Lomo

I have an old lomo camera which I picked up in a charity shop years ago. Never used it, but they seemingly have a cult following for the particular look they produce. It was unintended, apparently, a design fault but gained a following. Photoshop, of course, can be made to reproduce this effect, so here's my first attempts:

the last day of winter

Officially that is; St David's day tomorrow celebrates leeks and daffs but there's only the early green shoots of crocus bulbs in the garden at the moment. It helps to have these symbolic landmarks. I noticed the passing of the three-month line at the beginning of Feb (3 months since we arrived back in Peebles) and a shift of gear for us all. Those first 100 days of anything are a trial run, I find, a time to bed in new things. We've dropped below the 'welcome back' radar now and are part of the wider landscape (can you keep up with these metaphors ?). Habits and routines are revealing themselves, new connections and patterns.

Meanwhile the media continues to apply its blowtorch to our understanding of the economy and how much is true is anybody's guess. Bankers are the new witches, taking over temporarily from old Nazis and those with an unhealthy interest in children, and old-school socialists are cashing in on the interview circuits, sagely nodding and saying they told us it would all end in tears. Chocolate is the industry to be in just now, apparently.

A report came out last week condemning the myopic and monolithic education system that has grown out of the 'basics and testing' reforms of the Thatcher years, so more 'I told you so' quotes from former voices in the wilderness (including mine, if anyone was listening !). Apparently we shouldn't have thrown out all that dance and drama and sport and social studies.

At the start of the next hundred days comes my fitness regime, and it's going well so far. Check out http://hundredpushups.com/ to see my project for the six weeks of Lent. Anyone care to join me ?

I'm on week 1.

let us build a tent

We met with an architect yesterday, chatting over our plans and ideas, walking over the site of The Build. He asked if I'd heard of a book called A Pattern Language. This was enough to commend him to me, and I did feel we were talking the same language about what we want in the house. There was also a sense of relief about sharing responsibility for this huge undertaking. Remind me of this six weeks into the build process...
For some I've talked with the undertaking of travelling half-way round the world twice and rebuilding a life in each place seems a much bigger project than overseeing a house-build and I guess it's about confidence and familiarity. Somehow the relocation seemed like a no-brainer to me, maybe because I'd done it once already when I was young and invincible and it seemed to go without a hitch. The hitches revealed themselves later and I've spent those years unravelling them.
I put together an online scrapbook of pictures that express aspects of what I want in the house. It's here:



Click on the slideshow to see it on Picasa

air traffic over 24 hours

on the hour

There's news everywhere all the time. At the moment it's 30-40% economy-themed stories; factories and shops closing, unemployment, bank bailouts, political arguments about the 'right' approach. Radio news every hour, analysis inbetween, 24-hour news on TV, any amount of it on the interweb, all for the choosing - and I do. For me there's a fine line between finding it compelling and finding it compulsive, but there's something else. It's a culture's stream of consciousness, the prevailing wind of preoccupations and anxieties masquerading as information. In New Zealand the news was about injustice, race, road death, crime and local celebrities. Here in Scotland it's about money, class, far-away places, hierarchies. I couldn't get enough of it to begin with; the wall of sound in front of the speakers, where in New Zealand I heard the news through a glass pressed against the wall, sifting through endless individuals bitten by dogs. It's a phase of course. I'm used to those, and already I'm getting bored of it. The interweb at least allows a view into the way different cultures report events; New York Times, al-jazeera, the Onion, Arts and Letters. I checked out the New Zealand 'Stuff' website for, well, stuff on the recession over there. Top of the headlines were John Key getting the plaster off his broken arm, and a dog dying.

I've got new shoes

Drove to Edinburgh today in thickening snow, reaching virtual white-out on Leadburn Moor. Still, got some trainers and some walking boots for a fraction of their original price thanks to the credit crunch. Edinburgh was festive in its white blanket, with rooftops fringed with frosting and streets piled with ploughed snow. I shouldn't have had that piece of lemon cake though.

Mundane I know, but this is the extent of it some days !

More tilt-shifts

 
 
 

Here's more of those pictures (see below). At the top is a jetty in the Lake District, in the middle is Devonport from North Head, and at the bottom the bush railway in the Waitakeres.

Tilt Shift

 
 
 
 

I've been experimenting with an editing technique that produces these tilt-shifted pictures. Anyone recognise the places ?  All actual photos (taken by me) and edited to give the look of model-train style landscapes. It's quite compulsive, though slightly tricky to find appropriate pix. 

In other news, it's still snowing.

The Experiential Learning Curve

Crocs don't work in the snow.

