[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.
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.
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).
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.
edward-howard howard-gibbon
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 July 2022].
The final resting place of a Norroy King of Arms.
death and roses
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 July 2022].
saint richard
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 5 July 2022].
As soon as I saw this fellow on the grounds of Chichester Cathedral back in September last year, I was immediately reminded of Nosferatu.
You know, ignoring the fact he was out and about in sunlight bright enough to create lens flare...
But I only read up on him as I edited these photographs, and he's quite an interesting fellow.
Here are some of the tidbits from the Wikipedia entry on Saint Richard of Chichester that caught my eye:
He's often depicted as a bishop with a chalice on its side at his feet because he once dropped the chalice during a Mass and nothing spilled from it. That's my kind of guy: no "alcohol abuse" (i.e. spilling wine)! Okay, okay, so he also doesn't spill "blood", so he's still my kind of guy.
However, he had a statute that the wine should be mixed with water. That could constitute alcohol abuse in some circles.
He also had a statute that practices such as gambling at baptisms and marriages is strictly forbidden. I guess that statute rules out the possibility of a wager on how long the marriage would last or who the baptised's father was.
Another of his statutes was that the clergy were not allowed to wear their hair long or have romantic entanglements. Spoilsport.
He kept his diet simple and rigorously excluded animal flesh; having been a vegetarian since his days at Oxford. He was well ahead of his time. This dude died in 1253.
After dedicating St Edmund's Chapel at Dover, he died aged 56 at the Maison Dieu, Dover at midnight on 3 April 1253, where the Pope had ordered him to preach a crusade. His internal organs were removed and placed in that chapel's altar. That's an odd choice of donation to the collection plate, but sure...
Other items in the entry indicate he was fair and reasonable in some instances:
The townsmen of Lewes violated the right of sanctuary by seizing a criminal in church and lynching him, and Richard made them exhume the body and give it a proper burial in consecrated ground.
But he was still very much of his time:
It was decreed that married clergy should be deprived of their benefices; their concubines were to be denied the privileges of the church during their lives and also after death; they were pronounced incapable of inheriting any property from their husbands, and any such bequests would be donated for the upkeep of the cathedral.
It seems his popularity has continued, with Sussex Day being recognised annually on 16 June since 2007.
between the trees
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 July 2022].
let's take this offline
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 July 2022].
Meeting people online is always interesting.
It can be the best place to meet people and, simultaneously, the worst. And, sometimes, it's just average.
I met some of my closest and most valued friends through social media before it was called that. Some of my lovers who have since become good friends I also met that way.
I've always seen it as an equally valid way of meeting people, like dancing with and talking to someone at a club or a bar. Meeting them at a gig or meeting them through a friend. Just that you can have a more involved conversation without shouting into each other's ears…
Dating apps are no different, though the intent is generally more overt.
I mean, I always went into meeting anyone from Friendster or Myspace with the view of meeting them as friends. Even if it ended up that we became more than that.
If you go into meeting people through dating apps with that same thinking, I think you're seen as disingenuous.
I'd rarely claim I was "in a relationship" with someone I met in a club less than two months after we met but starting from friendship seems "the wrong way of using a dating app" to some.
There are potentially many "wrong ways" to use a dating app. Finding clients. Finding Instagram followers. But, to be honest, even none of those are "wrong", in my view.
The only thing "wrong" is being dishonest with yourself and others about why you're using the app.
I currently have multiple professional and personal interactions with people I've met through dating apps across the spectrum of "why".
I know why I'm on those apps, but I'm open to why others are and don't impose my reasons on them. I just choose which connections I make.
And, worst-case scenario: I make some new friends along the way to finding a life partner, or I spend time (virtually or in-person) with someone that might not be a good match.
Do I honestly think I'll find a life partner on a dating app?
I'm sure I'll tell you if I do.
The self-portrait accompanying this post is a newly-edited outtake from day 104 of my 365 days project completed in 2007/08, addiction.
old man's beard
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 July 2022].
As with Ochna serrulata, this is another sneaky "floral but not floral" tribute.
These are technically the fruits of the shrub, Old man's beard, or Clematis vitalba. But, they grow out of the inflorescence and sepals of the plant to create infructescence.
And they caught the light so beautifully when I photographed them in Chichester last September, so I'm including them in my series.
ross fountain
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 July 2022].
Apologies for the radio silence the past week.
I'm playing catch-up after a busy week of work, meeting up with old friends and meeting new people, and finding out more about some potential work.
My temporary employment is dropping down to 21 hours this week. I'm both pleased and nervous about it.
