[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 3 October 2023].
drinking birds
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 26 September 2023].
A semi-itinerant lifestyle has impacted my ability to keep my Patreon as regularly updated as I'd like, so thank you for sticking around.
I have one more sitting this month where I won't have access to a decent monitor to edit photos. But then I'll be down to much more irregular sittings until February, so I'll edit my heart out as much as possible while I'm more settled.
Since late March, I've barely been home.
And when I have been, I've been wrestling with flat-related shenanigans, life admin and such.
Please don't mention the scaffolding that has encased our building since late March and prevents me from opening my bedroom window more than four inches. Or the boxes of books occupying most of the space on one side of my bed since early August, as I can't yet replace them on the bookcase while we wait for a section of paint in the lounge to be retouched (it's located directly above the bookcase).
The prints I previously had hanging in the lounge have also reverted to an inconvenience, as the repainting required their hooks to be removed. I'm reluctant to replace them on the walls. For reasons I won't go into here.
I'm trying to locate appropriate wrapping to stow them safely in existing packaging in our lounge in a way that infringes less on our living space.
On a related note: if you know anyone who would like to purchase framed prints from my alternate worlds series or selected work from other series (largely self-portraiture), please send them my way...
In addition to the times I've been away from home with only my work laptop, I've had two periods of about two weeks in May and August without my iMac due to required repairs, which hasn't helped.
As much as I love the furry personalities I've been sitting so much this year, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to sleeping in my own bed for more than a few consecutive nights. To work at my own desk on a quality monitor with full access to my files.
In addition to the remaining sittings already booked for the next few months, I need to arrange other sittings and/or accommodation to take advantage of my rail vouchers, which will expire by mid-January.
But those will be trips with plenty of time for creativity, photography and being inspired.
I look forward to taking some proper annual leave after almost two years. (No, let's be honest, it will be four years in mid-November...)
But, on a positive note, I've been working on a new project inspired by a book a friend gifted me. And I've continued taking photos (not just of cats).
I look forward to sharing those with you soon!
rocket [the bell tower, barrack square, perth, australia, 2023]
rocket
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 August 2023].
If you're an Australian of a particular vintage (specifically, Generation X or Baby Boomer), I challenge you to tell me you're not thinking of Mr Squiggle's 'Rocket' while looking at my photo of Perth's Bell Tower at Elizabeth Quay.
I took this while on a whistle-stop tour of Perth with Rhys, one of my cousins.
While Kings Park was quite familiar to me, including the vista from the war memorial (which I had captured on at least one previous visit), the view had markedly changed in the roughly 20-30 years since I'd last photographed it.
This building and other high rises have since populated (and are still adding to) the skyline on Elizabeth Quay.
Although the architecture is vastly different: The Bell Tower is on a river, while the National Carillon is on an island in a manmade lake, and they are on almost direct opposite sides of the big, brown land we call Australia, I couldn't help but think of the near-annual visits my brothers and I took with my Granddad to the National Carillon on Queen Elizabeth II Island in Lake Burley Griffin as kids when confronted with The Bell Tower.
Perth was the city my grandparents moved to after decades lived in Canberra, and it was while visiting them in late high school that I first saw Perth.
I still feel I've only scratched the surface of Perth after about four visits, but there's something comforting about the same-same-but-different elements of the city to Canberra.
I'm sure that if my brothers, cousins and I were kids now and my grandparents were still alive and living in Perth, my Granddad would take us to The Bell Tower annually.
untitled #9 [bromley, london, united kingdom, 2023]
thinking of home
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 15 July 2023].
I took these photos of Sabine's azaleas during my last cat-sitting for her before I went to Australia.
The blooms were beautiful and eye-catching.
According to Wikipedia: Azaleas and rhododendrons were once so infamous for their toxicity that to receive a bouquet of their flowers in a black vase was a well-known death threat.
But they were apparently immortalised by Tang dynasty Chinese poet Du Fu in the last two stanzas of his poem, Alone, looking for blossoms along the river:
The sorrow of riverside blossoms inexplicable,
And nowhere to complain — I've gone half crazy.
I look up our southern neighbor. But my friend in wine
Gone ten days drinking. I find only an empty bed.
A thick frenzy of blossoms shrouding the riverside,
I stroll, listing dangerously, in full fear of spring.
Poems, wine — even this profusely driven, I endure.
Arrangements for this old, white-haired man can wait.
A deep river, two or three houses in bamboo quiet,
And such goings on: red blossoms glaring with white!
Among spring's vociferous glories, I too have my place:
With a lovely wine, bidding life's affairs bon voyage.
Looking east to Shao, its smoke filled with blossoms,
I admire that stately Po-hua wineshop even more.
To empty golden wine cups, calling such beautiful
Dancing girls to embroidered mats — who could bear it?
East of the river, before Abbot Huang's grave,
Spring is a frail splendor among gentle breezes.
In this crush of peach blossoms opening ownerless,
Shall I treasure light reds, or treasure them dark?
At Madame Huang's house, blossoms fill the paths:
Thousands, tens of thousands haul the branches down.
And butterflies linger playfully — an unbroken
Dance floating to songs orioles sing at their ease.
I don't so love blossoms I want to die. I'm afraid,
Once they are gone, of old age still more impetuous.
And they scatter gladly, by the branchful. Let's talk
Things over, little buds — open delicately, sparingly.
In Chinese culture, it's apparently known as the "thinking of home bush", thus my title for this post.
Sabine's home has become something of a second home for me over the past year and a half, and spending time with her kittehs most months last year and many months this year so far has impacted my mental health positively.
Not to mention the enjoyment I get from the evenings spent in conversation with her the nights before she goes away. And the delicious and varied salads she usually makes us.
water of leith
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 July 2023].
It may seem like I just came back from a holiday.
And I'm not going to lie: some parts of my time away in Australia were definitely a holiday.
But I worked part-time in my "day job" while I was away. And a lot of the time I was away was hard, emotional work.
