A Day in Vic

You may have realised we’re in Barcelona with Emily and Miquel, looking forward to the Three Kings arriving tomorrow. But yesterday, we left the Big City, caught a slow local train, and trundled off to the foothills of the Pyrenees, to Vic, 45 miles away.

The Romans knew Vic. The bridge they built here is in daily use. There’s a temple too.

The early Christians knew Vic. An important bishopric was established here, and a seminary, the basis of the present university. It was the most important market town in the area. This was the mediaeval town we’d come to see.

Look! Here’s the busy Market Square.

I’ve taken this photo from one of the covered arcades, built tall enough to allow a man on horseback to ride there. Many town doors are big enough to allow this horseman through.

Nowadays, Vic is assertively Catalan. If you look, you’ll see banners on the buildings supporting their political heroes. Slogans are everywhere.

But here is the Olive Tree of Peace. Hang your hopes here.

Most of my photos are in my camera. Here are phone snapshots of our walk round this delightful untouristy town, going about its market day business.

Jo’s Monday Walk

2019: a Year in Photos

Oh it’s hard, summing up my year in a few photos.  Are these good ones?  Or good memories?  Or both?

Here’s a miscellany of memories.  Yet the high point of my year, the Belated Birthday Celebration hatched by my entire family in Spain in June isn’t recorded here. Those personal snapshots don’t qualify here.

The Leeds-Liverpool Canal near Gargrave, North Yorkshire, June.
Ducklings near Pateley Bridge, April
Black-tailed godwit, Slimbrdge, August 2019
Sunday’s sunset, North Stainley.
Staithes, April.
A heron in Cordoba, March.
Sunset in Granada, March.
Liverpool Central Library, September.
A weekend with my daughter-in-law’s parents in Horton near Bristol, August.
Sutton Bank, August.
Taken from the Hull-Zeebrugge ferry, July
Let us be Heard! The Yorkshire Remain Voice Choir and Band at the People’s Vote March, October.
A Painted Lady at Beningborough Hall, Yorkshire.
The early-morning beach at Alnmouth, May.
Near Rothbury, Northumberland.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #77: Favourite Photos of 2019

A Sunday Walk, Accompanied by Thirteen Dogs

Our good friends Gill and Dave host a mid-winter walk for all their friends after Christmas every year.  We’re invited, and we’re never sure why.  We’re not known for showing much interest in horses, and we don’t own a dog.  As you can see from this shot taken just as we set forth, fortified by bacon sandwiches and coffee, having a dog in tow is pretty much expected.

Boots, wellies and dogs organised.

We love this post-Christmas event, and this year I was especially keen.  I’ve not been able to go on a decent hike for six months now because of a knee condition, but today was the day to begin to put all that behind me.

So here we all are.  Here are the dogs, here is the mud, here are the woods and the local views – understated, pleasant good old rolling English countryside.  I’ve deliberately overstated the mud for dramatic effect – it really wasn’t bad at all, and with enjoyable company we didn’t notice it anyway.

Back home with Gill and Dave, we ate and drank, laughed and talked for most of the afternoon.

The human friends are all inside eating, drinking and making merry. It’s a dog’s life.

And on the way home, this was the sunset.

Another entry for Jo’s Monday Walk.  It’s been such a long time since I’ve had the chance…

Winter Walking on the South Bank

We love a walk along the South Bank in London. It reminds us of happier times, when during the 2012 Olympic Games, London was for a time the capital of the world: inclusive, happy, welcoming, proud. The South Bank was full of festivity, fun, food, friendliness and foreigners – all welcome.

For a bleaker view of the legacy of that time, turn to Stuart Heritage in Boxing Day’s Guardian:‘ … a moment of optimism that destroyed the decade’.

But it’s still Christmas-tide. Let’s stay happy.

We’ll begin our ‘walk’ on the train into town. Now then. Baffled by the window, it’s hard to pick out which are the city-centre monoliths, and which their reflections.

Not far from London Bridge Station.

We arrive at London Bridge. Here’s street art under the bridge by Nathan Bowen.

Union Jack Dripping by London Bridge: Nathan Bowen.

Long-established buildings reflected on new facades.

Borough Market. Is it too early for lunch? Sadly, yes. Just looking, then.

Buying bread at Borough Market.

And all those buildings, new and old juxtaposed, on the opposite side of the Thames.

Ah! This is fun. This is Zoë’s moment. A Bubble Man, providing unalloyed joy to dozens of children. And to Zoë.

Time for a coffee-stop (no cake, Jo).  We dive into a narrow alley, which opens up to this: we’re not so far from Shakespeare’s Globe here.

But just as we’re getting a little tired of walking, the rain starts. The team divides. The younger members head off for a spot of retail therapy at South Bank’s Winter Market. The oldest and the youngest join forces and return to London Bridge on the river bus. For us, our winter walk of sights is at an end.

Not quite. Back at Hither Green, this is what awaited us just outside the station.

For Six Word Saturday, and Jo’s Monday Walk.

 

Displayed for All to See

This week’s Lens-Artists challenge invites us to look at what’s On Display.  At this time of year, there are Christmas lights, tempting displays of food and ideas-for-presents in the shops.  But I decided to go down several different paths:  the workaday world of the security camera:

Staffing the security cameras at Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility.
Security cameras at a tunnel entrance: Docklands Light Railway, London. I quite like it that this phone image is a little muzzy.

Public service broadcasting in the form of a domestic tv, and a public screening of the Tour de Yorkshire in the village next door, in 2017.

Our French friend Francis watches a documentary about Yorkshire.
Watching the Tour de Yorkshire on a giant screen, West Tanfield, 2017.

And finally – works displayed in an art gallery.  Let’s start at the London Mithraeum,

The entrance to the London Mithraeum.

…then pop over to Tate Liverpool.

Yayoi Kusama: The Passing Winter, 2005
Jim Lambie: Zobop, 1999.
Billy Apple: relation of Aesthetic Choice to Life Activity (Function) of the Subject.

Before ending up at Salt’s Mill, Saltaire, to see the David Hockney exhibition, ‘Arrival of Spring‘.

‘Arrival of Spring’, David Hockney.

 

Lens-Artists Challenge #76