I'm pleased to have more time to do creative things for myself (and you!), but obviously, the drop in income is less welcome. The new work may fill that void but not immediately. We'll see.
Dad and I also managed to have one of our lengthy Skype calls this past week, and I've been wrangling with some health issues.
Last night and in the wee hours of this morning, I finally edited my photographs of Ross Fountain in the West Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh. I took these during my last visit in August 2011.
Since it was restored in 2018, it looks different to when I captured it.
I hope to return to Edinburgh sometime in the next few months. I just need to arrange some reasonably priced accommodation or a cat-sitting gig there :)
crown imperial
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 June 2022].
neon chicks
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 23 June 2022].
full of goodness
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 June 2022].
The inscription on the headstone of this grave reads Eenvoudig en oprecht vol goedheid was uw leven, uw edel hart heeft ons zoveel gegeven.
According to Google Translate, it means Your life was simple and sincere, full of goodness, your noble heart has given us so much.
The other photograph I took of this grave showed the other two items holding more cobweb hens and chicks - or sempervivum - and the inscription, but it wasn't sharp and worthy of sharing. However, I decided to take the title for this image from the inscription.
I took this after the rain in the churchyard of the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Wulveringem.
The church is opposite Kasteel Beauvoorde. We visited the castle (it was the reason we were in the town), but I've yet to edit most of the photos from there. Another task on my to-do list...
a korean rose in brussels
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 June 2022].
I'm a little hesitant about the identification of these flowers. My plant identifying app said it was a Korean rose for every photo I checked, though, so I'll go with it.
And they seem to match - to my untrained eye - photos in the Wikipedia entry for the Hibiscus syriacus.
I find flowers past their prime or weather-worn as beautiful as the most perfect specimen, just in a different way.
Having said that, when I photographed these, it did strike me as odd that the flowers in the front garden of the Palais Royal de Bruxelles should look so unkempt... I might have been quietly judgmental.
yer takin’ the pis
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 June 2022].
The Manneken Pis, of course...
Congratulations to whoever managed to get that Space Invaders paste-up there. Apparently, it's been there since around March 2012. I took these photos in September 2014, and the paste-up looked relatively new.
I don't know the symbolism of this particular costume, but apparently, he has many costume changes.
innocence lost
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 12 June 2022].
artichoke
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 June 2022].
Once again, I'm reminded of why I love photography.
I love to eat artichoke, but it never occurred to me that's what I had photographed in a garden on Mersea Island until I popped the photo into a plant-identifying app.
It also never occurred to me that the artichoke is a flower. I knew we eat the "hearts". I didn't realise that they bloom and become inedible if left to their own devices.
When I saw them, these flowers reminded me of protea and some brassica species, which I love. I photographed them because they were eye-catching despite not recognising them.
Because I have such a massive backlog of photos to edit, sometimes it takes me years to learn from the photographs I've taken. But that doesn't make the learning any less enjoyable.
out of step
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 June 2022].
the lighthouse keeper’s son
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 5 June 2022].
Nearby the lighthouse at Table Cape in Tasmania lies the small grave of the infant son of the first Table Cape lighthouse keeper.
Bertram Jackson passed away a little over two weeks after the lighthouse opened in 1888.
The lighthouse keepers left Table Cape sometime after 1920 when the lighthouse operation became automated. However, his little body remains.
banksia
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 June 2022].
My plant-identifying apps failed me, with one thinking these were an ornamental pincushion. And the other knew they were banksia but couldn't identify the cultivar. They are, obviously, a different cultivar to these beauties.
My gut instinct/plant memory said banksia, but I did check in with Bellamy (otherwise known as Dad)*. He confirmed they are. But as with one of the plant apps, he couldn't narrow it down to a cultivar. He is a font of plant knowledge, but no one is perfect ;)
Either way, they're photogenic. They caught my eye in the front garden of a home on Table Cape that gave a lovely view of Stanley in Tasmania. I took this during my visit in 2018.
My last visit with my parents in October 2019 seems a lifetime ago. It was bittersweet for so many reasons.
My next visit, which could be as soon as this year, will be even more difficult. As though dementia, hospital visits and a car accident weren't stressful enough in 2019.
Some days (or nights), thinking and talking about it, pragmatism wins out. Other times, raw emotion wins the day (or night).
*My dad is not, in fact, David Bellamy. When he used to point out and tell us about the plants on our walks through the rainforests and national parks of Australia, my then-teenaged brother liked to respond with a sarcastic "Thanks, Bellamy". It has remained an affectionate jibe in my mind all these years.
my bewildered mind
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 9 May 2022].