Saturday December 1st 2018

What is a sign?

Well a quick perusal within the Oxford English Dictionary one would find....

• [An] object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else
• [To] write one's name on (a letter, card, document, etc.) to identify oneself as the writer or sender.
• [A] notice on public display that gives information or instructions in a written or symbolic form.

Well there you go then. A sign is many things, yet each individual sign is grappling with a specific aspect of the maelstrom of daily life. I came across two signs today. Small signs, lost in the landscape within which they sat. One permanent, representing a temporary moment in the landscape, one temporary but providing a permanent reminder of an event. 

Up on Moccas Hill NNR near Dorstone in Herefordshire is a nice walk. From the car park, an easy bumble up the track affords the most stunning views from a hogs-back of a ridge, north over to Shropshire and I have been told the Cotswolds to the east. To the south the great dark lummox of the Black Mountains towering over the Golden Valley like an eagle quartering it's next victim. Rain falls on these Welsh hills in frequent fast moving bands but never seems to reach the English valley. And for that I was grateful. I stood looking at a sign "For - Forrest Emrys Lloyd Segal - for a lifetime of growth". The sign had been placed on a sturdy tree guard. The winds whip cruel up here. Who was this Emrys Lloyd Segal? Was he really called Forrest? At some point in the none-too-distant past a sapling had been planted in his memory and entombed in the tree guard safe from marauding deer. My mind wandered as the wind billowed clouds around me like confetti. Presumably he knew this landscape. A local man perhaps. A local man who grew to love the permanence of this landscape (today in its December malevolent mood) sandwiched along the English & Welsh border. In death (for I am presuming the word For signified that this is a memorial tree) his temporary footfall on the land ended, but his memory like the sign, will become a permanent feature as his tree grows to maturity over the next half millennium. I'd like to know more of Forrest Emrys Lloyd Segal, but I never will I suppose, but already I like him, for his lifetime of growth principles. My temporary passing of this sign, will just be that, temporary.

Later today a temporary sign welcomed us to table 5 in the 17th Century Pandy Inn in Dorstone. Table reserved, we arrived eager to sample the delights of this newly Crowned 'Best Community Pub in Hereford'. Or as I said to the landlady, best pub in Dorstone at least. Narrowly avoiding being barred permanently from this oldest (built 1185) pub in Herefordshire, I scuttled off to the table. 'Reserved Miranda'. The Miranda in question is now termed a local and had booked the table for us. She and husband Graeme moved to Herefordshire a few years back following running a successful gardening business in France.  It is how Miranda and I met, through the internet of blogging. For she wrote eloquently on the joys of Continental gardening, and I careered through my wildlife blog with my customary abandoning of attention to detail. But it was not until 2016 that Miranda and I finally met face to face. 

There are only three glasses there, as Julie's soda and lime failed to turn up for the photoshoot. It was a good night, food excellent, atmosphere perfect, in a pub in the middle of nowhere packed to the gunnels with locals.  That sign unlike the one for Emrys Lloyd Segal will have been wiped clean soon after we left, in readiness for the next customer. A temporary sign of an event which passed in one evening. But a sign which fermented the bonds of conversation and friendship which will hopefully remain as permanent as a friendship can be. Yet the four of us at the convivial table were temporary visitors to the Pandy Inn. 

I just wonder, was this Emrys Lloyd Segals local?

Friday November 30th 2018

Home for three nights. And our fourth visit over the last year to Hodson's House nestled beautifully in the Golden Valley in Herefordshire. The backstory here is in September 2018 we were booked for a well deserved break for a week. We'd booked this in February when we came for a long weekend  and paid in full, however I made a real hash of getting the right dates in the calendar.  The owner Jo contacted me on the Monday and asked 'you haven't arrived, is everything okay?" I was just fine, however I was at work and not on holiday. I'd booked my annual two weeks off on the wrong dates. We'd failed to turn up. Luckily we found a wonderful cottage for the week I had actually booked off, about 2 miles away over the hill. But Hodson's House is a real favourite of ours.

