I’ve chosen water as my theme for this week’s Lens-Art Photo Challenge: Abstract.
Water plays with the world above it, dissolving solid shapes and blocks of colour into tantalising blots and sparkling smudges. It reflects onto man-made forms, such as bridges, confusing the eye into seeing … anything but a bridge. It sculpts the ground beneath, making corrugated free-form patterns on a sandy beach. And it blurs and baffles the landscape seen through a rain-spotted window.
And above the apparently endless surface of the sea, the sky’s slashed with a series of savage and expressionistic brushstrokes.
Albert Dock, LiverpoolA bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Gargrave, North Yorkshire.Alnmouth, Northumberland.Rain near Bamberg, Germany.North Sea between Rotterdam and Hull.The River Skell at Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire.
Catching a baby in an unselfconscious moment is a bit of a cop out. Zoë doesn’t care. It’s far more important to squirrel away a few choice morsels in case she’s hungry later, rather than pose for the perfect shot.
Nearly forty years ago, we lived in Sheffield, next-door-but-one to Bryan. He was and is a carpenter. His wood never came from the woodyard though. It was always scavenged. You’d find him investigating skips or nosing through derelict buildings. Not for him IKEA generation pine and MDF. No, Bryan looked for weathered oak, warm-toned cedar, maple, cherry, iroko. He’d pick up a walnut floorboard or a broken mahogany cupboard door. He’d squirrel away a fragment of marquetry or a shard of polished ebony. Who knew when they’d come in handy? Everything was carefully organised next to his workshop: it might wait years and months for its moment of glory, but every piece of wood would find a use … one day.
He wanted projects he could put his personal stamp on – no identical sets of anything for him. And he liked to try things out and experiment. So he made a deal with us. We’d get the dining table we wanted if he could try a few techniques that might or might not work. No money would change hands. In exchange for being guinea pigs, we would get a table – for free – that might fall apart within the year.
This table was horribly difficult to photograph. Standing unsteadily on chairs hardly seemed to help.
Forty years on, we’re still using it. We still enjoy the almost-game-of-chess to be played on its surface. We fondle the dome of wood rising gently along one side. We smile as we remember the small marquetry lines that punctuate one of the legs: they show the knee heights of Thomas, then four, and Ellie, then two. We invent tales about the stick-man water carrier and enjoy the pretty mother-of-pearl buttons embossed into the surface. Look at the legs. Each is different – one made from pillars of the checker-board assembly scattered on the surface.
The stick man.
The exploded chess board.
That sensual polished nipple of wood along one side.
Tom’s leg height.
Another detail from the side.
… and another ….
… and another …
One of the table legs.
A small detail.
Crawl underneath. The table is dedicated to everyone in the family. There’s a further notice: this one.
We’ve called in one 10,000 meal service, as promised on the dedication notice. Sadly, Bryan now lives in Wales, and we have moved north from the Sheffield street where we once all lived. Bryan and I each have a different partner now, and we’ve rather lost touch. But that table ensures that he’s never forgotten. And when I go, will it have to be chopped in three? Each of my children wants it. Perhaps it’ll be a Judgement of Solomon moment for them.
…. ere the winter storms begin’*. Farmers round these parts worry about getting the harvest in at this time of year. Malcolm and I worry about getting wood for winter, for the log burner. So we ordered some and it came this week.
From this, three large bags of it ….
to this … in two long, sweaty and back-breaking shifts, warming us every bit as much as a blazing winter fire does. Unpack the bags, and neatly stack every single log in tidy tall rows in the shed.
You’re meant to be impressed at our hard work.
We’ve got ash, valued for its steady heat output and bright flame: and oak, a dense, long-burning wood with a small flame. We’ve stacked them so we can access either. Can you spot the difference?
I love wind turbines. I love to see them set against the skyline, and marching across the crest of a distant line of hills. And this week, I loved to see them near the coast, their legs in the sea, a gritty port-side industrial landscape behind them.
These are wind turbines near Zeebrugge, near Rotterdam, and near Hull.
Another update from my daughter’s long and exceedingly difficult journey from young widow to cancer patient to reconstructed survivor. You may have noticed that the more normal her life becomes, the fewer the posts …. so let’s hope it’s an even longer wait till the next one…..
A friend recently remarked that you’re all so heavily invested in my story that it would be only fair to let you see a picture of the new knocker. She’s probably right. So, here’s the result of my trip to the Build-A-Boob Workshop back on that Tuesday in late February. I’m actually quite proud of it – and, simply from a surgical perspective, it IS pretty impressive (in comparison with the flat-chested butchery which was there before, anyway). Unless there’s a market for MastectomyPorn™ – which, to be fair, there probably is somewhere – I guess this is only interesting to those who really care. So, here you go.
This is the norkitecture. My DIEP/TRAM autologous breast reconstruction, should you care to Google it (though readers of a nervous disposition may wish to look away now). No implants whatsoever. What little tummy fat I had has now been re-sited into…
Have you got two minutes twenty eight seconds to spare? No? Maybe later then?
This post, on a day when I don’t usually post anything, is for my British readers, who are in sore need of distraction and a spot of cheer at the moment.
Before I begin a series of posts from Spain, I thought some of you would like to catch up with Danny. For newer readers – my daughter, who is not called Fanny, lost her husband to oesophageal cancer after a tough couple of years of unsuccessful treatment, leaving her with 10 year old twins, a business which she and Phil had run together, and a recalcitrant dalmatian. Three months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has the all clear, but is awaiting great reconstruction. In this post, she brings her story up to date. I’m so proud of what she’s achieved these last few dreadful years.
I meant to publish this just after Christmas, which passed without incident. I’d forgotten how to enjoy festive family time, because for the last four years its presence only enhanced the pain we were in as a family. Whether we were waiting for test results, or scans, or news of a trial which might just give my husband a bit more time, or for a mastectomy which would only afterwards determine whether my life could be saved or simply prolonged a bit, every Christmas week (when the rest of the country ground to a halt and celebrated) left us dangling in painful suspended animation. Every year, we wondered if it would be the last we’d see with our children.
But this year, it was wonderful. Quiet, calm, content… and rather than being angry for the loss of my husband (though of course the grief hit us all at times) I…
My drawers are stuffed with odd gloves, almost exclusively left-handed. I only buy cheap pairs, because they rarely last longer than a month. One famous winter I lost one or both gloves from eleven pairs. I managed to hang onto the twelfth….
This year, I made a stand. I spent four whole pounds on a pair of leather ones from a charity shop and vowed I would not lose them. Shhhh. So far so good.
So this year, I’m losing hats instead. Three down, one to go…..
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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