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

 

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

A ‘So British’ Christmas in Lavelanet

It’s time for a visit to my French archive once more – any excuse to get out of post-election UK.  Come and enjoy a traditional British Christmas, as explained to the residents of the small town next to ours when we lived in France.

December 6th, 2011 

A ‘So British’ Christmas in Lavelanet

A British living room comes to Lavelanet library.A good old-fashioned English Christmas has come early to Lavelanet.  To the library (oops, mediathèque) to be exact.  The librarian there enjoys children’s literature, and is a bit of an Anglophile.  So she’s mounting a small festival of English Children’s literature featuring everyone from John Burningham and Quentin Blake to – of course – Charles Dickens and Beatrix Potter.

What a disappointment I am to her.  I can’t produce a pretty tea set awash with rosebuds, and she can’t believe I really don’t like tea very much: and that when I do drink it, I decline to add milk.

She’s wheeled in Découverte des Terres Lointaines to help with all the activities for schools, retirement homes, and the general public.  And DTL have wheeled me in as Consultant on All Matters English. Together we’ve chosen recipes and we’re baking biscuits and cakes and we’ve planned craft activities round, for instance, our ‘so British’ Christmas cards.  But said cards must contain no bible-story references.  No stables, cribs, angels or Three Wise Men. French schools are strictly laïque – secular – and our friends were astonished to learn that even the mantelpieces of committed atheists are likely to feature Christmas cards from friends, showing church stained glass windows or the Star of Bethlehem.

From tomorrow, I’ll be reading stories in English, helping pull crackers (an unknown treat), and unpacking – many times – a stocking which dear old Father Christmas has delivered to me early.

A satisfyingly bulging stocking.

My other job is to correct the misapprehensions learnt from French websites and children’s books about England. Who knew that the English enjoy tucking in to a huge plate of oysters at the beginning of Christmas dinner? Or that all British schoolchildren have a free bottle of milk every morning?  Margaret Thatcher abolished that back in the early 70’s.  And Sylvia misunderstood me, and thought we served stewed cherries, not sherry sauce, with our Christmas pudding (cherries – sherry: easy to confuse when you speak no English).  And so on.

But it’s been fun transforming the community room in the library into an impossibly cosy snug, full of Christmas cheer.  Let’s see what ‘le tout public’ think, when we open the doors tomorrow.

Mass-produced gingerbread men.
Mass-produced marmalade loaf cake.

Six Word Saturday.

 

Nostalgia is a Freshly-Baked Loaf

The queue’s gone down outside Vanora’s now. You could pop in for a loaf.

A couple of months ago, a new baker’s opened in Ripon.  Goodness, it was welcome.  A baker’s shop as a baker’s shop ought to be.

Vanora and Andrew get up in the small hours, when all the world’s abed, to fashion and bake their loaves.  The great pails of dough will already by then have been slowly proving and rising over a period of hours.  This is sourdough, fermented from  the natural yeasts present in the air we breathe, rather than using the commercially-available yeast usual in British breadmaking.

And oh – the bread it produces!  A wonderfully chewy crust, and a loaf with a slightly sour, characterful taste.  Riponians have taken this extra-special bread to their hearts, and ahead of opening time (only Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at present) an eager queue forms outside the door.

How this reminds me of our years in France.  The first job of our day was to queue outside the baker’s for our morning bread, croissants or pains au chocolat.  It was an unhurried task.  We’d all stand cheerfully in line, catching up with neighbourhood gossip, swapping recipes: generally having a sociable time.  And so it is outside Vanora’s.  We meet old friends, make new ones, and once inside, are greeted by name by Vanora and Andrew as we take the time to chat to them too.  This, we all agree, is shopping as it ought to be.  Oh, and on Saturdays, Vanora makes croissants too.  Don’t tell anyone in France, but …. these are the best croissants we’ve ever tasted. You could stock up on brownies, focaccia, sausage rolls and pork pies too.  These last two aren’t our thing, but I’m told they’re far and way the best in town. (Please note:  I am not being paid by V&A for this shameless piece of advertising.)

Vanora serves a customer….
… perhaps with one of these loaves.

This isn’t the only reason for my feelings of nostalgia though. Brought up in London as an Anglo-Polish girl, east-European-style sourdough loaves were as much a part of my life as baps, cottage loaves and wholemeal tins.  Good memories.

This is an entry for Lens-Artists Challenge #75 – Nostalgic, despite the fact that I was limited to using my non-smart-smartphone to take my snapshots.

 

Water in the Abstract

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, Liverpool
A 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.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #74: Abstract.