To travel in the Cordillera Cantábrica in Spain – or in any other mountain range, anywhere -is to know that in order to move forwards, you may not be – exactly – moving forwards. You’ll be going ‘this way, that way, forwards and backwards’, to quote a pirate song beloved of British pre-school children.
Here’s a tiny portion of a fairly recent journey.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew Challenge.
Greenwich is the historic home of the Prime Meridian Line – Longitude 0º. It has served as the reference line for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884. GMT became the worldwide time-standard a century later.
So it was quite a surprise to find this on a road in Northern Spain:
There we were on the Greenwich Meridian line, whilst incontrovertibly some 1000 miles south of London. And the bull shown in my featured photo, which is a common roadside sight in those parts, proved us to be incontrovertibly in Spain. We must have been moving forward.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew Challenge, she’s inviting us to post square – only square – photos on the themes of Burgeoning; Moving Forward; Reconstruction; or Renewal
Don’t you just love this doughty cactus, intent on moving forward, keeping the family gene pool alive, putting roots down in an exposed gutter in Downtown Valencia?
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
Everybody knows that Antoni Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia is the oldest new church in (probably) the world. Begun in 1882, it may finally be finished in 2026. Promises, promises. It’s certainly been burgeoning for years.
The header photo, taken from the flat where Emily’s partner Miquel once lived shows how this monumental edifice dominates the skyline in a city where so many modern buildings scrape the sky.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
The sea is greedily consuming the beaches of the Maresme coast, Catalonia. So here in Premià de Mar, the council is building a series of groynes going out into the sea to prevent the sand being swept away and to encourage it to creep back to the shore.
For Becky’s #SquaresRenew
That’s the task of the conscientious fisherman, every time his boat returns to land, laden with fish.
For Becky’s #Squares Renew
Paula, who blogs at Lost in Translation, offers each month a different set of five words to illustrate. Look at this month’s: sabulous; brimming; guarding; berthing and bight. Interesting, aren’t they? I bet you had to haul the dictionary out for one, maybe two of them.
It was bight that caught my eye. It actually means …
But it doesn’t mean that to me. Like so many Brits, I’m a devotee of the Shipping Forecast, that four-times-daily forecast to anyone out at sea within reach of the British coast. The coastal waters are divided into zones, each evocatively named.
I’m not out at sea, dicing with the elements: I’m a rotten sailor anyway. But I can be soothed by the predictable poetic rhythms of the regular broadcast. Do watch this explanatory video. It’ll take up under two minutes of your life.
It’s so much a part of my life, I even have a cushion showing many of the much-loved names.
… and there you’ll have spotted it. German Bight. So that’s what Bight means to me. Ships at sea, their crew always ready, four times a day, to tune into that most necessary programme.
It seems only right then, that my four remaining photos should have been taken on the sea, or at any rate by the sea. Here they are …
This week, Donna’s Lens Artist Challenge invites us to celebrate rocks, their geology, and what they have meant to humankind. Bloggers have responded with hosts of natural wonders: extravagant, bizarre, subtly beautiful and all extraordinary. I had planned to respond in kind, by showcasing – as I have in my feature photo – our nearby geological extravaganza which is Brimham Rocks. But I already have several times – here – here and here – to name but a few.
Instead, I’ve chosen to show rocks in the service of mankind. Brimham Rocks even fit in here. These days they’re our very best local playground.
But rocks have been pressed into service since prehistoric times. Here is Cairn Holy in Dumfries and Galloway. It’s a Neolithic burial site – perhaps that of Galdus, a Scottish king. But perhaps not: he’s thought to be mythical.
Farmers have divided their land up into fields for almost as long. Drystone walls march across the rural landscape here, particularly in the north of England.
And where would our churches, our cathedrals be without a ready supply of local rock and stone?
Scuplture too. I’ve chosen a few pieces that have weathered over the centuries, to reveal the underlying rock that the original sculptor had chiselled to the form that he, not nature had decided on.
