May 12th 2014

Dramatic images inspire me, anything with a high contrast showing a visual representation of an event. After the weekends gales this morning broke fine and sunny providing a joyous walk into work after my commute. Early May is a special time of the year and so it was as I walked into work my shadow was dramatically picked out on the floor of the stairwell, so much so that I stopped in my tracks and took a quick image. Sometimes then it is the simplest of motives that spark the imagination for the daily thought. Although still sunny if I took this image now in the late afternoon it would not be possible, tomorrow may be dull. The intensity of the light, the angle of the sun at 8am, the composition of the image and framing of the door were just perfect.  A day to shout from the rooftop how good it is to be alive.

May 11th 2014

Sunlight streaking onto an ancient fireplace at The White Hart, Littleton On Severn provides today's inspiration and thought for the blog. I'm tired today as I was woken with a start at 3am by the gales which battered the Bristol Channel over the weekend. Thinking the fence panels had come down I lept out of bed and having sourced through the darkness there was no damage looked at the trees in the garden swaying dramatically as 35mph winds, gusting 60mph, screamed in from the sea. I get a lot of wind here as the house faces fields which in a distance of around 1 mile become the sea, a sea which itself reaches its fingers into the Atlantic;  but having such force in the wind in springtime is very unusual. It really did feel like November out there at 3am. My broken sleep eventually gave way to slumber and a quiet morning before then heading off to see friends in the afternoon. On our return home in the car at 6pm we felt a little peckish. With strong winds still rocking the trees, clouds scudding briskly across the sky, interspersed with sunshine and showers, I remembered this ancient and cosy inn, The White Hart nearby. Probably 6 years since I last darkened its threshold and so it was with a joyous heart to see it had not changed and best of all open at 6.15pm on a Sunday. Marvellous. Sitting at our table hard by an inglenook fireplace all of a sudden the sun streaked in and lit the hearth. Just time for a quick photograph with my mobile and then it was gone, plunging the void back into darkness for the rest of our time there. A reminder that as with many things in life, the right place at the right time counts for a lot.

May 10th 2014

A slight feeling of Groundhog-Day today as we sped through the Somerset countryside. For the last few years many, indeed the majority of my weekends, have been spent in Wiltshire often involving spending Saturday mornings in a cafe or waiting for Julie at an equestrian centre. However this is coming to an end as Julie has sold her house and in the short term at least we'll be based in Somerset, North Somerset to be precise. And it feels good. Many a discussion lies strewn on the battlefield of decision making; could I commute the 110 miles a day to Wiltshire, could Julie move to Somerset and give up her gardening work? These endless phonecalls and chats have gone on for a long time, now though with her house (hopefully) sold the decision to come west has been made. Today then was the first weekend really that we travelled about Somerset with a renewed purpose and vigour; Julie to put down roots here for the first time and for me to re-establish my lapsed roots. These two images then typified the day, doing things we would do in Wiltshire, but now 50 miles further west - coffee in the Eco-Bites cafe as part of the Avalon Marshes Craft Centre and my sitting in a car in Burtle while Julie asked the owner of this riding establishment about lessons and what they offered. After all the lengthy discussions, it feels good to be moving forward now, a positive chapter in the footsteps of life we are both taking.



May 9th 2014

As Sherlock Holmes himself may deduce, elementary my dear Watson "this is the case of the Stentor Student II violin I believe". Indeed it is and newly arrived into my possession. Back in the midst of the last years of the old century (which I still find amazing to say - that I was born in the last century), I played the fiddle. I don't profess to any great skill in this potential instrument of audio torture, in the wrong hands, but in the right hands this small wooden varnished box can produce a melody so fine it can be as if honey is cascading over a chocolate fountain. I played for two or 3 years but as often happens a lapse of a few weeks when my teacher Gill could not run her class for personal reasons, became a few months absence, I moved house and then and before I knew it years had passed since I last rosin'd a bow. Another reason I moved away from playing was that my teacher (quite rightly) wanted her pupils to perform in front of an audience. I'm not that keen on making a spectacle of myself that way and allowed stage fright to get to the better of me. However I loved playing the fiddle, and being on Orkney in April, a land with many fine musicians, it brought it home to me all the things I have let lapse in my life as work and homeownership have gotten in the way. Which brings me right up to date and why this beauty is now resident at home waiting for me to pick up the bow once again and set too on my musical journey. And so if you are driving down the M5 this summer and see cats, dogs, mothers and children flinging themselves onto the gallows, you know I'm practising my fiddle in the garden.