Attempting to regain control of my finances, I've had my annual leave accrual paid out in cash for the past year and a half. So, though I was effectively paid for my leave, it wasn't money going into my bank account while I was away. I didn't have the luxury of being on an actual holiday.
There were some beautiful, wonderful times with family and friends during my time in Australia.
My visit with my Uncle John was far too short. I wanted to talk with him more. About him, about family. And, yes, even perhaps have another 2.5-hour debate about politics ;)
Despite having a two-week stay with Dad, I left knowing there were more things I wanted to help him with. Conversations not yet had.
A whole room of Mum's stuff left to sort through.
And more games of Scrabble to play, Canasta to learn with him and Cheryl, and even lazy afternoons spent together watching 'The Chase' (both the British and Australian versions) or evenings watching nature documentaries and eating ice creams.
Melbourne was crazy. I spent more time with friends and family in six days than I would generally spend in a year.
It was amazing, as someone who values the people I spend time with. As an introvert, it was exhausting.
And my time in Perth was far too short.
Though my Uncle Graham and I may have different views on many things, I would like to hear his.
I presumed that Mum - as someone so absorbed and obsessed with family - would have held all the family history. And that, with her parents, aunts and uncles and her gone, a lot of that would be lost.
But a short period with my uncle demonstrated he was just as attentive, though maybe attentive to different things. I would have enjoyed talking with (or just listening to) him more to try to piece together more of the family now that Mum's gone.
Dad wrote a long and lovely piece about Mum before she passed. If I recall correctly, I asked him to, as I should have asked her to do decades before. An extended biography that I still need to edit for him.
I've asked him to do the same, but I presume (and hope!) I won't read that for quite a while still.
While in Brisbane, I asked that Uncle John do the same. About him. And in partnership with Dad, about my grandparents, about their uncles.
I didn't ask Uncle Graham, but I would like him to and will email him to ask. Because Mum told me all the family stories, but I never asked her to write them down.
She told them to me as we pored over her family photo albums after dinner and red wine. I lapped up those stories in the moment. And I still savour them, but the reality is that I absorbed only morsels compared to the complete tales.
During this visit, I spent quality time with a cousin I had previously been mere acquaintances with. Perhaps not enough to feel we truly know each other. But we connected more and for longer than we ever had before.
I would have liked to spend more time catching up with my other cousin, who I had connected with previously. But we only briefly caught up during this visit, and our time was full of food and family chatter.
But at least, after this visit, I felt more connected with my Mum's family than before.
And I'm grateful to my cousin Rhys for playing tour guide and taking me to calm, picturesque places, which allowed me to wind down after such a hectic time in Melbourne (and provided me with plenty of photo opportunities).
All that to say that, after not having had a holiday in the true sense since October/November 2019 (and it's debatable it was even a 'holiday' for various reasons), I have, of late, been plotting and planning a return to Scotland.
It will hopefully take place in late September. And the plan is to visit two friends I met in 2000 in Reading while living there. Who I haven't seen in person since about 2002 and 2009, respectively. And who I've had intermittent contact with during that period.
And having actual paid time off to do that. To see parts of Scotland I've not previously seen (ooh-er!) and to spend time with good people. And, of course, to take copious amounts of photos.
It's all still very much to be confirmed, but to say I'm excited at the prospect would be an understatement.
To celebrate the possibility, a photo of the Water of Leith, near Dean Village, that I took in August 2011. The last time I was in Edinburgh.
uplifting angels
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 July 2023].
the hardest button to button
Whilst I was visiting Dad last month, we tried to sort through Mum's belongings to work out what to keep, what family or friends might want, what to give to charity, and what to throw out.
We didn't get to her sewing room at all, but we did at least go through her wardrobe, jewellery, bathroom items and some odds and sods. In short, the items in Dad's bedroom.
Before this visit, I probably wouldn't have even vaguely entertained trying on her clothing as we were vastly different in size, shape, and style for most of our lives.
This visit, I'd put on weight, so I wasn't quite so dismissive. Though I knew our sense of style was quite different, and there would likely be few, if any, items I would retain.
I wasn't wrong.
In the end, all I brought back to London was a white shawl (I don't know if it was handmade or bought. It doesn't have a label, but that doesn't prove one way or another), a cream and a royal blue scarf (both bought). And her wedding dress which was tailor-made for her, my Dad thinks, in Sydney.
I spent AU$50 on dry cleaning her wedding dress in Ulverstone before I left as it had rust-coloured mould marks on it from being stored in their walk-in robe in a corner with poor air circulation.
Despite not being kept in any protective plastic covering, it had endured well and came up beautifully from the dry cleaning.
Although unfortunately, at some point, over the years, Mum had unpicked all six of the Marabou trims that encircled the bottom of the dress.
Dad remembers seeing her doing this but doesn't recall what she gave as the reason. We don't know if they may be stowed in her glory box in the built-in robe in their front room (the room Mum used as a sewing room, where my piano also lives) or if she threw them out at some point. Hopefully, next time I visit, I can investigate that.
I remember Mum asking me, around age 18, to try her wedding dress on. She had been 24 when she and Dad married in 1970. The dress fit my 52 kg body perfectly. Except that my bosom was too small, so the bust was loose.
I remember at the time being astonished that my Mum had once been my size as most of my life that I recalled she had struggled with her weight, and in terms of body shape, we were different.
However, when I tried the dress on again at 21, it fit me perfectly.
Now, not so much.
But I love the dress, and even if I never fit into it again and never get married, I would like to keep it. (If I'm honest, marriage hasn't been high on my list of life goals). Maybe, at some point, it will be handed down to someone in our family to use again.
Meanwhile, there was no urgency to go through the things in her sewing room, so we focussed more on working through her clothes and personal effects in their bedroom. We knew others could reuse many of the items in there. And Dad's bedroom needed a thorough clean-out (which he and Cheryl did after I left).
