{ extra soundtrack }

A special new year kick, I heard this on the radio on my way home from climbing the other night–it summed things up and made me clench my teeth and fists a bit firmer! It's been out since December so don't know why it's not being broadcast from rooftops everywhere with the volume up to 11, drowning out some of those miserable journalists.

{Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over}

Blue Doors

So, winter time, here we are. It's all a bit frozen with nothing coming in and nothing going out, isn't it? At least that's how it feels much of the time. It takes a lot of grit to insist that there really are little streams trickling in–hidden as they are under layers of ice. However, after reading the Jan18th post on this page, I'm reminded that winter time is all about life being very still, necessarily so in preparation for the seasons ahead. And it will always be!

Standing at doorways like these I feel a curiosity about what lies concealed, ahead or around the corner. This is how my winter view feels, but I know there's something special in the waiting and dreaming that is intentionally so. Perhaps this desire is what shapes life when it does come pouring in again.

With this in mind, let's try not to lose heart over a freezing economy, lack of sunlight hours, society in hibernation or seemingly unanswered prayers. Friends, hold your nerve! These times feel hard relatively speaking, but there's nothing happening now that you can't deal with. It's winter, and rightly so before spring presses up its shoots...

...such as a black man elected American president while those looking on remember being disallowed from travelling on a bus in the 1960s because of their colour.

Anything is possible, but Winter has to come before Spring.





{Today's soundtrack: Fleet Foxes}

Light : 03

The 'stinky back alley' I referred to in last post. I thought this photograph was lost in the robbery (almost two years ago now) but holding my nose and diving in to a cluttered inbox for some long overdue filing under 'b', there it was, thank goodness, as if to prove a point that in the midst of rubbish out shines beauty.

In tandem to this post, the extraordinary–yet–humble story which occurred as I knelt in a flowerbed surrounded by empty bottles of Lambrini is now up on news. With thorny plants catching my jeans, it struck me what a very strange throne this was as I observed such a momentous occasion as the Angels landing. But it is fitting, as this whole story has been one of good things coming out of darkness. The first phonecall I received to come on board with the project came 2 days after that robbery, which cleaned me out in more ways than can be imagined.


{Today's soundtrack: The Shins}

Light : 02

When was the last time a beam of light caught your eye? No, I mean really stopped you mid-track, so that for a second you forgot what else you were doing.

I remember ages ago walking down a stinky back alley on the way home, tired and miserable. The sunset bounced off windows at the end of the street and made golden pools all along the alley and it has been my little street of reminder ever since – a reminder that gorgeous things come out of rubbish.

Taking photographs, (as I discussed a while ago in my first post about light) it is difficult to avoid the 'exquisite light' moments that happen upon us occasionally, and even for the most quiet, humble soul it is very hard to resist the poetic temptation to make them mean something other than just basic physics at play.

Whether these moments are meaningful in themselves depends on who you are and what's going on for you at that time, don't you think? Whether you need a 'Damascus' moment or just some help picking out the shape of things in a shadow, we are nowhere without light. It doesn't need to be earth shattering, as these photographs from today show – humble, regular, straight in front of you. But I fear we ignore light and take it for granted, some even pretending it doesn't matter.

It's often after or during a storm that the best light moments happen, beams bouncing around off wet surfaces in the most brilliant ways. Don't tell me this is mere physics and without metaphor. Silver linings, and all that. Consider this, that maybe the best light beams are saved for when you need them the most.

(There is an extraordinary story about light and the angels from this week, but I'll save this for your delight tomorrow on news.)

Go outside! Get out from your lightless places!


{Today's soundtrack: Band of Horses - Cease To Begin}

Be Calm

Just stay calm. Sit on your hands. Coffee won't help, neither will that chocolate you're being offered. Breath in and out. Remember, you are the same person you were yesterday and will be tomorrow. Walking still requires one foot in front of the other.

But, my goodness, this is exciting...


(more on news)


{Today's soundtrack: Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocalypse}

It All Collides

Events around here this week are just too much for an ordinary human to navigate alone.

Saturday, I went to a very moving and uplifting wedding, laughter bouncing off the walls. Yesterday, I sobbed with shocked companions throughout a friend's funeral, and by the evening was sending love and hope flying across the planet to New Zealand where one of my closest friends has gone into labour with twins...

...and this afternoon they call to tell me the angels are arriving in Bristol on Monday.

