In November 2016 I had a couple of days in Montreal for work. I got away for a few hours to have a look around. To get lost in the city and find some of the atmosphere of the place. I found the people friendly and the city a pleasure to walk around. So I would recommend it for a visit if you are passing.
Blue skies and city-scapes.Old and new together.City streets.Light.Sun setting as clouds drift in.Street scene.Street sculpture.Reflections and sky.Old Port train tracks.Everywhere you go!Old Town.Monument Life.Indoor calm.Nightfall in the city.Artists in the windows.Night Streetlights.For my next trip.
Lots to see I know, and as I headed out of the city towards Toronto and my next stop, I sat amazed at the distance travelled in such a short time. The technology that we just expect to keep improving and working for us. We should remember though to slow down too, to see the sky above us and the world around us. Otherwise what are we doing?
Enjoy the sights around you and take some time to look at things with a visitors eyes for a while. You will see your home a bit differently.
Fragments
We keep the words clear,
from the edges of the page.
To hold them back somehow,
to create the margins we need
to survive.
I’ve just looked at the calendar, bad move. This year has been a year and a half, crammed into six months, and it’s only October. Look what happens when you get busy doing changes, in life and home. When we look back through our diary for the year we will wonder how it all happened, we are still here and that counts for a lot.
Looking out from Snowdon.
I’ve climbed mountains, moved countries, knocked down walls, and rebuilt some stuff too. Writing hasn’t been easy, my blog has been thin on the ground although I have written some poetry along the way. And where next, who knows, probably a little early to start looking at the year over my shoulder so I’ll just smile and walk ahead, enjoying the changing colour of the leaves on the trees and possibility of snow in the mountains.
On the road.
I’m trying to decide on two poems to send to the National Poetry Competition, I can’t put them up on here as that would constitute publication. So I’ll sit and seek the ideal that someone else is looking for all on my own. In the meantime, as I have been doing recently, fragments to ponder.
Unfinished Business
… I think there was purpose,
yet it became vague
And left an ill feeling on the page.
I am not sure but this may be
my fault…
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Self Portrait
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White Noise.
… the white dot of closedown
is missing, no longer disappearing
with a hiss and a dip into blackness.
I watched the Moon turn red earlier in September, the world, the Sun and the Moon continuing to dance in space for our delight. So much to enjoy and all the time in the world to find it. Be interested in everything, find out how it works and always ask questions.
A trip to the Lake District a few weekends ago, the chance to walk, clamber and of course take a few pictures. The occasion was for Mike’s birthday, three days under canvas at the National Trust campsite, drinks in the Wasdale Head Inn. It makes a change to not drive and I was able to relax, enjoy the scenery and not worry about the usual British traffic.
Driving to the Lake District.The View from the Back.Sunrise at the Services.
Our first day was to be Kirk Fell, Green Gable and Great Gable, returning to the campsite by Styhead. The headline picture is the view from Great Gable along Wasdale. Although the views from Kirk Fell are good too. The clamber up Kirk fell was fun, with great drops and views back across to Pillar.
Black Sail Pass and the leading edge of Yewbarrow.A view up Kirk Fell, a great line following the left edge up above the crags.
It’s always going be picture heavy on one of these posts, how can it not be? I would encourage everyone to visit the Lake District, find some of the quieter mountains, and enjoy looking at the busy ones from a distance. I’ll save the Scafell Pike pictures for later, the scrummage at the top is depressing, but we were so close it had to be visited, and the alternative scramble was horrid to get down. Lingmell is worthy of visiting though. The views over the crags and the peace after Scafell is excellent, more on that next time.
Great Gable, Green Gable to the left.
Last year Mike and I had a torrid time on Great Gable, the weather was foul and we saw nothing but the inside of clouds most of the day, this trip was the complete reverse, great weather for the big hills.
It’s over there.Up after down, after first lunch.From Windy Gap.Great Gable, you can see the scrape of the path rising left to right.Great Gable Summit.Heading Home.
When you get a day like this in the UK mountains, and it made a good day out better. The weather isn’t everything, it helps though.
Fragments.
Some fragments from the weekend to ponder on…
One.
Light split into layers,
spread and dissected by rain,
Two.
High views or wild glimpses
of huddled fields hunkered down.
Three.
The delicate touch of sunrise
to make the mundane
glow
More to come of Lakeland mountains and scratchings of writing. Take care and enjoy the view from wherever you are, walk somewhere, leave the car.
I went out on Crook Peak Saturday, I’d been late to meet with others at Cheddar. (Sorry Guys) It turned out OK though, a solitary striding walk helped clear my head, and seeing this halo around the sun on my way back to the car lifted my spirits.
I’ve got a few ideas lined up ready for posts, but as with everything, life and time gang up to change our plans. Trips abroad, visitors, building work, we all have these moments. Getting out into the open spaces always helps me and brings perspective to it all. Look to all that is good.