I did try on a few things out of curiosity.
Mum had worked out her style quite early on in life. Though her dress size and shape may have changed over the years, especially as she put on weight, she knew that store-bought clothing was never as suitable for her as homemade.
She made my and my brothers' bathers when we were young.
She made my first collection of knickers with cute elastic and patterned stretch-cotton material. I'm sure my brothers' knickers were also of her making.
She made us vests (singlets for those of you in Australia), the odd t-shirt, many dresses for me, and trousers. I'm sure Mum made many of my brothers' shorts.
She was also a keen knitter and made me various vests (sleeveless jumpers) and jumpers over the years.
Looking at what we took from her wardrobe, she'd probably narrowed the patterns for her clothing down to about 5-6 styles of tops/shirts. And one set of more formal clothes, comprising a suit jacket, trousers (dressed up or down, depending upon the material) and a skirt (also mostly one style, with material variations). She knew what suited her shape and size and worked with it.
She taught me from a young age to shop with the thought of how an item would work with what I already owned. If I were buying a top, trousers or skirt, how many items of clothing already in my wardrobe would it work with?
She wasn't a big dress-wearer as they didn't suit her shape.
But as a dress-wearer, that translated into ensuring my jumpers, tights, shoes, etc., would match any new dresses I bought.
She also taught me when contemplating buying clothing, "If in doubt, don't," e.g., if trying on an item of clothing and I'm unsure, don't buy it. It will just sit in my wardrobe, ignored.
I may have applied this test to other elements of my life over the years (specifically, relationships).
But, pulling out all her clothing, checking it for marks and cleanliness before donation, and reviewing anything that I might try on, over and over, it was evident to me how talented a seamstress she was.
Very little of the clothing we took out of the wardrobe had been made by someone else. All were well-made, well-kept and, in some cases, quite elaborate in their design, including a series of shirts made with fabric button-loops, as shown in this image.
Many would have avoided this type of work, but Mum had numerous tops with this buttonhole style and was quite confident in executing this sort of work.
She also chose some beautiful materials and colours for her clothes.
Dad split her clothing between a few charity shop chains in Ulverstone. (He was aware they often refuse to sell clothing to people in the same town where donated. Thus the decision to ensure they were a chain). I hope other women get a lot of wear from her clothes.
She made them with love and a passion for dressmaking. One she tried to instil in me but for which I had far less talent.
she ain’t heavy, she’s my mother
The one thing no one tells you is how much human ashes weigh.
The first night I was with Dad in Ulverstone, we were seated at the dining table after dinner. I don't remember if we were talking about Mum at the time or something completely unrelated, but seemingly out of the blue, Dad said something like, "I have something new to show you, but it's maybe not the right time."
I didn't know what he might mean, so I responded that now I was worried.
He said it was on the piano, it was Mum's ashes, and he wandered off to get them.
At the time, even if we'd been talking about Mum, it felt a little out of left field, and I'd not been thinking about such things, so it was a bit of a shock to my system.
He returned with a navy blue presentation box. Inside was a plastic container like those you'd use for protein powder. There's no better way to describe it.
There was also a plaque that might have been suitable to affix to a cremation plot in a cemetery, but it was light. And, for some reason, Hyde was engraved with a lowercase 'h'. (I can't help it, I always spot those details).
None of these things mattered because we knew we would scatter her ashes. So, the only thing that mattered was having her ashes.
Not the receptacle that contained them or the never-to-be-used plaque.
Dad handed me the box. The first thing that hit me was how heavy she was.
That immediately brought home how real this was.
The soul may weigh only 21 grams*, but the ashes of human remains are much heavier than I would ever have imagined.
The realisation made me quite emotional, and I admit, I was a little in shock. The wine we had with dinner and the ciders I'd had probably didn't help.
I sat at the table with Dad and Mum and let the emotion wash over me. The idea sink in. I handled the container, felt its weight in my hands and made some flippant joke that no one would ever have thought Mum would fit in a box that small.
Later in the week, before my brothers arrived, I made time to play the piano for Mum one last time.
It was terrible. I hadn't played since October 2019, and though I thought I played surprisingly well then after an excessively long break, I was seriously struggling to identify the right notes this time. What had previously come back to me, like riding a bike, felt almost alien.
I think that was the first time I appreciated how much I had previously learned. Like learning a foreign language and then realising how hard it must have been to pick up when you lose the words through lack of practice.
I would go through moments when everything flowed through my fingers, and then a bar or two would completely throw me off. I swore. A lot.
But I wanted to play to Mum that last time because she played a large part in my learning piano in the first place and would often ask me to play while she prepared dinner or did some other chore around the house all through my time growing up and when I lived with my parents on and off as an adult. She didn't mind what I played. She just loved to listen to me play.
Before I played to her, my curiosity was too much. So, while alone, I took Dad's kitchen scale to the dining table. I placed Mum's ashes on it and took this photo. I presumed the container probably weighed less than a kilogram, so her ashes weighed about 2kg.
I contemplated keeping some of her ashes. I thought about bringing them back to London with me.
Some companies claim to be able to make diamonds from human ashes and/or hair. That appealed to me as diamonds are my birthstone.
But in the end, the sceptic in me researched such claims and couldn't verify them, and the process would have been hugely expensive, so I decided I would rather all of her be scattered together.
love letters
When we were kids growing up in Brisbane, my parents, brothers, and I used to record audio letters to our grandparents who lived in Canberra every so often.
I remember the four or five of us sat around the dining table in our house in Aspley. Passing a microphone around that was plugged into a radio/cassette player to record updates on our lives.
When I stayed with my grandparents in Perth in 1998 for my cousin Rhys' wedding, my Granddad put his headphones on me to play me part of a cassette. I heard myself talking to him and my Grandma at around six years old.
It was surreal.
The disconnect to how I sounded then, but knowing it was me, blew my mind.
When my grandparents passed away, I asked Mum to ensure she salvaged the cassettes. And she did.
