jiggity jig

it was a wonderful holiday, brightened by happy reunions, if not by constant sunshine.
home again, home again: hello!

even cowgirls

march - march in cambridgeshire - is a dismal place, dour and distrustful, brightened only by the presence of my best friend, and the blue of the railway station.

the blue is causing bedlam.
the friendship, though, is beyond question, and beyond doubt.
*
i am off to canada - kingston and halifax - for three weeks.
be well.

with a grain of salt

my mother's most recent email skitters with question marks.
"have you finally learned to appreciate seafood?" she asks. (we will be visiting her in canada, in just two weeks, and she has started planning our meals already.)
"no, ma," i respond. "not yet. but b. loves it."
"and i suppose mushrooms are still out of the question?" she sighs.
"yes, ma," i answer. "totally out of the question.but b. loves them."
she has always nurtured hopes that my tastes in food - i am not a picky eater, really i'm not! - will, as she expresses it, mature.
she also hopes, fervently, that i have outgrown my appalling fondness for kraft
macaroni & cheese dinner.
hmmm. not.
but i shall feast while she and b. dine on cockles and cantharels.

heave ho

the dutch expression "blij met een dode mus" does not lend itself willingly to translation, alas, since "happy with a dead wren" sounds ever-so-slightly dire.
what it means to say, though, is simply something along the lines of: "promises, promises"...
with a nice little "tsk" at the end.
*
here are a few boats.
until i am seaworthy again.

two days from knowing

"the great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is."
- arnold bennett

i may have exaggerated.
somewhat.
i have boats, yes, but i also have beaches, and boarded windows. i have rust, and rainbows. i have fences as far as the eye can see.
am i consistent - i wonder - or am i simply predictable?

like a skylit water stood

if all goes well - i'm waiting on my 35mm, which should be developed and scanned by tomorrow - i will soon have (counting this medium format stuff and my little cigar box full of polaroids) nigh on 250 new images in my treasure trove of memories.
it is entirely possible that 200 of them are of boats.
does anyone mind?

truly unexpected tidings

sometimes i shoot all 36 exposures in the space of a single hour;
sometimes i collect my negatives from the shop and see a whole season reflected, reproduced in three dozen frames.
these forgotten images - the ones that cross borders (from norfolk to alkmaar to broek op langedijk, for example) and travel time - more than make up for the supreme frustration of endlessly half-finished rolls of film.
*
i'm off to see my best friend. my five favourite cameras have been fed and packed.
i'll be back on the 15th.

their own banquet

plain fare is served here. my crockery is chipped. my pots, my pans are dented. my
heart and soul stir, despite, in unison.
i aim to nourish.
i aim to please.
i love my regulars.
*
when a turkish splinter group hacked this site (WHY?) last weekend, i underestimated the random poison it scattered: it will take me a long time, and a concentrated effort, to undo its evil. without my best-ever-host, i would have closed my doors completely.
*
the joy of cooking: may it prevail.

washed in the speechless real

i wish i could say that my reticence has been reflective.
it hasn't.
i am merely tired, and taciturn, and counting the days till march.
and then may.

a walk on the wild side

"there's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic."
- lily tomlin (american actress and comedian, b.1939)

sometimes - confronted with another's frenetic tastes - my innate tameness dismays
me.
and sometimes it doesn't.