or "wrong", therefore they can be held accountable for their actions. He compares psychopaths with color blinds. He says: a color blind which stands in front of a red traffic light doesn't recognize the color – but he knows that the upper light is burning.

Actually it's not easy for me to describe the interview, so I better leave it to the experts to explain it to you. If you are really interested to know more about it than I invite you to see on this link.

(See also: Explore The Series.)

The human brain is something that has always intrigued me.

We humans are privileged to have such well developed brains. Unfortunately there can go so much wrong with it and the people who have these abnormalities don't want, or often can't see their handicap. It's also so that mostly they can't help the way they are because of the malfunction.

They have a sick mind, so – how must they treat them? Do they deserve the dead sentence?

Will they ever find a cure to heal them?

In the interest of society – I do hope they will ever succeed in it.

The human brain is fascinating!

I hope it could captivate you.

PS: *Why: see here.