But only one of the four cassette cases I found in my parents' house had a cassette inside.
They may still be there, but Dad and I didn't have a chance to properly go through Mum's sewing room, where I found them.
Pete took the empties and the one cassette home to digitise it for us. His bands still distribute their music on cassette.
While visiting my family in Perth this visit, Rhys told me they did the same growing up in Calgary, and he'd asked for those to be kept, too. I would love to hear them someday if I could.
Hearing yourself on tape as a child when you're an adult is a form of time travel.
life is a jest
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 2 June 2023].
I usually steer clear of including identifying details in my photographs of headstones if they are of those more recently deceased. I may take a photo of the grave in full but not share it.
In most instances, it feels respectful, especially with the possibility that a family member or friend might happen across my photographs and perhaps take offence at them or my often puntastic titles.
But, as a fellow hedonist, I feel Julia Nunn may appreciate her grave being seen further afield after her passing. Though I can't find anything online that I can confirm is about this particular Julia Nunn to share with you.
Her epitaph initially caught my eye, but the quote on her grave from English poet and dramatist John Gay drew me further in.
I didn't know anything about him until researching the quote tonight. The phrase - his own words - is inscribed on a monument to him in Westminster Abbey.
hypoxylon
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 31 May 2023].
Some hypoxylon I stumbled across in Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries a few weeks ago.
off yer nut
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 25 May 2023].
After so much time away from home, I've finally caught up on most things, excluding sleep.
Unfortunately, poor wee Dougal had an operation on Monday afternoon and is still recovering, so we cancelled my sitting with him. His owner and I both hope he comes good soon.
As much as I don't like to hear about Dougal being poorly, having more time at home has been helpful for my mental health and catching up on life admin.
I will still go to Bromley on Friday evening until Monday to sit my regulars plus one.
In the meantime, I'm pleased to be home and that the repairs to the building are currently paused between the roof replacement and re-pointing (and then painting).
Footpath reconstruction is due to start on our section of the road next Tuesday, so it would seem I chose the ideal time to GTFO of Dodge.
All of these things are well overdue, but so is my sleep!
If I'm being honest, that's the one thing I'm looking forward to most with my time away: some relaxation, alongside catching up with family and friends. I suspect it will still end up hectic.
I woke to a less-than-positive update about an extended family member in Australia today, but I'm hoping the cause proves to be minor. At least, hopefully, I can be of some assistance during my stay.
I've managed to import the photos I took in Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery one day while sitting Mia. And those of Jilly I took with my D700 during my sitting with her. I hope to share some of these with you soon, along with other photos and artwork.
In the meantime, please enjoy a few photos of The Nut in Stanley, Tasmania, I took in 2018. I didn't know this was a volcanic plug until I looked it up to link you to more information. And I didn't know what a volcanic plug was until now.
Photography feeds my curious mind.
dipping back in
Once again, I find myself apologising for seemingly going AWOL from sharing new work with you here.
I can assure you my absence has not been intentional. I've been trying to edit and share new work with you here, but life has been a whirlwind (sometimes more like a hurricane or tornado) lately.
I've barely been at home since 29 March.
I spent Easter with Shiloh and Susie. It was lovely, for the most part.
Except for the fleas.
I still had the shadows of flea bites on my legs when I arrived at my current sitting on 1 May though I noticed today they finally seem to have disappeared.
I was at home for a few nights after that sitting. I spent it working my day job and trying to close things off before another long weekend. Importing photos, backing everything up, etc., before heading away again.
On Saturday, 15 April, I went to my next sitting with my regulars in Bromley. I celebrated my 46th birthday a night early with Sophie at The Partridge. I spent the day with my lovely feline friends and wandered the nearby Plaistow Cemetery with my camera.
Poppy must have got the memo about my birthday, so even she was tolerant (welcoming would be an exaggeration) of my pats and presence for a few days.
I went straight from that sitting to Bounds Green to sit Jilly for the first time. Jilly is Lottie's successor and equally as charming, though, thankfully, in good health.
A more floofy black kitteh than Lottie, she loves playing fetch. She had a penchant for my suitcase, like Lottie. Although Lottie preferred to scratch it up in the middle of the night, Jilly just liked to sleep on it. We regularly caught each others' eyes across the landing whilst I worked at Sarah's computer and Jilly chilled.
We spent time snuggling, playing fetch, seeking out wand toy lures hidden behind pillows on the couch and binge-watching episodes of 'Succession' before falling asleep on the couch until the wee hours.
I also spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot power and water supply issues around the roof replacement at my rental flat from afar during that period. (Given how little I've been at home this year so far and how little I will be for the coming months, I often ask myself why I'm still renting).
I was home (late) for one night on 30 April. And that night, my iMac's SSD finally decided to pack it in. So, I spent the wee hours of the morning messaging Apple Support to troubleshoot it and more time the next day.
And, on a Bank Holiday when the roofers weren't supposed to be doing any work, they AND my neighbours decided to work. I swear my neighbours were hammering non-stop, sometimes in tandem, for 2.5 hours from 08:30 until 11:00 and intermittently through the rest of the day until I finally left at about 17:45.
Since the evening of Monday, 1 May, I've predominantly been sequestered with temperamental tabby, Mia, who I've started calling 'Pickle'.
We hung out for a prolonged period last summer during a heatwave. We were both struggling and spent most of the time moving as little as possible and hiding from the heat as best we could.
This time, she hasn't had the energy sucked out of her by the heat, so we have struggled with each other a bit.
She climbs on and claws everything and is prone to slapping and scratching. But we've got to a point where she approaches me affectionately, invites herself to sit on my lap and even touches our noses or head boops me (though, even when she initiates affection, she can still resort to slapping or scratching me if she loses her balance resettling herself on my lap, for example).
She enjoys chasing the star symbol projected from a laser pointer and has found new pleasure in my hair bands, one of which I will have to locate before I leave.