Jo the owner could have shrugged off my increasing incompetence but in a renewal of my faith in the kindness of humans she offered us a 'free' weekend in December or January as somewhat compensation. Tomorrow is the first weekend in December, and so here we are, we've actually remembered to turn up. Which is a start I suppose. The photos were taken around 4.30 half an hour after we'd arrived. Today it seems will be the best of the three days here weather wise. Making an early start the town of Hay-on-Wye provided lunch, tea, cake and scotch eggs. Time for a few snaps of the gathering gloom before night falls. Its so quiet here you can hear a pin drop.  We love it.

Thursday November 29th 2018

Brooding light, brooding trees, the symmetry of composition.  Today I visited Dyrham Park near Bath. I've known of this place for ever, yet despite driving past the entrance many times, this is the very first time I have visited. I was there for a meeting to do with the National Trust voluntary work I do. So it is fair to say I went to Dyrham Park, but didn't see much of it, other than the inside of offices in the old stable block. Luckily however I had arrived earlier than expected so in the intervening 25 minutes before Paula from Tyntesfield arrived, I had a wander. To be truthful I had a wander photographing the lines of trees emanating from the visitor reception area.

The light was a classic end of autumn light,  dull, overcast, dark, heavy cloud. As if the sun has popped its head over the horizon, thought better off it and dimmed the lights. It was quite blustery too. Yet when I arrived in the car park those bare brooding branches against a dark foaming sky really caught my attention. Dark skies, dark branches, whatever but black and white (and a few sepia) over compensated images. I did try a few colour images but they just didn't grab my attention. 

On purpose I made these darker than in reality, the image above being at f5.6 and 1/200 sec on ISO 200. I like taking images in manual mode while out and about as what enchants me is the contrasts, not the view.  That said it was an absolutely fascinating meeting which lasting nearly three hours meaning it was even darker when I got back to the car in near darkness. Good days these. 

Wednesday November 28th 2018

The end of a busy day, home at last and a boot full of recording equipment. I gave up my day job role of radio producing a couple of years ago due to a spot of ill health. Nothing serious, but I had a shock and it made me re-think what I do and for the most part, while my working life is busy, it is now office based and routine. But at the end of October, due to a transmission deadline and literally no available producers to make programmes I was asked if I'd make an Open Country for Radio 4 for delivery before Christmas. It's two and a half years since I last produced a programme on location. I said yes as the Department was desperate, but on the condition it could be local to me as I get stressed driving these days. That agreed, today arrived, the day of recording. I have to admit I'd got quite anxious in the run up to the recording. That has always been my problem, possibly due to not being a natural programme maker, having fallen into it accidentally at a later age - I was 45 when I made my first Living World (on orchards). I love sound recording, and I love being on location. But the process of getting there is for me like pushing against a closed door. I can make programmes but I'm not driven to do so. There's a huge difference there.

But that said and despite no proper sleep for three days worrying about had I got the right mix of people to interview, I felt quite alive and headed off to pick up the presenter at 08.30 am. First stop Thatchers cider in Sandford, then Winscome Millennium Green, drive over to Yatton and the Strawberry Cafe, Congresbury next for a piece on the wildlife group YACWAG and finally back to Sandford to look around the astonishing Cheddar Valley Heritage Museum. It was local, but there's a lot of driving in-between recordings. It was also a blustery day, a very blustery day and with driving rain at one point, but we, the presenter Chris Sperring and I got there at the end and I managed to get home for 5pm. Quite a short day recording wise. First thing was to check the recording has been saved and then download it to a drive. So the audio is now in two places, it's checked, time to relax.

Many has been the time I've finished recording at 4 or 5pm, said goodbye to the contributor and the presenter then I had a 3 hour drive home, having had a three hour drive there often on the same day. Media producing is a young person game, not that I don't enjoy a large part of it, but now I'm in my mid fifties, tempest fugit is no longer on my side of driving the length and breadth of the country, or having to re-juggle problems at the last minute. Coupled with the masses of planning beforehand of what and whom to record and logistic planning, all for what a producer who has recently resigned her job said to me, will be a 24 minute programme forgotten as soon as it airs. From the outside radio producing looks like a lovely easy way to make a living. It is a good, but for today's programme I have 7 days to get that 24 minutes on air, in my case those 7 days have to be squeezed around my day job I still have to keep on top of. Radio budgets are minute and so there is no time to stop and think about what we're making. Most producers now work 7 day weeks, as weekend have become thinking and script writing time. It's fast and furious. It isn't stressful in the big scheme of things, I'm not saving lives, or dealing with emergencies, but I think today confirmed this will definitely be the last programme I will produce on location. The end of an era. A decade in fact. I'll miss meeting interesting people, and having access to places not normally open to the public, but time to let the next generation have that enjoyment.