Nature too can be a sculptor. This rock, hauled from the sea on the Spanish coast, has been transformed by – what? Underwater snail trails?
Nature doesn’t need any help from man when it comes to artistic expression. I’ll conclude with an image of rock at its most painterly, in the Gorges du Tarn in France.
Monochrome Madness this week has us hunting down everyday objects. I thought it might be fun to showcase some of the teacups and coffee cups I have met round and about. I’ll start off with my feature photo. Once, in Granada, at a bar with a friend, we found our different choices meant that we were served our coffee in the manner of the Three Bears -Baby Bear, Mummy Bear, and Daddy Bear.
Poland next, and our breakfast in Gdansk. Sir William gets himself about, all over Europe. But not as far as I know, in the UK.
Granddaughter-in-Spain is too young for coffee. Hot chocolate is her tipple of choice. With predictable results.
After a busy morning of child care, let’s go for something more elegant. A good olden-days afternoon tea, courtesy of the Wensleydale Railway. Trundle in a leisurely fashion through the North Yorkshire countryside whilst enjoying tea elegantly served with dainty scones and cakes on a tiered cake stand. Earl Grey or Darjeeling, Madam?
If fine china is your thing, you should visit the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. Here you can find delicate tableware like this – extraordinarily from the 12th Century – getting on for 1000 years ago …
And if museums are your thing, you should visit the much more homely Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge. Here you’ll find tableware from local churches. Yes, almost every church used to have their very own tea and dinner services for those all-important social gatherings.
Another display, this time from the annual Marmalade Festival near Penrith.
Finally, that newly-so-British tradition of the Scarecrow Festival. This one’s from last year’s village fete at Kirkby Malzeard, our village-next-door.
So, Sarah of Travels with Me, who’s prompted this week’s challenge for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness: here’s a slice of life from those so-important moments of down-time. No high class photos here. Quite simply high-class memories.
There are dozens of quotations about shopping, and most of them don’t fit me. I can’t agree with Marilyn Monroe – ‘Happiness is not in money, but in shopping.’ nor with the words from a film I haven’t seen, Confessions of a Shopaholic: ‘When I shop, the world gets better.’ I’m more with Franklin Jones: ‘A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist.’ My title quotation is by AJ Lee.
I make an exception though with food shopping- especially abroad, and especially in markets. And even more especially in fish markets. In this country, we seem hardly to extend our reach beyond cod, plaice and haddock, with tuna and salmon as well these days – and even those may be tinned . So a visit to a fish market in Europe or Asia is a revelation. Here are some shots taken in Spain and South Korea, where they seem to catch enough daily to empty the oceans.
Fruit and veg and groceries seem more interesting in a sunny spot: especially if a fellow customer in Thessaloniki is a Greek Orthodox priest busy on his mobile phone.
Or if the shopkeeper has made a point of announcing his wares in a very original way, as here in Cádiz.
Some shops are so handsome they simply invite browsing. This shop in Barcelona, Queviures, is thinking of charging an entrance fee to those who mumble ‘just looking‘. And look – you get a view of the street behind in the window reflections – for free.
Here’s another – in Newcastle this time – also providing a view of the street it was in.
It’s no longer a camera shop. But that day, it wasn’t selling fine food and coffee either. But we had fun photographing it for free.
No clothes shops here. I’ve shopped for clothing exclusively in charity shops for five or six years now – yes, even for my outfit as mother-of-the-bride. And I didn’t look like a bag lady. So I’ve been told. I therefore have no shots of elegant and fashionable clothes emporia. Just this. Once upon a time, this mannequin was the clothes horse for many a stylish window display in Málaga. Her glory days are over.
Despite my lack of enthusiasm for retail therapy, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed strolling round markets and shops at home and abroad for Ritva’s Lens-Artist Challenge #288. I’ll never be keen to shop-till-I-drop, but ‘you can always find something you want‘ (Sophie Amurosa). Especially if it’s edible.
My featured photo is from the indoor market in Seville.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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