I'm here until early afternoon Friday, spending two nights with Sophie on her return, and then I'll go home for the weekend.
From the evening of Monday, 22 May, I'll be sitting my senior special needs doggo friend, Dougal, in Wimbledon Village. We'll be together until early Friday afternoon. He needs more attention than Mia demands but is far less aggressive in extracting it from me and more appreciative.
From there, I'll go down to Bromley to sit my regulars plus one. Oscar has joined the team there, and I look forward to meeting him properly. If Poppy doesn't like him, then I'm sure we'll get along fine!
I'll be there until the 29th or 30th, then home for a few days.
Amidst that, I've had to venture from south to north London for work, plant watering, transportation of my iMac to an Apple Store and many hours there while a knowledgeable and helpful member of the Genius Bar ran diagnostics and so on.
Thankfully, Apple Care agreed to cover the cost of replacing the SSD, as I raised issues before the end of my coverage. Hopefully, I'll be able to collect my iMac on Saturday.
This brings me to another of the reasons I've struggled to keep up with editing and posting the past few weeks. I've been looking into my finances, flight prices, and itineraries and contacting my extended family to arrange a trip back to Australia that could encompass visits with my immediate family, my uncles and their other halves, and my two cousins and their families, post Mum's passing.
Yesterday, I finally booked flights to spend most of June in Australia.
My trip will begin in Brisbane, move to Ulverstone in Tasmania, and then Melbourne and Perth. Flying back to London on a direct flight for the first time (eep!)
For those of you in or around those cities: I would love to catch up if we can arrange it.
On returning to London, I have another longer sitting booked with Dougal. A three-week sitting with Frank, a gorgeous cockapoo, from late July into August. And a sitting with two adorable-looking ragdoll kittehs in late August, early September. I'll meet them in early July, but from the photos, they are unspeakably photogenic!
And another sitting in mid-September with my regulars in Bromley to look forward to.
Somewhere before the end of the year, I hope to visit friends (and their doggos and kittehs) in Scotland and venture back over to north Wales.
And, more importantly, I want to edit and share work with you.
In the meantime, in celebration of my upcoming visit with my Dad in Tassie next month, here are some photos I took in Dip Forest in 2018 that I haven't previously shared.
I hope to share more new work with you during the coming week and while I'm away.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
crucifixion
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 April 2023].
On a rainy day in late September 2021, I was returning from a few days away in West Sussex with my friend and fellow photographer, Phil.
That day, I was scheduled to return to finish my first cat-sitting with the kittehs I'm currently sitting.
Shiloh is nestled in my lap as I type this, despite my semi-regularly lifting her off my lap to go to the fridge or the bathroom during the past few hours of photo editing. When I do that, she gives me a Marge Simpson-like sound of disapproval.
I had an off-peak return ticket to London from Chichester, which meant I could take any train on any permitted route to get back to London within a month of the original booking.
Arundel was on the route back, so we drove there and wandered through the drizzle. Visiting a bookstore. Visiting Arundel Cathedral and the nearby St Nicholas' Church and its churchyard. And having food in a local cafe before Phil dropped me at the station for the next train.
Coincidentally, the train I had planned to be on was cancelled. But I digress.
In the churchyard of St Nicholas' Church, we experienced drizzle, rain, the beautiful after-rain sunlight and the saturated hues post-rain brings to stonemasonry, plant life and... well, everything.
In the churchyard, we also found this elaborate crucifixion scene.
At the time, I presumed it was a monument for someone with a lot of money. Perhaps with a name in the local community.
But, in retrospect, I presume it was installed by the church. Though I can't find anything online to confirm or deny that.
Since I took these photos, I've been keen to share them, but I knew I had to share them as a series, not as individual photographs. And, obviously, Easter is a timely point to share them.
I didn't capture a long shot showing all the participants in this act of mourning together. But, from the individual photographs and the photographs of Christ and the two women, I'm sure you get a sense of the scene.
I presume (with my limited atheist knowledge) the two women closest to Christ are his mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene. A quick Google search tells me the man is unlikely to have been Christ's father, Joseph.
Earlier today, I tried calibrating the monitor I'm working on, but I'm unsure how successful I've been. Hopefully, successful enough that I don't have to redo the edits on these photographs over the coming days.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.
glass house mountains
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 29 March 2023].
The same day Mum, Dad and I visited Peachester Cemetery, we travelled along a road giving us a view of the Glass House Mountains.
It wasn't the best weather that day, but the view was still impressive.
After an extensive discussion with Dad, we believe all but the second photograph is Mount Coonowrin, but taken from various directions (some of the photos were taken 20 minutes apart).
I'm unsure which of the Glass House Mountains the second photograph is, so if you know, please feel free to weigh in.
As with many natural formations in Australia, the First Nations Australians have a legend about the mountains. Wikipedia tells me they are located in the traditional lands of the Jinibara and Gubbi Gubbi people.
I don't recall visiting them in my childhood or teens. But I would be surprised if we didn't at least drive through the area and admire them while I lived in Brisbane or when visiting Queensland after we moved away.
death in reserve
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 26 March 2023].
As with many of my friends and lovers, my parents reached a point where they not only accommodated my obsession with visiting and photographing cemeteries, graveyards, churchyards and other final resting places. But they facilitated it.
Sometimes I wonder if it was because they felt they owed me for all the times my brothers and I were left to our own devices in winery car parks in our childhood and teens. While they tasted and purchased wine, muscat and/or port, whether on a day out or on a road trip.
I spent most of those times reading the books I was absorbed by, and I came to enjoy wine in my early 20s. My brothers didn't. Maybe they "owed" my brothers more than me.
Sometimes, it was because the cemetery was near where they or their relatives lived at some point.
I vaguely remember Mum mentioning that one of her relatives was buried in Peachester Cemetery. Dad confirmed it was one of her cousins.
Whatever the initial reasoning, my parents seemed to find them interesting the more they lurked in them with me.
