in with the new

I could not leave 2012 without giving that solitary post a bit of companionship, and without wishing the few people who have not given up on me a very very happy 2013!

same old rice

"The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams."
- Claude Debussy (French composer, 1862-1918)

Well. Not quite. But getting used to the grey, the chill, the detached quiet is taking me longer than it usually does.
I miss Cambodia.

and nothing there but delights

we were very taken with the formal gardens at wolterton hall; they had a quiet, unassuming grandness, a shy splendour, a joyous symmetry. passing through the
outer doorway and catching a first glimpse of their fineness felt rather like discovering hidden treasure.

and the hall itself? well, we got stuck in the compulsory tour, and photography wasn't exactly encouraged, but there was beauty within the walls, too.

best foot forward

were i to take myself a bit too seriously, i might refer to this serendipitous pink as a decisive moment, but really, it was simply very good luck.

triple dip

there is a bicycle at the top of the dune: smile number one.
the bicycle is red: smile number two. because red rocks.
the tide, on the other side of the dune, is high and rising: smile number three.

a hat trick. my day is made.

o hark, o hear

travel is discovery, and travel is rediscovery, and both touch deep.

i have photographed this cliffside house at happisburgh before, but every encounter
sees it sadly closer to its tumble into the sea.

above, the vaulted sky

it's time to get this show back on the road.

or, at least, it's time to try.

the world's a forest

when we travel, we wander a lot, absorbing local sights, and sounds, and smells.
every now and then, though, something needs to be accomplished, and that something, this particular day in singapore, was the purchase of bus tickets to melaka.

we got lost, of course, and - in a side street - happened upon this.
staying on path can be so overrated.

the rising of the morn

"Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."

- Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist, 1861-1941)

so, so semiprecious

I've almost finished writing tripadvisor reviews of all the guest houses and hotels we stayed at during our month away. Only two remain: this one

(the beautiful Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Georgetown/Penang), and our final-night splurge, the fabulous Pan Pacific in Singapore...which still, in all its glory - and with a buffet breakfast the sumptuous likes of which I have never seen - cost less than a mediocre 3* hotel in Amsterdam on a weekend night.

Yes, I'm still in a nostalgic state of mind, and this is still Southeast Asia. Hey, it's still Penang, even. Bear with me.

i guess that's why they call it

The Cameron Highlands is a kind of Malaysian Escape to the Country : temperate climates, stunning panoramas, and decidedly non-tropical vegetation, like roses, and strawberries, and tea.

And morning glories.

stilted redux

The Clan Jetties in Penang reminded me very much of Tai O on Lantau Island (HK) - much smaller, of course, and more urban - but reaching the latter involved the kind of bus ride that gives me nightmares for months, and reaching the former involved a leisurely morning stroll through irresistible Georgetown.

this dream in motion

My Mamiya decided - somewhere between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, it would seem - that it had had enough of aperture adjustments, and dug its heels in at f16: all the pictures I took in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and last-day-Singapore are underexposed except the ones shot stopped-down.

My Polaroid 680 sadly stopped functioning at the start of our holiday, and now this wonderful lens is going to have to be sent off for repairs. I feel very discouraged indeed.

the bright side

I packed four whole rolls of black & white film, but my good intentions fell by waysides...like this.

ad infinitum

i am so busy joyously scanning endless negatives (i had 20 rolls of 120 and 3 rolls of 220 processed at the wonderful IQ Lab in bangkok a week before we came home) that i am forgetting to post!

this is the charmingly dilapidated and stunningly blue f.m.s.. building in ipoh. it was love at first glimpse.

to taste

if i were not too tired to be silly - i last awoke 38 hours ago - i might be tempted to say something about needing to "catch up".

ahem.

and hello.

eggs have no business dancing with stones

these pebbles - even as i approached them step by step, closer and closer, and watched them slide effortlessly into focus - justified my lugging this extraordinarily heavy piece of equipment across the channel. there is not a single mf camera in my cupboard that could capture these little stones so sharply, and effortlessly, from a few inches away, with just an 80mm lens and no attachments.

i like this mamiya very much indeed.

and maybe not.

i could hardly concentrate on the pictures wanting to be taken, there on the harbourfront at aberdeen, because an energetic, elderly-but-ageless little chinese entrepeneuse followed us everywhere we went.
"sampan? sampan?" she wheedled. "very cheap! very nice! see jumbo restaurant!". my husband, who has traveled extensively in china, answered - time after time - "maybe later!". and - time after time - she muttered "maybe later! ahh!" and paused in her pursuit, only to pop up moments later to try again: a relentless wrinkled shadow in a bamboo hat.

will you stay for tea?

i have been an inattentive hostess, but i am determined to lay my table with sweetness and delicacies again.
you are very patient, and oh-so-very welcome.

and the seasons

months, months have passed.
i am appalled at my own inexplicable neglectfulness.