Category: Uncategorized

Walking home today, about six o’clock, this was the canal. Peaceful and calm, although cold, and the light a lovely blue. It was almost too dark to take the picture, hence the slight blur, but it was so lovely to see, I had to use the pic.

Before we moved to Preston, we looked up the town on Flickr, to see what we were getting ourselves into. One of the pictures was of a telephone pole just like this one, with wires going in all directions to the local houses. It was captioned something like “twenty-first century communications networks in Preston”. It was a great picture, and when we moved to Preston we saw just such poles everywhere. There;s even one outside our house, visible from the kitchen window. The thing is, though, the phones work fine, so does the Internet, which is faster and cheaper than anywhere I’ve ever lived, and it all comes through those wires, so we shouldn’t complain.

London is full of people. And I mean FULL of people. I still think of myself as a city person, and I miss cities, but I am clearly not used to people, because London left me feeling claustrophobic and overwhelmed a lot of the time. It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling well, but I just felt I was constantly bupbing into people, getting in their way, having them in my way. It was loud, and too warm, and generally quite unpleasant. We did find an amazing find, though: the Masonic Temple. Martin wanted to see it, so we went, and when we got there, there was a museum and a tour, so we got to see the inside of the temple, and the most incredible mosaic. The whole thing is rather nazi-soviet, though, having been built in 1928 or thereabouts, the height of Deco – all hard edges and massive spaces. The mosaic covers the curved spaces between the walls and ceiling, and is largely light blue and gold, with illustrations of key scenes, symbols and figures. The whole thing was awe-inspiring, but once again, no pictures allowed.

This is a candleholder Martin bought in a junk shop in Porto last year. It’s quite cheap, and clearly salvage from a catholic church somewhere, but not shating my squeamishness about catholic regalia, he insisted on it.

The junk shop was quite something, packed with rubbish, but holding some interesting finds. We battled a bit, because the old woman who ran it spoke no English, but she managed French, as did I, so we bought forks, of all things, and a few other knickknacks, and this candle holder. It lives on the mantelpiece, and that’s the startlingly-textured wallpaper of the living room behind it. Yet another example of the interesting wallpapers of this house.

This is Lincoln’s Inn Field, in London. We were in London for two days, on an impromptu trip, which went rather oddly. On Thursday, I had no time to take pictures, and so this picture and the next were taken on the same day: Friday.

It’s a lonely tree, on the edge of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which were once attached to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court at London. I have no idea what any of this means, to be honest, but the field is lovely: quiet and green, and surrounded by trees. It’s really just a park, but it was a sanctuary from the almost insane claustrophobia of Sir John Soane’s Museum which, although, fascinating, I found oppressive with the weight of all that stuff. No photography allowed, though, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

We are not big on cat toys or furniture, although we love our cats to a point pretty close to delirium. Partly it’s a matter of taste – most cat toys and furniture are ugly, but it also a matter of not really thinking about getting them things. They do have boards to scratch, bought for pennies at the hardware store, and I did make catnip toys once, but Oliver dismembered them rapidly. We’ve tried beds, but none of them worked, except for this one, which Oliver is pretty much always in. The thing about this, is that it’s hanging off the radiator, so it’s nice and warm. He used to sleep on the floor next to the radiator, and that’s why I bought it. He slept under it a few times, until I actually lifted him up and put him in it, and then he was hooked. I like it because it’s in my study, so I have a companion while I’m *ahem* working away.

This is a pub close to campus. It’s the ‘nicest’ pub, and the only one I ever go to. I have lunch with an American colleague in the business school there fairly regularly. The food’s not great, but it’s reliable, and the company’s good.

We tend to bitch about the Brits quite often – there’s something about livin in a foreign country requires a regular session with a fellow-foreigner, just to get it all out of your system.

I’ve been trying to photograph the cobbles in the street outside through the wavy glass in the front door, but I just can’t get it to work. It’s frustrating, because it’s such an interesting effect and texture. This is the next best thing – a scene through the front door – street, houses, tree and sky, but you wouldn’t know that.

The other thing you wouldn’t know, reading this blog, is that I do actually leave the house. Pretty much every day. I even take my camera with me, most days. It’s just that I find the campus boring, and I don’t have time to hang out and take pictures there, much. Plus, I’m self-conscious while taking pictures. I will try harder, though, I promise.

This blog is turning as much into a record of the minutiae of my life as a work of photographic creativity. This picture is firmly in the former category. It’s a watch cap I knitted for Martin, which I finished today. It’s knitted in a merino/cashmere/silk mix, and should therefor not be itchy, unlike the previous woolly hat I knitted him, which suffered a tragic fate at the hands of the washing machine. It’s the colour of milky coffee, which is what he wanted. I initially bought the wool to mend some socks, but he liked the colour so much I knitted a hat out of it as well.

It’s photographed on the staircase finial because Martin hates having his picture taken.

I have only recently learned to give away books. These are headed for one of the charity shops, but I need to take a few in to the campus coffee shop as well – to swap for books I have taken from them.

This is all fiction, and as I said, I have only recently learned to get rid of books, and I am still pretty much sticking to fiction. The fact is, though, we have a lot of books, and not a lot of space, and honestly, I am never going to read any of these again. They are mostly discount paperbacks bought at airports – I always allow myself to read frivolous stuff on planes – so I won’t miss them. I don’t think I can even remember a single title in the stack right now.