And with Crohamhurst Ecological Reserve on its borders, Peachester Cemetery was one of the more scenic cemeteries I've photographed, although the graves were simple.
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.
an utter shambles
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 March 2023].
Here's a selection of photographs I took in The Shambles - Shambles and Little Shambles - in York during a visit in 2012.
Though I've visited York multiple times, I didn't know where the name came from.
As a vegetarian for almost 30 years, the revelation of where the name originated was interesting.
From Wikipedia: "Shambles" is an obsolete term for an open-air slaughterhouse and meat market. Streets of that name were so called from having been the sites on which butchers killed and dressed animals for consumption.
As you can see, even in 2012, that name was no longer descriptive of the shops that populated the area. And on a quick search, the nearby market doesn't sell much meat either.
agrostemma
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 11 March 2023].
Sorry once again for the radio silence.
As I mentioned in my post of images from Bosham back on 10 February, I had some worrying news about my Mum.
At 19:20 GMT on 28 February, I found out my Mum passed away 10 minutes earlier (though, technically, she passed away at 06:10 on 1 March 2023 AEST. Time differences are weird when dealing with someone's time of death).
So, as you might expect, I've needed some time to process that.
As I do in these situations, I've been writing.
It took time, and there were many tears along the way.
I'm currently editing photographs of Mum and photos taken by Mum to go with the piece.
I'll share it here and on my blog as soon as it's ready. Hopefully, tomorrow but definitely in the coming days.
In the meantime, here are some Agrostemma (common corncockles) I photographed in the gardens at Helmingham Hall on the last road trip I took with Mum and Dad in 2017.
Hold your loved ones tightly.
memories of you
I started writing about Mum about two hours after I learned she had passed away. My Dad had shared the news with my brothers - Robert and Peter - and me about 10 minutes after her official time of death.
Through tears, I just started writing. But it was hard to organise my thoughts.
And, as Pete and I had shared photographs of Mum on our social media accounts after we got the news, family and friends who knew about her long battle with frontotemporal dementia realised what had happened, despite our lack of words accompanying the images.
I was overwhelmed with so many kind words that I couldn't focus on writing.
And it felt too raw anyway.
I needed time and space to come back to it. Which I've been kindly given.
So, the thoughts, memories and feelings I've pushed down in my heart since that Tuesday evening have been able to bubble back up, and I could finally allow them to play around the edges of my mind.
Memories of a woman who was creative and resourceful.
Over time, after Mum moved into the nursing home, her clothing gradually needed replacing. When it did, my Dad struggled with finding replacements from clothing shops. She had made her own clothes for most of her adult life. Very little of her clothing had tags inside the collars, along the side seam or at the waistband telling him what size she was because it had been stitched together using her own sewing machine and overlocker, using fabrics she selected herself and patterns she'd perfected over many years, sometimes decades.
She didn't care for passing fads or seasonal styles. She made clothes she felt comfortable in, both formal and casual.
As we were growing up, she also made most of my and my brothers' clothes. I probably didn't own any store-bought knickers until I was almost a teenager. The bathers we wore in our kidney-shaped swimming pool in Aspley were all made by her.
Growing up, I had a favourite plum-coloured dress with floral-patterned panels, which she made.
As a tween and then a teen, I finally owned my first pairs of denim and corduroy jeans, and I went through a phase of wearing hand-me-down surf wear Rob had tired of. But often, these were paired with knitted vests my Mum made for me.
When I moved back to Melbourne to go to college and spent many a night out on dancefloors of indie clubs, I must have told Mum about my habit of putting my money in my socks by my ankles. And about the loose change bruising my ankles as it banged against my skin while I danced because none of my club clothing had pockets.
She quickly produced a solution: a collection of small "pockets" made from off-cut material with a strip of velcro across the top. She sewed the other half of the velcro strip (the soft side) into the inside of the waistband of polyester trousers I wore under skirts at the time, so I could wear the trousers with or without the pockets. When I danced, the pockets held my ID, bank cards, notes and loose change. When not in use, I could pop them in the washing machine to clean them of the sweat I produced over three to five hours of dancing.
When I could no longer get the trousers and skirts I liked in the shops, and other people's cigarettes had left burn marks in mine, we found almost identical material in Spotlight. And Mum made new trousers and skirts for me, using the originals as a pattern.
Many years later, she used the same skirt pattern (a simple A-line) to create a range of skirts I could wear in a business environment, complete with lining. I picked out the colours, and she did the rest.
I still have all those skirts though they don't currently fit me. But I wore a different colour almost every day of the week, matched with shirts and tops bought new and secondhand, along with matching tights and shoes. They served me well for many years, and if I could fit into them and had to be more corporate again, I would return to wearing them.
I lost count of how many dresses and skirts she took in, took up, or redesigned for me. I would buy brightly coloured and boldly patterned dresses from charity and vintage shops and take them with me when I visited for her to adjust. She was more than happy to, in most instances. Though, when I was a size 10, and I took her a size 16 dress, after wrestling with it for a time and finally successfully transforming it, she told me never to bring her anything above a size 14 again.
When we lived in Darwin, she took up screen printing and would decorate her homemade t-shirts with distinctive floral designs.
She embroidered clothing, cushions, and pictures that hung on our childhood bedroom walls.
She taught me to knit as she made jumpers and knitted vests for herself (though I barely remember how to do such things now).
She explored and took me through almost every late '70s and early '80s crafting trend: macramé, papier-mâché, tie-dye, patchwork, crochet, découpage, etc.
She even made a doll's house for my Littles using patterned contact paper as wallpaper.
She also loved to take photographs. I don't think she ever saw it as more than a hobby (though she and Dad both sold prints, postcards, etc., on RedBubble), but there is at least one photo of her with a telephoto lens in her 20s.
She was always armed with a camera during holidays and whenever one of us kids had a dress-up or other important event. And, over her life, she captured so much of her time living in various parts of Australia and Papua New Guinea and her extensive travels before marriage and with Dad and us kids.
