Square Sky 29: Happy New Year!

Let’s end the Square Sky December challenge with a bang, not a whimper. Fireworks for New Year’s Eve! (I’m sure other people will have the same idea.)

Huge thanks are due to Becky for organising and hosting this challenge. I found it “challenging” enough to source and schedule my own photos, I can’t imagine also visiting and linking to everyone else’s!

Here is a recap of all my Square Sky photos. It includes some bonus ones that I uploaded but didn’t post, included here to make the columns even.

Bondi surf life savers practising their rowing — at 5:47am.

Not an office building, but an ocean liner.

A new day dawns.

One of the observatories perched atop Mauna Kea.

That’s Botany Bay container port on the opposite shore.

A gloomy day at sea begins.

Taken from the dive/snorkel boat I was on.

Heavy grey clouds with a glow of light.

The falling rain is visible over the band of sunset colour.

Sky reflected in wet sand, Bondi Beach.

Eye level with clouds.

Upside-down sky!

Where’s the pot of gold??

Sunrise over the sea.

Palm trees, water, beach umbrella, stunning sunset.

Sunrise over Mauritius, 2013

Random Fridays: The 12 grapes of New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve and the 12 grapes of luck.

Two years ago, my parents and I saw in the New Year at the Gran Hotel Ancira, in Monterrey, Mexico. It was a sit-down dinner event with a live band and dancing. We were puzzled by the grapes on the table — each place had a wine glass with 12 grapes. Our Mexican table mates explained that it was a tradition to eat the grapes at midnight, and for each grape you had to make a wish. In Spanish, it’s called Las doce uvas de la suerte, “The twelve grapes of luck”. I’ve read that you are meant to eat one grape on each stroke of midnight, but these grapes were huge! We’d have choked trying to eat them so quickly.

Happy 2016 to everyone! May your own 12 wishes be granted.

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