May 8th 2014

At 230 days the countdown to Christmas has begun, that is what this image said to me today. I walk past this holly shrub most days on my way into and out from work. Today I noticed there are both flowers on it, as I'd expect at this time of year, but also some remnant berries (technically called drupes and confirms it is a female holly) from the annual reproduction cycle nature adheres to. Of course it seems strange to be thinking about Christmas in early May but in nature terms this is the season of bounty and reproduction and the point in the cycle when as we sit down after our holly berried post Christmas turkey to watch the Queen's speech the berries we gaze upon are being created. It follows a link to the interconnectedness of all life - we love holly with berries at Christmas but without male holly trees nearby, plus the pollinators such as bees which in May assisted in the fertilisation of these flowers, the berries would not ripen for the Festive Season. So the message is clear, if you wish to have holly berried garlands on the 25th of December, we need to think long term and make sure we have a healthy environment crammed full with pollinators who themselves will be long dead but their dormant offspring will be waiting in the wings for next spring, and so the Wheel of Life, of which we humans are part of, revolves imperceptibly.

May 7th 2014

Sometimes as I'm walking about in my aimless way something takes my attention. Tonight it was this street sign that had been subject to a bit of witty and clever graffiti. I've mentioned before I don't advocate graffiti at all, but when I stumble across it and it's clever it has a certain charm. 'Brighton Mews - But Brizzol Roars' is one such time that it is [almost] acceptable. And I wasn't alone, while taking this photo a young woman in kaleidoscope coloured dungarees stopped beside me to see what I was doing 'Ohh that's clever' she said 'not a Banksy is it?' before wandering off singing softly to herself. No it's not a Banksy, I'm sure of it, I think, but I wonder how long that will remain there in the hinterland of that most wonderful and witty celebrity graffiti artist.

May 6th 2014

 

The wanderer returns. I last entered this building on March 27th and so it was with some sense of trepidation and a slight pang of 'well my mini-career break really is over' that I walked into the building today at 7.45am. It's a strange though obvious feeling to know that while I was away everything has just carried on as before. The BBC in Bristol is celebrating 80 years on this site and 2 flags have been erected in my absence. My colleagues have kindly written that it was 17 days until I returned (what happened to days 16-0 I wonder) and the post card I sent from Orkney is pinned up on the notice board. Almost a parallel existence, I've been hither and yon yet the stuff of life which encircles me and reaches its fingers from me to wherever remains in place. That is a lesson I learnt many years ago, my life encircles me not the other way around and so when I move on, life just carries on without me. That happened visiting a house I lived in years before, everything had changed and it was no longer my house, except in my memory, and that taught me to never look back too much, keep moving forward and looking ahead as that way time slows down. The future is a long way off, the past a recent memory.

 

Seeing the postcard was an interesting moment. I remember writing this in a café in Kirkwall and posting it in Dounby where I stayed. It, like me, has travelled the 600 miles to Bristol but not in my hands so as I read it again it was like welcoming an old friend.

 

One wonderful surprise however was this book below. I spend a lot of time in tea shops and cafe's and an ex colleague of mine had left this as a Birthday present, sadly missing me by a day when she delivered it at the end of March. It was a lovely extension to my 50th Birthday to open a present 36 days later as I sat down to read through my 881 e-mails which had arrived in my absence. I may have to visit every one of the 140 tea shops in this book.  And in case you are wondering, of the 881 emails, 7 needed a reply or action, the rest? Well I've been away haven't I so the moment has passed - a salutary lesson I feel.