When the letter arrived to tell me I had been accepted into the Diploma of Illustrative Photography course at Photography Studies College in Melbourne, she called through the bathroom door to hurry me out of the shower as she was possibly even more excited than I was to find out whether I had got in. (Mum would never open other people's mail without their permission, even when we were small children, so she had to wait for me to dry off to find out!)
Memories of a woman who encouraged my creativity and learning.
Before I fell in love with photography, my Mum was enthusiastic for all three of her kids to learn an instrument. She researched and tried to find musical instruments matching each of our temperaments.
She had learned to play the piano growing up but would honestly have admitted she never grasped it that well. She loved the sound of piano music, so I think she was thankful I took to it and played for so long.
She bought me a piano when I first started learning around four years old with the idea that if I didn't take to it, she would play it. I don't think she ever really had many opportunities, as I often sat on the piano stool practising, even during the week after I said I didn't want to play anymore when I played even more than usual.
Every time I visited after I moved out, she would encourage me to play. She would listen to anything I wanted to play while she made dinner around the corner in the kitchen. She was as happy to listen to me playing hits by Madonna from the 1980s to Radiohead songs she probably had never heard the originals of, as well as classical and modern pieces I learned for various exams over the years.
It was like an extension of our time together when I was in late primary school and sat at the breakfast bar in our kitchen as she prepared dinner and read to her whatever book I was devouring. I honestly couldn't tell you what I read to her, but I presume at least some of it was Judy Blume's novels. I'm sure I didn't read any of the terribly saucy Jackie Collins novels I used to borrow from the library or the Sweet Valley High series I was prone to reading in grade six. But I'm sure the content wasn't even that important to her.
It was initially a way to encourage my reading and help me with new (to me) words. But it would also have been a way to relieve some of the tediousness of making dinner for five most nights of the week and to feel less alone and like a servant to her family. I know Mum enjoyed cooking, but I'm sure there were days when she would rather have had a break. I probably never thought of it that way at the time. In retrospect, I was an analogue version of Audible for her.
Memories of a woman with a wickedly impish sense of humour.
It's probably safe to say I got my dirty mind and love of double entendre from Mum. Possibly my love of puns. And she, in turn, probably got her sense of humour from her parents.
When Mum and Dad ran a motel and restaurant in Stawell, a small former gold-mining town in Victoria, she loved to pick up dirty jokes from the sales reps who regularly passed through. She relished retelling them to anyone who would listen. I rarely had the talent for joke-telling, but Mum truly enjoyed sharing those jokes with the staff and guests and the belly laughs or groans they inspired.
When we were kids, Mum never seemed to shy from causing controversy in the neighbourhood. She raised a bit of a stir roaring down the incline of our suburban street in the billy-cart my Dad made for us kids (using the wheels from my pram to my initial mortification but then enjoyment). Apparently, that was a bit much for our north Brisbane neighbourhood.
To this day, I don't know why Mum put a pig's head in our oven (maybe pig's cheek recipes were popular in the '80s?), but I do remember finding out that several of the neighbourhood children's parents expressed their horror that Mum gave their kids the teeth of said pig to take home.
That was one of the hardest things to grapple with when Mum's dementia took hold. She literally lost her sense of humour. Her laughter was almost entirely absent for much of the time after she was finally diagnosed.
There were exceptions: the day I arrived in Tasmania in October 2019, mere days before her 74th birthday, she knew me. She was pleased to see me. She proudly told anyone who would listen who it was that had come to visit.
Though her recognition of me slipped away within a short while with the distraction of being in a hospital and her confusion about the various things attached to her body, every now and then that day and the next, a wry grin would sneak across her face. And we poked our tongues out at each other playfully on one occasion. They were the last moments of humour I shared with Mum in person.
There were the odd moments on Skype calls when I returned to London where I would see glimmers, but they were 'blink, and you'll miss them' moments.
I was wearing a summer dress with thin shoulder straps one night when one of the carers helped Mum and me have a call, but my long hair obscured the straps causing Mum to think I was naked and to make a cheeky joke about it. And another time, when the carer told Mum she was talking to her daughter, she made a self-deprecating joke that I was too pretty to be her daughter.
Pete took two self-portraits of him with Mum in the last few years that capture her true essence in what I imagine was a brief moment of her old self re-emerging. I will forever be jealous of that moment and that he managed to freeze it in time. But happy for him that he had that moment and caught it for all of us.
Memories of a woman who exhibited endless affection.
Those self-portraits also capture Mum's all-pervading affection. Another aspect of her personality that was all but obliterated by her dementia. She went from being one of the most affectionate people you could know to someone who often seemed repelled by human contact.
Mum was always giving hugs, asking for hugs, kissing all of us on the cheek, and open to us kids curling up into the crook of her armpit or sitting on her lap as we watched television or when guests visited. Her family was like that, and she encouraged that environment in our home.
Dad and his brother had grown up in a loving but not physically affectionate family. My Mum gradually and proudly brought the affection she was accustomed to into their lives.
When I was a child, my uncle would shake the hands of my brothers and me as a greeting and on departure. As we grew older, he had been so well trained by Mum that hugs replaced handshakes.
Memories of our ever-changing relationship.
My almost 46-year relationship with Mum went through many stages.
Almost without fail, she was an encouraging and supportive guide when I was growing up. She saw my potential in many areas and nurtured it. She encouraged my love of reading, music, photography and learning, even if she didn't always approve of what I read, the music I enjoyed, the photography I created and the beliefs I earned through my learning.
In my teens, she was protective and supportive but let me find things out for myself. To forge my own way. Maybe she figured she had no choice, as I was often headstrong and stubborn. But she would also have known she'd prepared me well for those years. In my formative years, she was always open about puberty and sexuality. And tried to reinforce common sense and self-worth.
