a negative capability scrapbook
And the cold grew on all surfaces.
The light was tremendous. “This is what heaven is like” said secondspawn confidently gesturing to the other side of the park, “all white and misty and glittering“.
It grew cold, and even when the crystals thawed the ground was too icy to stand on with both feet.
It grew cold, and the cold grew on all surfaces.
And the light was tremendous.
It is a sad reflection upon the weather both here and, historically, in France and Spain, that the sound of water falling on the taut skin of an umbrella reminds me powerfully of summer holidays. A very large umbrella, ideally a very large umbrella for each person, has always been essential for the camping kit.
The latest incarnation (because we regularly lose them) is a very fine golfing umbrella purchased from the sports section of a well-known department store. It’s now also known as the “taking to school” umbrella since it’s big enough for one adult, one child and one dog if the latter is on a short lead.
The sky is dull and grey, it is wet and blowy, but the willows in the park have been trimmed to be their own umbelliferous forms with their yellowed leaves echoing the brolly’s fabric.
The armwarmers adorn one arm each of two friends.
Two attempts to diagnose the macbook pro rattle. Is it a rattley cough (the fan) or a rattle of approaching death (the hard drive)?
Two baubles from the rather attractive Christmas decorations in John Lewis on Oxford Street
And two pictures of one rainbow.
Which do you prefer?
There’s a meme-with-a-difference going round… ask, and ye shall receive. Or rather comment, and you’ll get something in the post. As in the snail-mail, not the blog entry. Or perhaps both. For the first four supplicants.
I first saw it at Jean‘s where people were being backward in coming forward. I asked for a thick ear, and lo! here it is:
You’re not really allowed to specify what you want but she kindly obliged, albeit with a liberal interpretation.
So now it’s my turn. The first four people to request in the comments will get either a print of a picture of their choice or a bespoke knitted gewgaw. And the duty of continuing the tradition.
Other excitements include the qarrtsiluni widget in the sidebar (far right, you might need to scroll down a bit) displaying the most recent entries of that august ‘zine. Some of which have added ear-candy. There’s still a fortnight to go to submit items on the current theme, Insecta. There are some incredible photographs there.
I put together this montage of various aspects of the fruit fly (Drosophila) from copyright free material found hanging around on the web but it wasn’t the sort of thing the (excellently) stringent editors were looking for. I like it, though 🙂 We know so much about this organism. And so little.
It’s better bigger, so click here to see it at a reasonable size.
The latest Festival of the Trees, November Arborea, is up at Larry Ayres’ Riverside Rambles and there’s a mouthwatering quantity of photographs among this month’s offerings.
And then there’s the new banner. Over at Krista‘s. Which is exceedingly exciting. (She tells me humans see more verticals than horizontals which makes me feel better about the difficulty I had forcing myself to see sideways, even a little bit.)
In fact it’s almost as exciting as the knitting project we’ve got, um, round our necks. Almost. But not quite. Because few things could be that exciting. I expect further bloggage on the subject will be forthcoming.
And don’t forget – if you’d like a print or a knitted trifle just say so in the comments.
There’s a meme-with-a-difference going round… ask, and ye shall receive. Or rather comment, and you’ll get something in the post. As in the snail-mail, not the blog entry. Or perhaps both. For the first four supplicants.
I first saw it at Jean‘s where people were being backward in coming forward. I asked for a thick ear, and lo! here it is:
You’re not really allowed to specify what you want but she kindly obliged, albeit with a liberal interpretation.
So now it’s my turn. The first four people to request in the comments will get either a print of a picture of their choice or a bespoke knitted gewgaw. And the duty of continuing the tradition.
Other excitements include the qarrtsiluni widget in the sidebar (far right, you might need to scroll down a bit) displaying the most recent entries of that august ‘zine. Some of which have added ear-candy. There’s still a fortnight to go to submit items on the current theme, Insecta. There are some incredible photographs there.
I put together this montage of various aspects of the fruit fly (Drosophila) from copyright free material found hanging around on the web but it wasn’t the sort of thing the (excellently) stringent editors were looking for. I like it, though 🙂 We know so much about this organism. And so little.
