The first week back after travelling is always a bit slim for blogging, with emails to read and reply to, voicemails to clear and features to write. So, it’s best just to assume it’s been a busy one, although I did get out to take some pictures today, and I’ve spent a little time fiddling with the pictures I took in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

So, here’s the week in pictures.

This afternoon, I headed down to Thurrock. Specifically the grottiest bits on the industrial estate offset from the edge of Lakeside, down past Ikea and out where nobody usually goes, unless to work in the soap powder factory. Why? To hunt out the preserved church, in the little wildlife conservation area, in the shadow of the Procter and Gamble factory.

…and after that I popped into a bookshop, for no other reason than I was passing it, and found a copy of the Rough Guide to eBay on the shelves. I didn’t realise it was out yet, so picked up a copy and checked my credit on the flannel panel. And there it was.

I took 1000 or so pictures during my three weeks away, so it’s obviously going to take a while to go through them all, but of the first few I’ve opened up and looked through I quite like this one of a rather gappy wooden bridge by a monastery in Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria.

And I quite like the House of Spies from Bucharest, Romania. It’s not actually where the secret service is based - that was beside the Communist Party headquarters, where the first shots of the revolution were fired - but is actually the building from which all of the country’s national newspapers are produced.

A common sight in eastern Europe, but particularly in Bulgaria, is A4 posters giving the names and details of people who have recently died. They’re on trees, outside churches, on the walls of buildings… basically anywhere local to where the person used to live or work. On big buildings you can get quite a lot in the same place, as obviously a lot of people will be dying in the same place, as in this example from a building in Gorna Orjahovica.

And, by text message, a picture of what will one day be my nephew or niece. Which means some time next year I’m going to be an uncle.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 7th, 2006 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Journal, Picture story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.