In the spirit of continuing to try to cheer us all up as Britain swirls inexorably down the plughole, here’s a photo I took exactly three years ago in Gyeryongsang, South Korea. At least you might as well be comfy while waiting for a bus.
An entry for the Pull up a Seat Photo Challenge#38
We’ve been invited this week, in the Lens-Artists Challenge #65 to pick a place that’s captured our hearts. I barely had to stop and think. The Pyrenees has the power, even more than my beloved Yorkshire Dales, to stir my soul, to inspire and awe, to soothe and quieten me.
These mountains formed the backdrop to our lives in France. We were in the foothills, but even a twenty minute drive had us steadily climbing to the higher peaks. Here was where we spent our Sundays with our walking friends, getting our heartbeats up with stoical climbs in the morning, before a leisurely picnic with those slopes all around us: craggy, alive with butterflies, bugs and beetles and sturdy yet delicate wildflowers: then an afternoon dropping down once more to the valley.
Here was where, for much of the year, we could see snow-covered peaks in the distance, while nearby were meadows with gentians, impossible numbers of orchids, poppies, and early in the spring, wild daffodils.
A drive over to see Emily in Barcelona meant crossing the very highest peaks: dizzying climbs, vertiginous descents. Our own ‘patch’ was less demanding, more homely, with sheep, cattle and donkeys grazing the meadows among beech and oak wooded slopes.
There was history here: the revivalist Christian Cathars flourished. There was industry – talc mining, textiles, now all gone. Farming and tourism are what remains. And the Pyrenees always provided a barrier and a stronghold in times of conflict. For us though, for more than six years, it was simply … home.
An entry for Lens-Artists Challenge #65: Pick a place
And also for Fan of …# 35
Liverpool’s tourist Mecca: the Albert Dock.
Tate Liverpool: park your umbrella inside….
Beyond the gallery window: industrial life.
Snow? Shifting perspectives? Infinite space?
Concentric lines, unsettled steps – careful! Zobop!
Arte Povera: a classical figure commentates.
Water within, water without: a view, a statue.
Beuys/me: two self-portaits in one.
Time for a smartphone moment: Sue?
And a bike moment: Sue again?
And a pause for reflection.
Before the rains came…. yet again.
An entry for Six Word Saturday – on Sunday…
My life has come full circle. Many of my earliest memories come from Sandhutton, current population 260, where my mother was head teacher of a two-teacher school which educated all the village children between five and fifteen years old. These days I visit the village weekly – it’s less than ten miles away. The school no longer exists, but my Spanish teacher lives there.
When I was five, my life changed a bit. We went to live in London (current population 8.13 million).
I was a student in Manchester (538,000). Then I went on to live in Portsmouth, in Wakefield, in Sheffield, in Leeds: all cities numbering their citizens in the tens,or even hundreds of thousands. I loved city life. I relished the opportunities only a city could usually offer, and the diverse populations living in them.
When we moved to Harrogate, some twenty years ago, I announced we were moving to a small town. A mere 75,000 people lived there.
But that was before we went to France. Laroque d’Olmes has a population of some 2,000 people, and its county town, Foix, has only 10,000. We came to appreciate small town life: its neighbourliness and our sense of belonging – the space to appreciate the countryside and mountains beyond.
When we came back to England, that small town of Harrogate suddenly seemed horribly large, traffic-infested and in every way untenable, despite its green spaces and lively community life. So here we are in North Stainley, population 730.
In fact we’re not even in the village, but in a little enclave just outside, with that walled garden I showed you last week. Population 8. It’s perfect.
Lens Artists Photo Challenge #64: Countryside or small towns.
I was mucking about, trying to achieve the effect of a set of gaudily coloured 1960s postcards, suitable as a souvenir of a day at the seaside. I sort of got there.
An entry for Six Word Saturday.
Come with me. Come with me into the walled garden. It doesn’t belong to us – it’s our landlord’s. But it’s his joy, and his joy to share it with us. We can see it – look – from our kitchen window.
So whenever the weather’s on our side, as it is today, that’s where we’ll be.
Where shall we sit? Here? Right in the centre, where there’s space for friends as well?
Maybe here at the side.
Or tucked away at the very back.
Here there is utter peace: the flowers and shrubs, the main events changing now from high summer to autumn: the bees, fuzzing and humming in the background: the background birds – perhaps a skein of geese will fly squawking overhead on their way to our local nature reserve, then onward, onward to their winter residence.
It’s our magical place. It’s where all thoughts of the dire state that our country is in are banished, and we live in the moment.
My entry for Lens-Artist Photo Challenge #63: Magical
An entry for Six Word Saturday.
We’ll still be able to get our weekly bunch of flowers come the Revolution (Brexit). We shan’t need to worry about just-in-time-deliveries via the Dutch flower trade. We’ll carry on just as we are, strolling to The Secret Garden, just outside Ripon, to choose a bunch of just-picked seasonal blooms.
On Saturdays, as you arrive there, you’ll find a somewhat retro caravan – this one.
Look inside, and there are jugs and buckets crammed with bunches of flowers chosen and gathered by the Secret Garden’s owner, Victoria Ramshaw. Every bunch includes a mix of varieties that complement and enhance each other. Every bunch was picked the previous day and plunged into water overnight to be ready to arrange, tied with raffia and presented in a twist of brown paper. Pick one up… then another …. it’s hard to choose….
Now you’ll need to go and pay. Wander up the garden to Victoria’s hut, and enjoy a chat with her. Listen to the River Laver as it tumbles and jostles alongside. Watch the butterflies and listen to the bees. Spend time looking at the flowers. Enjoy the moment, even though the garden’s now just past its best and a bit end-of-termish. Take your flowers home, and as you look at them, you’ll remember the pleasure you had choosing them, and taking a few moments out from the daily round.
It sure beats cramming a bunch of chrysanthemums into your trolley as you do your weekly shop.
This is an entry for Fan of….. #9
London friends – help me please. I took this photo of a statue of a workman and his pigeon chum somewhere near the Tower of London. Where? Who? What?
A contribution to today’s One Word Sunday Challenge: Monumental
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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