Tuesday November 27th 2018

Today has been a drawn day for me. Energy levels at their lowest. Stress levels at their highest. So it was a chance glance at the blackboard which made me remember, the shortest day, and the longest night are less than a month away. Julie did this a few weeks back and it has been on my radar for a comment. Tonight is the day. The arrival and passing of the 21st of December will seem my energy levels rise. I can't wait.

Monday November 26th 2018

The degree of separation is as small as six steps, or so it has been said. Six degrees of separation is the idea that all living things and everything else are six or fewer steps away from each other.  Tonight I was in the mood to be horizontal after dark. In the past I was often driven to just lie on the top of the bed - fully clothed before anyone asks. Sometimes I lie there just thinking, sometimes I may create shadows on the ceiling, or as tonight with an improving book to hand. (Between Stone And Sky by Whitney Brown if you wish to know). That work had been the planned subject for today. My topic of thought - a book unopened. Most reviews are of a book read. But as I write this, that book, the memoirs of an American woman who fell in love with dry-stone walling in Wales, remains unread still. And the reason is I spied from my angle of horizon a view which captivated me. Like an old master, this view of the bedside table provided a composition which had I planned it could not be so perfect.. The happen-chance collection of things, each unconnected to each other, but each connected somehow to the humble home. I loved the composition. Like an old master still life painting. It made me ponder on the image with a bear. Reminding me of casual glimpses of old masters in print I'm sure, still life with a teddy bear. I looked that up.

Ten minutes of inputting 'oil paintings and teddy bears' caused me to stumble across an artist, Sandra Busby. Until tonight the name Sandra Busby lay unrecognised in my life. I read her biography prominent on her website. And there, there was the bear. I quote. 

"Sandra’s first painting was a teddy bear still life. It was mainly about the light and the dark, and she went back every day to keep working on it. It took probably 40 hours, and was very valuable learning time. This then turned into a series of 8 bears and each one got a bit better than the last. It was lovely for Sandra to look at the improvement between the first and the last bear painting "

Deeper within the website, lies a series of podcasts. Episode 11 if you are inclined to listen recalls Sandra's progression in her 30's into a career in art, still life art, a seductive recreation of an everyday objectification in paint. Recent work has included a single whisky glass in the dark shadows of a distant light source. I was bewitched by her technique. The podcast continues with Sandra recalling how, as largely a self taught artist, she garnered inspiration for her first painting through the works of old masters, which ultimately led to her drive to paint a teddy bear in that style. Eight teddy bear paintings followed. 

I was back in my room. The degree of separation is as small as six steps so it is said. It possibly was tonight if you count my clicking through the internet. My unread book had not connected with me at all, yet, and yet that book of a woman inspired to a different direction in life, connected me to an artist I never knew. An artist who was inspired to follow a different path in life. And there I lay, separated from both in my room, yet in ten short minutes a new world opened up, which until then I'd been ignorant of. All from a single image of happenstance connection at the click of the camera shutter.

http://www.sandrabusbyart.com/

Sunday November 25th 2018

Tea. The real driving force behind the revolving of my world. The inspiration for my thoughts today is that humble brew. A simple coming together of water, freshly boiled and the blended residue of a prepared camellia leaf. Maybe a spot of milk, or lemon, and that’s about it. Yet the act of making a refreshing drink can bring to me a sense of well-being unrelated to the simple refreshment process. That thought came into my mind as I drove home from my shift at the National Trusts’ Tyntesfield estate (other National Trust properties are available). The night was gathering it’s cloak over the land, bare silhouette trees against a leaden sky, my mind drifting from the scene to the act of tea making. More accurately having tea made for me. As a journeyman volunteer I have the best of the paid employees to work alongside in the visitor welcome team. Christmas at the estate has arrived and with it the sense of goodwill to all men, women, persons. During the day as I bumbled about Anna, Bobbie and Chris made me a nice mug of tea, sometimes unasked for. A lifesaving act of kindness to my parched persona. A simple act. Thus Anna, Bobbie and Chris I salute you!