[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 December 2024].
The past few days have been hectic, so I had to forgo one of my instalments for the series.
But here's the next one.
holly go lightly
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 December 2024].
a single perfect snowflake
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 December 2023].
santa's potting shed
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 5 December 2023].
all that glitters is not gold
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 1 December 2023].
never a dull moment
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 27 November 2023].
untitled #79
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 February 2022].
gone fishin'
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 December 2021].
untitled #27
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 December 2021].
This image is the 'before' picture of sister.
A good deed was done between captures by my companion in righting the Christmas tree that had fallen during the previous night's heavy rain.
And this is the penultimate season's grievings image for 2021!
reindeer, roses and wreaths
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 19 December 2021].
sister
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 7 December 2021].
semper vivum
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 11 July 2021].
decorating the tree
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 December 2020].
deck the halls
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 December 2020].
now bring us some figgy pudding
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 December 2020].
There's a whole post to come about my first visit to Kensal Green Cemetery; one of the 'magnificent seven' London cemeteries.
But, between now and Christmas Day, I'll be sharing a few more season's grievings images I took during my visit, including this one.
Images from this mini-series had previously been shared early access for my Patreon patrons two days before making them public to the rest of the world.
But I have a few I want to share so they'll become public closer to 24 hours after original posting there in the lead-up to Christmas.
After Christmas, new images from the series will be available early access to my patrons a week before the rest of the world.
landlocked
He was back in front of this window; the window that had ended his school days, every day.
When he was young, he used to stop and gaze up at the model boat and the marine rescue vehicle as he arrived home each day. He would stand there, distracted for long moments.
So long, that his mother - waiting, anxiously, for him to return home from school - would open the curtains and find him stood there. Motionless, head tilted back, mouth slightly gaping and staring up at the boat.
She would come to the front door and watch him for a minute or two, a soft smile playing at the edges of her lips before she bundled him up and took him inside to the kitchen. She would ask him about his day while she prepared supper and listened to the tales he would bring home from the schoolyard.
His fascination with the boat had not waned over the years, but he had stopped gawping at it as he grew older. There were girls to gaze at instead, and as he grew up, they were what caught his eye or kept his attention as he arrived home each day from high school.
As he reached the end of high school, he was usually too busy sneaking in one last kiss with his girlfriend, Sarah, as he unlocked the front door of the house and said his goodbyes for the day.
The model boats, the marine rescue vehicle and the lighthouse baffled him a little bit when he was growing up.
Their home was twenty minutes from the nearest body of water, and that was a river, not an ocean or the sea. Hardly somewhere that a lighthouse or a marine rescue vehicle would be needed, let alone various large boats or ships.
The models were his dad's, but he didn't talk much about them and didn't like being asked about them.
His dad didn't really like being asked about anything. Or talking about anything.
The models just sat on the windowsill gathering dust, hidden from the inside of the house by the curtains. A display for others, not for us.
Except him, of course; he was fascinated by them.
On occasion, when his dad was in a more social mood or simply wanted to distract him while he talked with the grown-ups, his father would let him take down the marine rescue vehicle. Roll it across the rug, pretending he was saving his Lego men from some maritime disaster.
But his dad was always firm about the boat. The boat was not a toy. It wasn't to be removed from the window. He had received more than one firm slap across his legs and buttocks for even inching his fingers up toward the boat.
It was only in the past few years that his mother talked more about his dad's upbringing. It was only in the past few years, as he became more ill and his mind started to slip that his father spoke about the sea. It was one of the few things he could still connect with. That he still remembered.
He didn't remember faces, except his wife's. He never remembered birthdays; that was no change. But he could talk vividly about the sea. The sound of it. The smell. The feel of it on his hands.
His dad would sometimes stop mid-sentence and tilt his head as if listening closely to a conversation through the walls. After a few moments like this, he would invariably ask if they could hear the waves. They nodded and smiled awkwardly, hearing nothing, but knowing that they had to agree. That his dad would look crestfallen and confused if they said "no".
Growing up, he never met his dad's parents. His dad never spoke of his father, so he grew up believing he only had one set of grandparents. He didn't question this for a long time, and then it seemed too late to ask. Too awkward of a conversation to have.
Coming home now, facing the front windows of his childhood home, he gazed once more at the boats, the lighthouse, the marine rescue vehicle. He knew that now he could lift them out of the window and take a closer look. He knew that no one would reprimand him for that.
Since his dad had died, a lot of pieces had fallen into place in the puzzle. His mum had opened up dusty photo albums hidden away in the loft for decades. Too painful for his dad to look at, to speak about, to share.
In the yellowed black and white photographs taken in his dad's childhood, a warm, smiling, middle-aged man gazed into the camera from the railing of a boat.
He waved at the photographer with a look of love.