[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 30 July 2024].
The Old Toll House, a Grade II listed building formerly a turnpike tollhouse.
friends in high places
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 March 2024].
I returned home from a week in Llandudno, Wales, on Friday.
After sitting Meg and Mog in Minera in October 2021, the Avanti West Coast (AWC) leg of my journey back to London was cancelled. I contacted them to see if I might be eligible for partial compensation, even though I had a flexible ticket to allow me to catch alternative trains from Chester to London. I arrived only half an hour later than scheduled, though I had to stand in a doorway with my suitcase on an overcrowded train from Stafford to Euston when I'd had a reserved seat on the original train.
They initially issued me two vouchers for free first-class advance single travel anywhere on the AWC network within one year of issue.
Because of my finances and life, I didn't try to book them until the last day they were valid, with fingers firmly crossed I would be able to use them. That's when I found the voucher codes didn't work.
It was an issue on their part, so AWC reissued the vouchers, and they randomly issued me a third voucher. I'm still not entirely sure the third voucher wasn't a mistake, but who am I to argue with free travel?!
Once again, finances and life meant I waited until the last minute to use the vouchers. This time, all vouchers worked the first time.
I booked tickets based on quick searches for accommodation and suitable dates for leave from work, pushing things out as far as possible. I honestly didn't know if I could afford the accommodation for each or even one of them.
Ultimately, for my first trip away, I found a suitable studio flat in a converted house a short walk from the centre of Llandudno (let's be fair: everything in Llandudno is a 'short walk' from the centre) on Airbnb.
As the flat was listed by a company, not an individual, out of curiosity, I looked for it as a direct rental. I found it only slightly cheaper via the Finest Retreats website, but I also found a one-bedroom flat in the same building on their site for the same price.
Green versus blue.
Blue is my favourite colour, and a studio flat was sufficient for my needs.
But the green flat had floral wallpaper. It would allow me to create new wallflowers self-portraits.
You can guess the decision I made.
I shared several mobile photos from my trip on my Instagram during the week. But I have copious photos I took with my Nikon D700 during the week, which I'll share early access here in due course, including the wallflowers self-portraits I took on one of my "rest days" when the weather was not so great.
While staying in Llandudno, I walked the length of Marine Drive, the road that circles Great Orme, a limestone headland jutting out into the Irish Sea just behind where I stayed.
On the first day of walking around Great Orme, I could hear sheep baa-ing above me soon after passing the toll gate. The signage told me to expect sheep and goats along the way and warned me against approaching them.
The first time I heard them, I could only just see them above me (the photograph above).
At a later point, I turned to look back to where I'd come from and saw some sheep on a ledge above the road (as shown in the other three photographs).
A couple and their small child were coming around the curve of the road behind me. I caught the father's eye and gestured to the sheep, thinking he would point them out to his child.
Instead, he responded in a blasé fashion, "Yes, they're everywhere". I mentioned I had heard them further back but could barely see them. He commented on my camera's lens as if my only interest was photographing them.
Maybe he was a local, and it was all in a day's walk for him. Perhaps he was having a trying day.
But I thought to myself (and maybe muttered under my breath) that I hope I never lose my sense of wonder like he had seemed to.
I hope I never find sheep and goats hanging out on a ledge well above my head or below the road on sheer cliffs and grassy outcrops utterly and unspeakably ordinary and uninteresting, even if I lived in a place where I saw it every day.
What a dull life that would be.
east briscoe
ely
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 12 October 2023].
I have so many photographs I took during a road trip with my parents in 2017 that I haven't yet had a chance to edit.
I'm trying to fix that (not to mention trying to work through editing all the other photographs I have from other holidays or day trips with them over the years).
It was Mum's last international trip. Her dementia was evident during that visit and even more jarring for me as I hadn't seen her in person since our road trip through Belgium in 2014.
there will be comedy (loading only)
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 6 December 2022].
I took this photograph of the Futurist Theatre in February 2012 while visiting Scarborough with an ex-partner, Kyle, using The Old Chapel in Baldersdale as our base.
I finally edited this photo a couple of weeks ago and looked up which road it was on in Scarborough. That was when I discovered the theatre closed in January 2014 and was demolished in August 2018.
I have to admit I gasped in shock, horror and sadness.
The place seemed somewhat comical when I photographed it.
Most British seaside towns - especially their esplanades (even if called something else) - elicit a strange combination of amusement (especially if there's a 'Pleasure Beach'), nostalgia, curiosity, wonderment and sadness for me. Maybe there's a longer piece to be written about that.
But, given its history (both iconic and terrible), it seemed shocking to have been knocked down.
And from what I can tell, the site hasn't been developed further since (which is possibly even sadder).
For a time, the Futurist Theatre had the ignominious heritage of being owned by the Black and White Minstrel Show's producer. They staged the show there many times.
But The Beatles also performed there during their Beatlemania period in 1963 and 1964.
Aside from the architecture, history, irony and nostalgia, I photographed the theatre because The Muppets was showing.
Man or Muppet became our shared earworm during that holiday. It played regularly on the northern radio stations we listened to in the rental car during our time in the region.
Despite its cheesiness, there's a snippet of the film's dialogue in the video clip for the song that got me every time. It still does.
road to lamington
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 28 May 2022].
s.p.q.b.
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 April 2022].
'Senatus Populus Que Brugensis' means 'the Senate and the people of Bruges'.
It can be found on the Bruges coat of arms and an ornate water pump featuring a swan in Bruges, as I found in 2014 during my time there.
toni's ices
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 June 2021].
I'm looking forward to the prospect of day trips out of the city with friends this summer.
The last one with friends as a collective in the UK was to visit Cambridge in 2018.
I took this photograph in Cambridge, but it was during a road trip with Mum and Dad on their last visit to the UK in 2017.
It was definitely my Mum's last international trip but, hopefully, Dad can come back to the UK sometime soon.
That trip was stressful and emotional as it was the first time the development of Mum's dementia was unmistakable. Previous travels with my parents had been stressful and emotional, but for other reasons.
But it was still enjoyable for the places I could visit or revisit and the time spent with my parents in the calmer moments. And, obviously, the photographic opportunities.
Where are you looking forward to spending your days out this summer? Answers on a postcard ;)
upon a country lane
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 February 2021].
near nowa nowa
of frostbite and food bellies
Day seven of The 100 Day Project.
Did I mention I'm also a fan of the absurd?
I had big plans for a new instalment of my postcards from another's life series today.
But then I had a bit of a lie-in. I spent about two hours on Skype with my dad. I did some chores. I joined a Quaranteam session with Marianne Cantwell. And I had to work on 'this' despite not knowing what it was going to be when I started.
My big plans have been rescheduled to tomorrow. But I already have an idea of what tomorrow's collage and my next 'pfal' will be.
Illustrations:
Behemoth by Louis Le Breton from Dictionnaire Infernal
Frostbitten sun by Gustave Doré from Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und Lande, feldzüge und lustige Abentheuer des Freyherrn von Münchhausen wie er dieselben bey der Flasche im Zirkel seiner Freunde zu Erzählen pflegt. Aus dem Englischen nach der neuesten Ausgabe übersetzt, hier und da erweitert und mit noch mehr Küpfern gezieret
a new way of seeing things
now playing: morrissey & siouxsie - interlude
black & white
I have two images in issue #62 of F-Stop Magazine - black and white.
As always, some fantastic work in this issue.
now playing: lily allen - littlest things