When the tide is out, there’s plenty of space to think. Exmoor in the haze, miles to walk, and because of the sharp wind, nobody about. Winter in a seaside town can seem bleak, but it has such views and sunsets here on the West coast of England.
On clear days like this you see across the Bristol channel to Wales, the Brecon Beacons, with this cloudscape for added drama. I love the shades of blue, the detail in the clouds.
After the three storms in quick succession, all rolling up the Severn, creating havoc, it’s nice to look back on quieter times. This past Saturday we had the first face to face meeting of our poetry group. You forget how good it is to listen, in person to people reading for the pleasure of sharing.
I hope your week is good, and you are staying safe out there.
This past Sunday our poetry group headed up to Bristol for an alternative Christmas get together, a walk around Bristol following the locations used by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lovell and others involved in the Romantic Movement in the late 1700’s. Loosely based around the Lyrical Ballads collection, written by Coleridge and Wordsworth and published in Bristol.
Conversation
Waiting
St Mary Redcliffe
Many of the houses, still remain, some have gone over time, victims of modernisation and war but there is enough to make an interesting mornings walk out of the route and the downloadable booklet gives lots of information about the groups life and directions. You can download it here at the foot of the page. An extra bonus was to be allowed into the Chatterton Room at St Mary Redcliffe, normally closed at this time of year, one of the vergers took us up to see where he wrote his poetic fakes on original parchment, along with work he claimed as his own.
Have a good day out, follow in our footsteps and have a stroll around Bristol.
Night photography, I was in Bristol Thursday night for a workshop. Turned out to be more of a walk with some stops for pictures rather than a workshop. Never mind. I got to play with the features of my camera and see how it coped with the lighting conditions in a city at night. And with the cold, which it didn’t like. It slowed down and the camera became less responsive, more difficult was the shortened battery life, only two hours. I got some pictures and some of the results are here. As a side note, it’s Superbowl night, my Dolphins didn’t make it, in quite a spectacular fashion. Never mind, maybe next year, my money is on the Broncos. We’ll see how that ends later tonight, which will be at about 3:30 in the morning for me here in the UK.
Bristol Church
I’m working on the subject of light for Thursday nights Poetry Cafe, If you are in Weston-super-Mare head to the Royal Hotel at 7:30pm for a friendly, easy-going night of poetry reading. No microphones or crowds, just a group of people who like poetry. One of the pieces I’m working is called Diffraction. Still much to be done with it, it may get there it may not.
Diffraction.
I see you. And this is the critical angle,
where I see the slight bending of the light
as it passes around you. I watch the light
embracing your shape at the boundary layer.
When light passes from one medium
to another it changes speed.
Shatters as it passes between the gap
created by our proximity.
This is where wavelength emerges as a factor,
when the interference patterns of light and dark
emerge, spreading into the space between us.
Highs and lows that multiply in the air and the angles merge,
refraction growing bigger than the angle of incidence
and light travels on without changing medium.
All we are left with are circles in the sky,
sun-dogs and halos, rainbows in the air.
More of the Bristol pictures. Unedited, lots to take away from the trip myself. Two hours of camera testing went quickly, yet I came out with only one hundred shots, too much walking and not enough time to stop and take pictures of things that take my interest. Don’t know if I’ll do that again.
Travelling by bus
Bus lines
Wall Art
Bristol Art Gallery
Trees or Ink lines?
Bridge arch detail.
Always follow your own path.
Enjoy the road you are on and not the one you see across the river.
A walk through the world between places 