On the same day, I took this image of the view towards Cheddar, low clouds, wind, and clear air. The tapestry of fields running away across the levels. I come back to this place time after time and every trip up here is different, each outlook, the birds taking umbrage at my passing to close to hidden nests, the odd rabbit here and there, and a view out to sea all the way to Wales and Brecon on a good day.
Towards Cheddar, warm sun and wind.
I’m going back to basics and learning Lightroom from the beginning, to get away from the bad habits I have formed by just leaping into the middle and pressing buttons to see how it reacts. (I’m an engineer, what can I say.) I need to start cataloguing my pictures, and I need help, I’ve started scanning negatives as well so the disk space is cluttering fast.
Brecon Snow.
This time I’m looking at why and where as well as how it can be used. Knowing how things are it will probably not end as it begins. This quote from the Your Messages blog in 2007 says a lot about how it could end.
I am the Anti-list, chaos incarnate, fear me. I will come to you in the night and disorder your life. Those best laid plans of mice and men, are mine. Put your list out of sight for only a second and I will appropriate it, and only relinquish it back to you when it is too late to do anything about the most important thing on your list.
Do not think for a minute there is the possibility of order in your life, I am the butterfly on the far side of the world, setting in motion a chain of events so tortuous you will not plan for the consequences. There is only me and fate to control your destiny. Faith and prior planning will not avail you anything.
I will wake you in the night, with a forgotten list, with that one thing you must not forget, the date not in your diary. A single obscured digit in the phone number to save your world. Do not take me lightly, I will reduce your itemised shopping list to dust, lost in the sands of time. The wedding planner despairs when my cold hand rests on their shoulder. That one simple thing you went into the shop for, the one you forgot when you saw the glossy magazine, it is all in my domain and I am a demon of details.
My list is not of order but of random acts. Murphy knew me personally, he just didn’t know my name, how could he? I am everyone and no one, the lost pen, the unwashed shirt and the washed out address in your shirt pocket. Everyone is prey to my whims and I know no mercy. I have toyed with kings and queens, magi and masters. Be Afraid.
I wrote this piece so It’s not stolen, on other topics, we had a good time at the Poetry Café last month, the subject of Escape brought forth some good work, and was followed by a wide-ranging discussion around poetry. Very interesting to hear Peoples ideas, the where and why-fore of somebody and their words. I seem to be de-facto in control at the moment, worryingly(?) sending team emails and the like, I’m running at maybe a C- for organisation at the moment I think.
Fragments. Next month we are working on Integration and Conflagration, my own topic so I can’t complain.
News Report –
Momentary words carrying knives,
an idea cut apart and drawn across
the space between us.
From here, we can see how civilisation infiltrates
how fingers reach out and landscape changes with time
sometimes so slow as to fool the eye into believing
nothing happened
Kindling
and a spark, nurtured in a calm quiet place.
twigs, dry tinder in a lattice, and patience,
don’t feel the rush.
Let the flame grow, your task is the spark,
the branches will catch when the heat rises,
so slow, let the flame work through.
Let the heat build, add more wood to the pyre,
soon it will be strong enough to burn bone,
all we need is a spark and a patient man.
Must be time for a BBQ soon, the Met Office declared summer this morning, so shorts and t-shirts, beach life and sunshine all round. Have Fun whatever the weather.
There’s been lots happening over the last few weeks, the usual work stuff keeping us busy. There has though, still been a chance to get some pictures with my new camera. Shots taken in the back garden of clouds bubbling over the coastline and bunching in the valley. It has also meant I am trying out Lightroom CS4, to see how far things can be pushed in editing. The Pentax K50 saves images as both JPEG and Raw, and I can view images quickly as JPEG to decide which ones I want to import to edit. Sometime soon I will start a new file system for my pictures, to separate out my own images and walking group or family shots. For the moment I am learning the quirks of the camera, how it works and what it sees, button combinations and positions, all the things that make taking pictures fast when you know where everything is; nothing worse than fumbling for a button when you are in a hurry and don’t want to miss something.
Storm Cloud II
To be able to edit save and not make irretrievable changes is a new thing, no more save as or damaged files from random button presses. I was good at saving copies but sometimes things went awry and using raw will help stop that.
Changing tack, last week was World Book Night, and a group of poets gathered in Weston-super-Mare library to read as part of the celebration. Free books were available and the event went really well, good reading by everyone who took part, some really interesting work.
Poetry Fragments.
This weeks fragments are from an older notebook, things to bring back memories, trips and images.
Paris Promenade.
People, coffee and tourists,
street hawkers, beggars and fashionistas
running wild.
and from London,
Stop go streetflow
at the junctions of the city.
Morning smokers
taking some time to die.
The days are getting longer, sunrise earlier and sunset later, that means you can get out more. I’d recommend a high place to watch the sun rise, to see the colour spill across the land, to feel the first warmth as the light hits you. Watch the world wake up as you sit and watch. Wonderful, can’t beat it and you will smile all day.
A walk through the world between places 