A year late, but I always suspected they would choose their timing well.


{Today's soundtrack: Joby Talbot - May, June and November from Once Around The Sun}

Little Elf

How is it possible to become emotionally attached to a car? It's only a heap of metal with four lumps of rubber underneath, isn't it? Not this one, evidently, as I got really choked up today when it was driven off to meet its new owner. Yep, sold to the man with the soft spot for vintage motors. Ooh, that distinct smell of old leather seats and petrol, mechanical clunk of a really long gear stick and huge steering wheel with no power for turning on a sixpence. It's provided forty years of love, this little one, and I only enjoyed three of those.

1969 Riley Elf – 'a mini on high heels' as a friend once described it. Off she went today, pottering down the lane into the busy beyond.

You couldn't drive anywhere in this car without people really smiling at you, and it was having the same effect on me inside as I went. Such a joyful object, just the way it looked, never mind how it moved! And that's the point. It brought me an awful lot of joy at a time when I really needed it, and have had an amazing journey since. Don't need the car anymore to tell me things are ok – it's brilliant to get to this stage. Happy, but I'm very sad too.

"Off you go, little one!"




*

NB. The photos today are clearly not taken by me! Thanks Jimmy for these, and also Ray Singh who inspired many happy Sunday evenings waxing it up at Carwash Club.


{Today's soundtrack: Wavey Dave's Big Chill remix: rum, glitter fairy and guilty pleasures. Cheers Big D, and thanks for the good times!}

Bless Him

We've lost a man who meant much to many, but he kept himself apart, so the many never managed to tell him this. It is bewildering, his choice to go, but it is not for us to speculate, judge or gossip, only for us to salute, say thank you, and bless your soul.

MF, we love you, and will miss you.

x

Sailor's Sweetheart

My 'Sailor's Hand' tribute the other day got me thinking. Although names weren't mentioned I know who I was referring to. The 'Sailor' will know too, and so will his sweetheart, and in fact it was she who first suggested those words which I remembered all these years on, then all of us who revisited them as I described.

She put into words what her man would be feeling, so it's unfair to misrepresent the Sailor's Sweetheart and put her words in his mouth. My tribute does remain the same for a man who has held firm and sailed his ship through fierce storms, but she really is the wind in his sails and brings a big heart on board! Thanks to her for saying what he was feeling.

There is no picture today, just an apology and an idea that I should visit them with my camera soon.


{Today's soundtrack: a friend + guitar on open mic at The Miners.}

Easy Life

Sitting still watching out over the beach, hair crimped with salt, hands wrinkled and dry from the wind, freckles coming out, nose running, and sand clinging to my toes, I shut my eyes and all I can see is the crest of a wave as it breaks over the nose of my board, then recall that feeling of being up against a power almost too big for you, when the wave is so enormous you have to dive through its base and the force of it crashing over you is so strong that any second now it might wash your skin clean off but you hold your breath and keep going... Right here in this moment I just had a flurry of ideas about things and had to write them down.

But this post isn't about me! It's in honour of a flustered waiter who, obliging and trusting, lent me his biro ("like gold dust around here") and a few sheets of his order pad to commit the ideas to paper, all because I ignored the golden rule – don't leave home without a notebook!


What were the ideas? A series of drawings to be put together like songs on an album, and it's all well and good having the wild ideas which leave you as soon as you have to go and do the ironing, but it's another thing seizing them as they gallop past and insisting they go on paper – that's when they start to become real, and that's probably why loads of people never do it.


There's a related post on news.


{Today's soundtrack: Kings Of Leon}

flipped

Sorry, yesterday's picture is rotated on its side by mistake as I sent it in hasty anger and from the phone. Today, the ipod is charging, I did get some more sleep, and the irritable grouch is on its way out. Off to draw things on clifftops for a few days so I hope to post but forgive me if the pictures come out sideways!


{Today's soundtrack: lighthearted noises - chuckling and the like, and a loud, random shuffle playlist on the road trip.}

"I'm On The Train!"

When you find yourself with little to say, silence is fine. This extends as far as not very funny Dom Jolly impressions when on a train with colleagues and someone else's phone goes off, as 'ironically' delivered by this man sitting in front of me. He had only just finished his own loud call about snow machines and pea gravel for a car shoot.

Grating. Embarrassing. I need more sleep.


{Today's soundtrack: nothing, ipod's out of juice. Grr.}