It’s better bigger, so click here to see it at a reasonable size.
The latest Festival of the Trees, November Arborea, is up at Larry Ayres’ Riverside Rambles and there’s a mouthwatering quantity of photographs among this month’s offerings.
And then there’s the new banner. Over at Krista‘s. Which is exceedingly exciting. (She tells me humans see more verticals than horizontals which makes me feel better about the difficulty I had forcing myself to see sideways, even a little bit.)
In fact it’s almost as exciting as the knitting project we’ve got, um, round our necks. Almost. But not quite. Because few things could be that exciting. I expect further bloggage on the subject will be forthcoming.
And don’t forget – if you’d like a print or a knitted trifle just say so in the comments.
“Are you”, the hypno-questionnaire asked, if memory serves me correctly, “the sort of person who enjoys looking at sunsets?”
I’m sooo glad I whizzed back into the house and picked up my camera this afternoon having set off on towards the school without it. There was something about the quality of light just outside the front door that boded well.
It appears that I’m the sort of person who’s perhaps over-enthusiastic about sunsets. Here are the pictures I took, all of them, in order, as the sun descended in the sky and we walked in a north-westerly direction from school to home.
Even the large bins in the park are gilded and beautiful.
A vapour trail gleams silver against the slightly purpled sky, offsetting the gold below.
The gap in the row of houses lets us see another layer of gold.
This buddleia is just next to the railway line and Tuesday’s trees.
Allowing Maizy off the lead in the open space we (inaccurately) call “the field” gives us even bigger skies to admire as the clouds and light change, minute by minute.
This structure used to be a church. It’s being transformed or perhaps “repurposed”. Its silhouette is if anything improved by the scaffolding.
Very nearly home now.
I’ve been thinking about a sense of place since reading Jean and Dave and Whiskey River.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt anywhere to be home in a positive way. Home was, in my childhood, not a place of safety. Since then it’s generally been somewhere less bad than other places. How can one, though, feel present anywhere if one is not present to oneself? As I become more able to be with myself rather than finding ways to “not be”, it seems I’m more able to be in the world too.
The square in which most of my life takes place – nodes formed by home, school, shops, shrink – has become more like a space that is mine as I more belong to me.
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I was out and about today, and took the camera.
First to St Martin-in-the-Fields for a short (very short) period of quiet for Just This Day. It seemed particularly appropriate to think about the peace talks in Annapolis. I had read Rachel’s post about hope before I left in the morning, and rather unexpectedly, it was hope that I found.
Then to the Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I managed not to be utterly depressed and demotivated by exposure to wonderful photographs. My favourite was taken by a 24-year-old who sounded, from the blurb beneath the picture, to be a complete hero. I also liked this one and this one. You can scroll through all the pictures in the exhibition from any of the previous three links.
A spot of spawn-stocking-present-shopping left me exhausted and with a very heavy bag so I retired to an excellent cheap Spanish greasy spoon and took pictures through the window while consuming hearty paella.I’m breaking all my self-imposed rules about taking pictures of people. I only asked one of the subjects shown above if I could photograph them.
A light mist pearled the morning.
No surface was exempt from damp fingers.
Small drops drained together to collect in hidden places.
Leaves layered gold on gold.
Where no leaves were, an alien form with a heart-shaped handle flapped from a branch.
Despite earlier frosts some flowers just can’t give up, thrusting new petals from the brown carapace of the newly blighted.
Poor Maizy was much troubled by the vile and verminous tree-rats who flicked their tails contemptuously in her face as she, leashed as bye-laws require, barked choked and goggle-eyed threats of violent death.
This morning the early sun tipped over the rooftops and shone the yellow leaves of a small silver birch to a fountain of firework brightness.
This afternoon a lightbrush washed leisurely lines behind the trees.
Round the corner we marvelled at a sky full of fiery scarlet scales. By the time we reached home a few minutes later they were gone.
frizzyLogic 