happy birthday, anthony

This year's visit to Australia was predominantly about family and officially saying goodbye to Mum.

But alongside that and reuniting with some wonderful friends, I also had the chance to (officially) say goodbye to one of my oldest friends, Anthony Horan.

My thanks go out to Anthony's brother, Chris, and mutual longtime friends, Amy and Richard, for accompanying me and making the visit possible.

It was lovely to finally meet Chris and reunite with Amy and Richard after so long.

It was a sombre visit. Rain threatened. There was much mud on the 'lawn'.

But there was also cheeky humour amongst us, in keeping with the sort of comments and jokes Anthony would have made if he'd been able to reply to us as we stood by the grave his ashes share with his father's remains.

When I visited, there was a temporary marker for Anthony and his dad. I'm sure when I visit next it will look different (if it doesn't already).

I've been catching up on sharing iPhone photos from my trip on Instagram, and this morning, I reached my photos from that day. I thought I would share them on the second anniversary of his passing in January, oblivious to the date.

But, when I remembered later in the day it was his birthday in Australia, it was obvious today was the day to share.

It's currently his birthday in Melbourne and London.

So, the penguins and I are raising a toast to an old friend.

Love and miss you, Anthony. Always. xx

armenian grape hyacinths

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 25 March 2023].}

The last of the (live) flowers I photographed in St Kilda General Cemetery during a visit in September 2007.

Muscari armeniacum or Armenian grape hyacinths.

now he's gone aloft

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 February 2023].}

cape marguerite

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 February 2023].}

Some Dimorphotheca ecklonis I captured in St Kilda Cemetery on the first day of Spring in 2007.

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And some beautiful monarch butterflies hanging out amongst them.

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I took these photos after going to my old GP practice for a check-up because of some odd sensations I'd been experiencing.

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That appointment resulted in me having blood tests that revealed I had vitamin D deficiency and B12 anaemia for the first time.

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Good times...

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amber treasures

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 August 2022].}

The last of my Gazania photographs from St Kilda Cemetery from my visit in 2007.

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faithful unto death

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 August 2022].}

While reviewing images to edit for what should have been the past week's #SepulchralSunday post, I decided I wanted to create a new curated series called last words. Photographs from my sepulchre series that focus closely on poignant inscriptions on graves.

This capture and another I took at St Kilda Cemetery in 2007 caught my eye and inspired the idea.

Strangely, I had already edited this particular photograph. Notably, the day before my birthday in 2018.

However, I can't see where I've previously published it online or otherwise, and I don't know why exactly I edited it that day.

As I can't locate where I might have published it, I have to believe I never shared it before, so I stuck with my choice for the first post from this new curated series.

I hope you enjoy this new series as I share them over the coming weeks mixed in with my other series: late bloomers, stained glass and, as we approach Christmas again, season's grievings.

striped treasures

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 August 2022].}

More Gazania from the St Kilda Cemetery.

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golden treasures

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 6 August 2022].}

More Gazania captured in St Kilda Cemetery in 2007.

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^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 August 2022].}

hidden treasures

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 August 2022].}

Gazania.

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viloplats

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 28 July 2022].}

The latest product from Ikea*: a flat-packed, self-assembly grave.

^{*Obviously, this is satire.}

storksbills in the cemetery

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 27 July 2022].}

Hello, my lovelies.

It's been far too quiet around these parts. For that, I offer my sincerest apologies.

I've been trying to get back on track, but I've been thrown a little off-kilter the past few weeks. And, in some respects, the past few months.

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My last post here was pre-scheduled. Which was handy, given I was sequestered (willingly!) in a friend's flat with her kitteh, Mia, and the slowest iMac known to woman (the last bit, not willingly!).

Unfortunately, that weekend also marked the beginning of a heatwave here in London.

Had I been home, the temperatures would have been higher than I'd have liked but manageable. However, in a first-floor flat with a curious kitteh, the windows could only be opened a small amount. When Mia wasn't hiding from the heat in a drawer under the bed, she was perched on the window openings cooling her tush.

Consequently, I spent most of the weekend lounging under a 10cm fan and keeping Mia company in her hatred of the heat.

The sun's emanations were too much for me to endure to see through my plan to visit some distinctive housing in the nearby neighbourhoods. Or to visit the Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, as I had planned. Next time, Gadget, next time.

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A busy but part-time week of work followed 'hot' on the heels of that.

I managed to sneak in some socialising outside my flat on Friday despite my ongoing health issues. Followed by a weekend of socialising inside my flat and hiding as much as possible from the heat.

The hottest day on record in the UK and the day preceding it blew out any plans I had for productivity outside my day job the following week.

It took most of the week to get my bedroom back down below 30 degrees, even at night. When it finally cooled almost enough, I celebrated by creating a Spotify playlist.

Health issues scuppered plans to walk the remaining section of the New River between Harringay Green Lanes Overground Station and Manor House/Finsbury Park with Scott and our cameras last Friday. At least we managed a pleasant afternoon of beers, ciders and conversation in place of that (with a detour to my GP's office).

