The day was spent indoors but the horizons ranged rather wider. What you see here amounts to about 40% of my collection of Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 maps of the UK; ‘the hiker’s Bible’, for sure. I shall hopefully be making use of one chapter before the week is out.
More junk, like yesterday. But no one would come in if it were called a ‘junk shop’, so the word ‘antique’ is employed to give these various discarded pieces of trash some cachet. But it’s all for show. Take the false teeth visible to top right, for example. However old they are, I doubt they would be employed by a set decorator for some period movie.
A working week in London, and this becomes the third time that city has been the setting for five pictures in a row. Friday morning was spent at the Victoria & Albert museum, where this collection of sarcophagi reside. Whomever was the subject for the one second from bottom, they clearly wanted to be portrayed as studious, even in death.
The page of text you see here was enscribed some 1,150 years ago, in the later part of the 9th century AD. This is a page from the MacDurnan Gospels, created in Ireland and now held in the library of Lambeth Palace in London. What you see here are the originators of the idea of a cross-reference: this must be a passage from the gospel of John, because here, the scribe has noted that the same events are also recounted in Matthew, Mark and Luke (listed from the top down).
It’s to look at, and be taught about, beautiful things like this that I am in London this week and this was certainly a good place to start the day. Michelle Brown, whose fingers you see here, is such an expert on this time and subject that listening to her is like being immersed in a river of learning: we’re coming up every so often for breath but it’s no hardship to get back in afterwards, and I was actually disappointed when the day ended at 5pm. And it’s been a while since I could say that about certain other aspects of my job.
On the move again. A scene on the train to London, where I will be for the whole week to come. The field of poppies outside — somewhere near Doncaster — was so extensive that I had time to see it, get the camera out, set up the shot and still capture it OK, despite moving at around 75 miles per hour at least. I believe black won the game in the end.
After the expanded horizons of yesterday, it was back to work today. I could have posted a pic demonstrating that I am a Pinball Wizard (all-time high score on the pub machine) but that would just have been me showing off, so let’s try to make out that I was engaged in some gainful employment. Whether the message on the pen is a metaphor or not, that’s up to you to determine.
The last two nights of my road trip have been spent at the home of friends Pegs and Dan Bailey, who live in a remarkable house, of which I was immediately envious. The name ‘The Round House’ is entirely literal, and this is the main interior stairway, from the bottom, looking up. Thanks to them for the hospitality — and the photo opportunity in the morning. The rest of the day was spent driving home.
How decadent, a glass of wine on a train on Sunday lunchtime. (And a bottle of water that may or may not originate from a spa town in North Yorkshire.) I like the refraction in the glass that is in turn reflected in my phone on the table.
Life becomes increasingly homogenised, and every egg you buy from the shop now seems to be brown. But Clare gets eggs from someone she works with, who has a farm in Calderdale, one of those where you risk running over truly free-range chickens if you drive past, and she doesn’t add dye to their feed to get the desired level of brownness. I love the gentle blue colour of this one, and pure white is also often seen. (And brown too, as you see with the other one.)
Treated myself, and my PhD student Steve (well, we split the bill) to a rarity for me, a working lunch, courtesy of the huge Tai Wu restaurant that sits just next door to the campus. And the dim sum were very fine. I’m still glad it’s Friday, though.
Being 42 