Mifter Bat reminded us of his intense joy in seeing the well in the Petrovaradin Fortress. Wells don’t photograph well (as it were), so we took a photo of a poster about the well and here it is. In fact there were two wells, which makes it even better. Because Mifter Bat says that one of his favouritest jokes is “Did you hear about the two holes in the ground? No? Well, well”.
He also says, by the way, when we are moaning about rough roads, that he has never heard the joke about the two nuns cycling down a cobbled street. And because he is a small and innocent bat (although sadly fond of poo jokes), we will leave it that way.
Let’s get back to the #virtualsouvenir collection. Both of these were hard to leave behind – a Neil Gaiman book I don’t own and which would be very suited to the short attention span of the Gipsy Cycle Reader (get in, eat, lie down, read, wake up with book on nose, turn out light) and some great-looking teas. Serbians are very proud of their teas, these are not the perfumed collections you get in UK supermarkets but a proper collection of leaves. I was tempted to break the #virtualsouvenir rule on the grounds that these were in fact Supplies, but we are now in the land of no-kettles-in-bedrooms so I refrained.
Next point, we didn’t tell you about “icelab.me” in NoviSad. Am I the last person in the world to find out about this method of making icecream? Yoghurt, fruit/biscuits/yummy stuff etc are poured onto a frozen slab and mixed frenziedly and then scraped off into rolls. Wowee. Why are people not buying plane tickets to Novi Sad to eat this, I can only assume as I said that you can get this everywhere and I simply am Out Of Touch Auntie (as accused in the past). Or these people are really, really terrible at marketing. Or maybe, given the You Must Eat IceCream national rule that seems to exist, this doesn’t count as it is simply too much fun.
And finally, I have a question for you which I am certain keener brains and more artistic minds than mine have worked on. I took this picture of the “Cathedral” in Novi Sad (apparently it is Not A Cathedral but as everyone refers to it as such it will only cause confusion if I am more pedantic) because of the fabulous colours of the tiled roof/spire and the vibrant contrast with the solid blue sky. And as you can see the spire has come out at a strange wonky angle even though I “know” it is upright. So why am I “supposed” to photograph and paint it as upright? OK that is Art 101 please do not deluge me with “OMG Doris don’t you know that, hit forehead in simulated frustration”-type replies.
You can paint it any damn well way you please! But it is, in fact, both straight-up and leaning. Kinda. The ol' vanishing point issue. The camera reveals it's true image, but our little brains know it's not leaning and so we see it as vertical. But it isn't perpendicular to OUR horizon. It happens in the other axis too. (See: Photos: Long shot down straight road, converging lines) Crepuscular rays do the opposite (See: Flags, Japan). When we see God's own sun-rays spilling down through a hole in the clouds they appear to us to fan out. They are, in fact, parallel. It seems the sun is a long way off and the photons don't spread out much in a little hole in clouds way out on Earth. (There are other examples, but I like to use "crepuscular" when able.) So, paint it anyway that pleases you, because, well, it's your eyes and your brush, but don't be offended if people lean their heads.
That ice cream looks EPIC!