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On the positive side, at least I found out that day that the fatigue I've been feeling the past month or so wasn't just my imagination and or me being lazy. I'm vitamin D deficient and have low levels of vitamin B12 again. The former is being managed with some heavy-duty supplements. The latter requires retesting in six weeks. If still low, it will mean injections as I had back in 2007. Between now and then, I need to see if I can improve things from a dietary perspective to pump them back up a bit.

My other ongoing health issue hasn't been 100% diagnosed yet. I've been referred for further testing, but I have a new medication I started yesterday. That will hopefully manage the issues and get me back to photo walks and day trips soon enough. Fingers crossed.

Though, between dreams about the medication and my new bite guard, I've not had the best sleep the past few nights!

This is the first night I've managed to keep being creative after midnight for weeks. For someone who's a night owl and for whom this time is usually my most productive time, that has been beyond frustrating. I suspect this is because I took a long lunch today to nap for an hour and a half.

I hope to share more posts later in the day. And schedule new work for the weekend as I'll be away from home cat-sitting Lily, Sammy and Poppy from Thursday evening to Monday evening.

I'm also still working on my chapbook and other creative things. They're just taking far longer than I would have liked.

Thank you for your patience through all this.

past dew

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 5 April 2022].}

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common sowthistle

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 20 March 2022].}

I photographed this "weed" in my backyard in Brunswick East the day I got my (then) brand new Nikon D50.

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It's a perfect example of how all plants can be weeds if in the "wrong" location. The common sowthistle is deemed an invasive weed in Australia and other countries.

But one of its common names is sowthistle because of its "attractiveness to pigs, and the similarity of the leaf to younger thistle plants". It's also commonly referred to as hare's colwort because of its "purported beneficial effects on hares and rabbits".

Native Americans, Chinese and Māori people are believed to have used (and perhaps still do) the leaves as part of their diet and/or herbal remedies.

Whatever your thoughts on these plants, they made a good study for me to try out my new camera back in 2005.

For whatever reason, I didn't edit these at the time, but I enjoy the buds at various stages of blooming and the greens in these images.

And maybe there's a message here about how each of us can have value in particular environments but be unwelcome pests in others.

pelargonium

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 11 March 2022].}

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^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 25 June 2021].}

So, I've known this was coming since December last year, but it took longer than expected.

Subsequently, it's landed at arguably the worst possible moment for me: my flatmate has given notice tonight that he's moving out at the end of next month.

076 skull

Day seventy-six of The 100 Day Project for 2021.

This possibly takes the cake for the worst sketch of the project so far.

If not, it's up there with the tuxedo cat (her name's Susie, by the way!), aeroplane and beetle and possibly some others.

Which is a pity as it seemed to start off so well. Oh well... I knew I could never match Ron Mueck's skill anyway.

I was lucky to be in Melbourne for the 2018 National Gallery of Victoria Triennial. I was able to see the brilliant work of Ron Mueck, Yayoi Kusama and many other artists in the flesh. And catch up with fellow photographer and longtime friend Chris Zissiadis.

The triennial took place this year, so I've missed that. But maybe I'll be back in Australia in time for the next one in 2024.

The original sketch was drawn with a 4H pencil, then overdrawn and shaded with an HB pencil.

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cemetery gates

Here's a lesson for all of you: don't go wandering around taking photos in a cemetery on a Saturday afternoon when you're still vague and vacant from your various indulgences of the night before. That's just what I did one afternoon in November 2005.

It didn't occur to me the security guard driving around Melbourne General Cemetery blipping his horn was alerting visitors to it being closing time. I thought he was just ensuring he didn't run over any old biddies who might not notice him coming. Amused at the potential irony of being run down in a cemetery, I continued on my wanderings, photographing angels.

My Nikon D50 battery had run out, and I'd used up the remaining shots on the black and white roll in my FM3A. So I headed back toward the Lygon Street gates via a friend's father's grave.

On reaching the gate, it came to my attention that it was locked. About that time, I also realised it was actually about 18:00. Daylight savings had only recently started, and my internal clock was out of whack from the previous night's antics. So I hadn't noticed how long I'd been there or how far along the day had progressed.

This was the point at which the proverbial penny dropped. I made my way to the main gates hoping they still had something as old-fashioned as a caretaker. Unfortunately, not after hours...

At this point, amusing as it was, it was also a little disarming. I nosed around the office entrance hoping to find a number to no avail. I then spied the phone number on the information board and rang that.

Strangely enough, it was the number for The Necropolis in Springvale. The recorded message told me all about reflection walls, informed me that my call was valuable and that an operator would be with me shortly. I found it equally strange that there would be a queue of calls for The Necropolis at this time of night. I also wondered if the times read out just after the number connected referred to their office hours, which I was currently calling outside of?

