Photo Album

I finally managed to get my photos from Lourdes uploaded from my mobile phone (I don't have a digital camera)...

This is slightly more difficult than it might at first appear: my home computer was chucked out by Noah when he built the ark. It doesn't have the socket thingy (my use of technical terminology is somewhat limited... I blame the fact on my blonde hair) for sticking the phone's connection doobrey-whatsit into.

So, I have to upload the photos onto my school laptop. School computers are notoriously temperamental, and rarely up-to-date, so this is a major undertaking. However, I finally got the thing to work, more by luck than judgement.

The next step was to email the photos home - the school has a filter system which means I can't blog. I can't even look at a blog. On reflection, this is probably just as well...

Once the emails arrived, I downloaded the photos, and uploaded them onto the blog. Success! All of this is, of course, to explain why I didn't put the photos up when I got back from Lourdes just over a week ago!!

The first photo here actually is a little dark - it looked better on the phone. It is the spring uncovered by St. Bernadette when Our Lady appeared to her in the grotto at Massabielle. It's covered with glass or perspex, and the water is now piped to the baths and the drinking fountains. But there is something very moving about walking into the cave...





The mosaics inside the Rosary Basilica are really spectacular. The first time I saw the main mosaic of Our Lady, I found it very unsettling... it's partly the way she looms over you, and partly because the face is so very child-like. Once you remember that St. Bernadette described her as a girl of about 14 years old, it actually makes more sense. And now, I am very attached to this image.

This photo of the main basilicas taken from the esplanade shows how lucky we were with the weather... and no, I promise I haven't touched up the photos in any way!











Here's a photo of the grotto itself, showing the niche where Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette. I think I took this one from the position of the plaque on the ground showing where St. Bernadette was kneeling, but I can't quite remember... next time I shall be more careful about labelling my photos!

And finally, a shot of the Domaine area taken from the benches by the Forum Information.

As you can see, I haven't quite got the hang of how to position my photos in an interesting and varied way... I shall have to work on it! But I'm rather pleased with my dinky little mobile phone!