When I left the family home, she took me completely by surprise by saying goodbye through tears. I had presumed she would be glad to have another child out of her hair, and I was excited about what the future held and looking forward to that. So it had never really occurred to me before that moment how this event would affect her.
But in those next few years, I saw Mum as my best friend. We spoke on the phone for hours at least once a week. I knew I could ask her about anything. I gave her updates on my life, and we talked about everything and nothing.
I called her each time I realised I hadn't been paying enough attention to what she'd taught me about cooking, laundry, or whatever. Despite my parents giving us plenty of guidance on cooking and implementing a monthly meal where the three of us prepared a three-course meal, I had forgotten even the basics of boiling water. And I sought her advice on methods to know if my eggs were safe to eat because I'd taken them out of the carton, put them in the fridge door, not kept the use-by information and couldn't remember when I bought them.
In my late teens or early 20s, I spoke with her one evening to say that I'd often felt she was there for my brothers more than me as we grew up. It wasn't recrimination. Just telling her honestly how I felt.
She took my comment as intended and told me honestly that she had often felt I didn't need her as the boys did. That I always seemed to be so self-sufficient. I never really seemed to need anyone, as so much of what I did and enjoyed didn't require anyone else. That I always seemed to enjoy my own company.
Our strong relationship was based on our ability to talk honestly like that. As I moved into my thirties, we seemed to lose some of that and grew apart.
Memories of a woman with insatiably itchy feet.
When I moved to the other side of the world for the first time, I gave my parents another excuse to travel. So I was able to see them and travel with them in 2001.
My parents shared an insatiable passion for travel. They travelled a lot before they met but even more together, including with us kids.
We also moved so much during my childhood and adolescence that people would ask if my parents had been in the RAAF, especially having lived in Darwin and Stawell. At the time of Mum's passing, my parents had lived in five of Australia's eight states and territories.
Mum's last international trip was in 2017 to the UK and Ireland, and I joined my parents for a road trip around mainland England for some of their time here. It was a difficult trip.
I'd had difficult holidays with Mum before because we clashed more often than we agreed by about 2010. And, on some trips since then, I'd felt like an interloper.
But 2017 was harder as her (as yet undiagnosed) dementia was evident. It caused stress for my parents as Mum frequently put valuable items like her passport in unexpected places. So there would be frantic last-minute searches for the item with the possibility that she had left it somewhere (thankfully, she hadn't).
When I was travelling with them, Dad and I would discuss our hopes for the next day (we knew they would often only be hopes as we didn't know what Mum might cope with, how far she could travel, and when she might suddenly change her mind and refuse to do something she had been enthusiastic about earlier in the day), and Mum would often become paranoid. As though she wasn't entirely sure who I was or why I was there. Or that we were talking about her behind her back (which we were, but only because of our love for her, trying to figure out what would be manageable).
Despite how difficult that trip was and how far dementia had already impacted Mum's memory and personality, I loved seeing moments like the one I captured between my parents in the photo above as they walked through London: still reaching for each other's hands after 47 years of marriage.
One of my strongest memories of Mum will always be her love for Dad and their love for each other, though dementia obscured her feelings for the last four years of her life.
Memories of a woman who was quite different to me.
Despite my grandparents being quite progressive in many ways, Mum grew up in a home where you didn't talk about politics or religion in polite company. So over the years, as my views on both became more outspoken, particularly about politics, Mum and I often clashed. I would have healthy discussions and debates (though quite heated at times, I wouldn't have called them arguments) with Dad and my uncle that Mum found quite stressful, which I, in turn, found hard to understand.
Despite the conflicts that arose from those exchanges, when the conversations turned to her family, the places we'd lived together, and so on, we would find common ground again. And we would pore over her photo albums, and she would tell me stories of her family.
I wish I'd encouraged her to write down those stories and experiences. Some of them stick with me still, but as I only have two cousins and she had 36, keeping track of the who, let alone the what and the when is hard enough. I don't know that her brother carries those stories the same way she did, and with most of her cousins passing before her, I fear many of those stories are forever lost.
I think Mum and Dad's overarching hope for all three of us kids was for us to be happy, whatever that meant for us. But I think Mum also struggled with the fact that the paths each of us took were quite different from her own. And maybe different from what she would have wanted for us.
I know, for example, that she would have loved to have been a grandmother. But, for various reasons, that never happened.
Now just memories.
We knew this day was coming for years, but it still feels unreal in many ways.
It's been about five months since things started to feel imminent, but I've been grieving since the last time I left Tasmania on 31 October 2019. Knowing it would be the last time I'd see Mum alive and hold her as we hugged in the Devonport airport. I couldn't contain my tears as the stewardess went through the safety instructions once we'd boarded the plane and taken off.
We managed Skype calls here and there with the help of the supportive staff at Mum's nursing home and Dad when it timed in with his visits. But we'd had to give that up when it became evident it was too stressful and confusing for Mum.
Our last Skype call was in early October 2021, and I couldn't return to visit since.
When the nursing home advised in early to mid-February that Mum had lost the ability to swallow and hadn't eaten anything for two days, we knew the time for false alarms had passed.
Her time of death was at 06:10 AEST. With the time difference between Tasmania and London, she passed away at 19:10 on 28 February GMT. But, in reality, she died on 1 March. For the evening, I could almost pretend her death hadn't yet happened.
Before she passed, I asked Dad in one of our Skype calls if he could take a photograph of her after she passed when the time came. He did and sent it to my brothers and me via WhatsApp when he was with her for the final time.
As you'd expect, it's a hard photograph to see (and I'm obviously not sharing it here). But it was a way for me to acknowledge her passing fully and for the reality to sink in as I was so far away for so much of her illness.
Although the grief has come in waves for so long, and things became "final" two weeks ago, I'm still not sure it will hit me fully until I can visit Dad in Tasmania and be in their house and feel her permanent absence.
Rest in peace, Margaret Alice Hyde.
24.10.1945 - 01.03.2023
I love you,
Miss Mouse.