After a couple of minutes, I hung up and tried calling my friend Alie. She wasn't answering her mobile, so I called her home number. She had just gone out, so I explained the situation to her brother, Bill, who had answered my call. We both laughed heartily at my plight. I asked if he could find out the number for the Carlton Police Station and call them to let them know to come down and bail me out. He very kindly did so, and I sat down to wait.

After a little while of quietly laughing to myself and glancing about, I noticed a small sign just in the bottom corner of one of the office windows near the fence. On closer inspection, I saw the 'after-hours gate' number was on it. I quickly called the number. Thankfully, the security guard who had been driving around earlier answered. He seemed a bit annoyed but said he would come back to let me out.

He seemed less peeved when he found me there. He obviously recognised me as the girl who had been photographing an imposing statue earlier. We laughed at my foolishness, and he released me from the cemetery.

As I was walking back towards Lygon Street, Tracey from the police station called. She had been about to drive over with the key they keep in the station, but I informed her I was safe and sound and outside now, and we again laughed at it all.

What a day!

Despite the situation at the end, I'd had a pleasant afternoon just wandering and pausing at one point to relax and talk to Alie when she called me on my mobile.

There's a small church in one part of the cemetery that I circled at one point. Nearby, many varicoloured birds were flitting about. It was a pleasant area. I still don't know if I'm the marrying kind, and I'm definitely not the religious kind. But I remember thinking to myself, "Would it be inappropriate to celebrate the start of a new life with someone in a place devoted to death?"

^{This is an edited version of a LiveJournal post I made on the day in 2005.
I mentioned it in my Day 23 of The 100 Day Project post, and a Flickr friend encouraged me to share the story.
This photograph was taken that day.}

023 angel

Day twenty-three of The 100 Day Project for 2021.

Another late posting, though the sketch was completed on the day.

This time inspired by a photograph of mine of Melbourne General Cemetery, taken in November 2005.

I took it on the first day I took my very first DSLR - a Nikon D50 - out for a trial run before taking it to New Zealand with me on holidays.

It was the first and last time I got locked in a cemetery after closing time. I have a LiveJournal post about it but it contains a bunch of information about other extraneous stuff happening at the time, so maybe I'll edit it and share it here another time if you've not already heard the tale and would like to.

Meanwhile, getting on to today's sketch: I used an HB pencil for the base and then a 6B for shading and going over the outline. In retrospect, it was probably a little heavy-handed on the outline but I notice that my hand erases/fades some of the lines as I draw. I should probably use a tissue or a small square of paper to lay on the page under my hand to avoid that (I think I recall friends in art class doing that).

Her upper body is a little foreshortened. I started drawing her plinth about 4cm from the bottom of an A4 page. About halfway up her wings, I was worried I would run out of space for the full height of her. I had about 2cm to spare at the top of the page at the end, so if I'd started lower it would have been fine, but alas, I did not.

I also drew the shadowed section of the front of the statue on the left too wide so it's out of proportion with the rest of the drawing.

Drawing the plinth, I thought I'd gone too wide on the right panel but I've definitely thinned it. And the left side is possibly a little wider than it should be. The width of the lower section of the angel seems proportionate though, so there's that...

I realised, as I was doing my quick edit for the web, that I was wearing my glasses while drawing. I'm not sure if that had a positive or negative effect.

I generally dislike editing photos while wearing my glasses because they make everything on my screen look smaller; not right. (Though they do wonders for my figure when looking in the mirror...) If I'm going to be editing photos I always put my contact lenses in.

For those who don't know, I have a prescription of about -3.5 in each eye. I'm myopic (short-sighted) to the point that, without special (more expensive) thinned lenses, my glasses would look like the free ones on the NHS Jarvis Cocker used to sing about. Okay, maybe not that thick. This is a good illustration if you look at the -4 prescription

My prescription got as bad as -3.75 for a while but apparently, people become more long-sighted as they get older so my sight's improving over time (yay!) The last optometrist I saw did manage my expectations though. She laughingly told me that with short-sightedness as pronounced as mine it will never get back to 20/20 through ageing. Apparently, if I have to have cataract surgery later in life (which she assured me almost everyone has to) I may have 20/20 vision then. Something to look forward to in my old age, eh?!

Sorry, another tangent!

So today was another example where it looked better once I photographed it and 'stepped away from it'. Still lots of flaws but I'm learning.

And it was relaxing to draw while I listened to my music collection on random varying from The Cure, Diamanda Galas, Ash, NoFX, Aerosmith, Julia Holter, Jefferson Airplane, U2, Barry White to Madness.

A positive end to a more positive day than the previous two. Even washing a horrendously large pile of dishes is less tedious when listening to old episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage.

Hopefully tomorrow my sketch will appear online on the day of creation. But I make no promises. I'm just taking things one day at a time at the moment. I hope you understand x

And I'll leave you with a song that popped up randomly on shuffle in the last 48 hours that felt appropriate to my current project. Evident Utensil by Chairlift. Enjoy!

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