After Blackfriars the other day — another very good view from a railway station, namely that of Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria, located right on the shore of Morecambe Bay. What’s not to like? (And don’t say ‘the wind turbines’, which IMO add to environments, rather than subtract from them.)
It was indeed a day spent almost entirely at home — and on such days, it is always helpful when one of the local herons turns up and looks photogenic. This isn’t the same one as has appeared multiple times — the colouring is different. And I like it’s slightly misplaced feather right on its crown.
Clare and Joe have been down in London since Friday night, and if you want to keep Joe happy on a Sunday morning in London, an exhibition on video games is going to be a good bet. The Victoria and Albert Museum obliges. These are phones, hanging from the ceiling; the wires are more intended to stop visitors nicking them than anything else, but I like the effect, and the two knotted intimately together, left of centre.
Last day of a run of five in London, and of this time away from home. Hebden Bridge hasn’t featured since 21st January, but it will tomorrow, because I’m now home and ain’t going anywhere. Well, not until Tuesday anyway.
It’s not easy to argue against the premise that Blackfriars station, built on its own railway bridge over the river Thames, has one of the best views of any urban railway station — in Britain, only Durham really rivals it (*yet to appear on this blog….). I could have just poked my camera out of the window and, downriver, you’ll have seen the Tate Modern, the Shard (again), Canary Wharf, and — from further up the platform — Tower Bridge. And, as seen here, St. Paul’s. I did take that stock shot but it has, sort of, already appeared on this blog (on 1/11/13) so in the end I preferred this one, illustrating how most people who get on the train here probably don’t really care…
Old and new London… Renzo Piano, architect of the Shard — tallest habitable building in Britain and the second-tallest freestanding structure, after the Emley Moor TV mast — claims to have been inspired by church spires. Myself I think he was inspired by Tolkein. If this isn’t Sauron’s tower Barad-Dur, I don’t know what is.
Up and about again today, though not very far nor very energetically. This is the kind of vibe I am trying to affect at the moment.
Despite spending the day in the centre of London my horizons were extremely limited as I was confined to bed all day feeling ill. I basically paid my hotel £154 to rent a sick room for the day. And it was a nice sunny day, too. Poking my camera out of the window now and again to fulfil my obligations, this was the best shot I managed. Consider it an abstract?
This is one of those shots that is more about the personal significance than the photographic quality. When I was growing up in Crowborough we knew members of the Chappell family, who owned this pharmacy and (though it’s not so apparent on the picture) a health-food annex to the right-hand side. In fact I think I put in my first ever example of what might be considered a day’s work in the latter, aged about 13. So I do have enough of a clear memory of this place to know that in forty or more years it has not changed ONE BIT. You’d have thought that they’d have spruced up the sign at some point — but no. It’s 1975 all over again.
Seaford Head is one of those unsung places that few people seem to have heard of despite it being just as dramatic as places like the White Cliffs of Dover, Beachy Head and other places that look rather like it. If you like this shot, catch it before it all crumbles into the sea, like most of the rest of the east and south-east coasts of England eventually will….
What yesterday’s football shot did not make apparent was that I have transferred down South for the coming week, firstly in leafy rural Sussex — specifically, Crowborough, where I grew up. This place has appeared on two previous days of the blog, back in July 2013, but I really don’t make a habit of returning. Why am I doing so this week? Well, I could elaborate on the details but basically I just want a quiet place to hang out, start my sabbatical and get some inspiration to start writing what I have to write. And, so far, it’s largely provided these things. (The fact this was taken on a golf course has no significance, I can assure you.)
One thing I always do forget about this place, though, is quite how hilly it is. Crowborough is definitely the place to bring anyone that you want to disabuse of the notion that the south-east of England is flat. We are hundreds of feet in the air here, and in the distance, those are the South Downs, some 20 miles away. The south-east may not have the mountains of the north, but it certainly has the bloody hills.
Being 42 