Local walk

Harry Lauder's walking stick

Postcard

Sleeping Beauty's perhaps

Bright van

Wedding Cake snow

Snow Odyssey

Squirrel verandah

auditioning for Mr Tumnus

winter blossom

Pix of today's snowfall !

Listening to..

Drunkard's Prayer and Stateless.

Black Ice

I'm aiming to walk up the hill by our house every day. This morning the road up was thick with grit and salt ploughed into ruts by cars and farm machines, then frozen over in the sub-zero night. I picked my way up the hill, slipping a couple of times on the frictionless black ice and doing one of those Tintin flailings; a windmill of arms and legs that doesn't quite hit the ground nor spill a drop of tea. More photos of course and a dose of dazzling sunshine glancing off the white fields.

I didn't get the job, just a rejection letter. The certainty of it is a whole lot better than the waiting, though, and I'm over it already. Not sure what's next, but something will turn up. I was reading an article this morning about the 11:11 phenomenon, and while the actual numeral 11 thing doesn't work for me I get the principle of seemingly recurrent trivial events pointing to some underlying direction or 'prompting' or 'flow'. Not sure if there's my own personal Morpheus out there hinting obsurely at the matrix, but I enjoy the idea. It's a call to tune in to the subtleties, the ebb and flow.

More snow pix

 

 
 

No snow, no school, no news

All the Borders schools were off today in anticipation of further snow dumps. Dire weather warnings evaporated in the morning, however, along with much of yesterday's snow, leaving a slushy mess of a no-news day. Didn't take long for the media blame industry to get started though, and everyone from Government ministers to spineless teachers are being accused of having no bottom in the face of adversity. It was never like this in the Blitz, in my day we battled miles through forty foot snowdrifts wearing only clogs etc. One Head Teacher got himself on the news boasting of having been at his school at 5.30 this morning clearing the snow so his school could open. It was the only school open in his area and I'll bet those kids were glad as they saw friends from neighbouring schools heading out for a day's sledging. Don't get me started.

Our two braved the cold for the sake of snowball fighting, building a snow fort and heading into town for bought hot chocolate; so much better than homemade.

Meanwhile no news back from my job interview so I've given up hope and am rewriting the experience such that I was too good for them and didn't really want it anyway.

They might phone tomorrow.

Future Shock

Look what I can do with a mac

A Gift From Siberia

It's three months on and we're in our tenth month of Winter. Today the snow arrived from the Steppes, bringing London to a standstill and dropping a light fall on us here. The heavy stuff arrives tomorrow apparently.

Here are pics from this afternoon's brief foray into the Arctic temperatures. Photo sessions last only as long as feeling remains in my fingers, the controls being impossible to operate with gloves.

It had to be today that I had a job interview in Edinburgh, of course, opening the curtains this morning to this, and the stern warnings on the radio to avoid all unnecessary travel. It was necessary, needless to say, and they thanked me for making the trip, though it's unclear whether this will be enough to secure me the post.

Three months on we are settled in our new home, welcomed warmly by friends, neighbours and even strangers who have heard our story. A fine return, and the opportunity to make a new place for ourselves.

The job ? Wait 'n' see if I get it first.

old lag

It's always worse travelling East, apparently. I find myself wide awake at 3am, unable to sleep until 4.30-odd then effortlessly sleeping to 11 in the morning. In fact on the first night here all four of us were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 3am, reading, playing on small screens and prowling the silent night in a bewildered fashion. I've caught up with some good radio (ah, the BBC !) and writtten some fine lists that somehow seem less intelligible in the cold light of dawn. It will lessen, surely, or I'm heading West...

It's autumn and windy, colourful, the leaden skies threatening rain but so far not delivering. What's falling in abundance are acorns, which clatter on the roof above our bedroom ceiling like thrown stones through the (sleepless) night. Next morning grey squirrels nip about the grass below collecting them up and burying them (yes, they really do).

Green and Pleasant

There's a foreshortened perspective in England. Something to do with the light, or clear Autumn air, or just that things are closer to each other. Perhaps it's jet-lag, I don't know. Anyway it's cool and green, the smaller roads and lanes draped with that late-summer foliage that's not trying to be innocent and appealing now that the nip of Autumn hints at its demise. It's a privilege of our situation that we were warmly farewelled by family in the Southern Pacific and warmly welcomed by family in the North Atlantic, and a tribute to all that each has done the welcoming at six in the morning. Thanks guys.

I had low expectations of British Airways, based on research and past experience, but they came up trumps on the flight from New York. Apart from the business of selecting us for 'special screening' (searching all our hand luggage and ourselves, swabbing the bags for drugs) they provided good seats on a nice small plane, good food, a comprehensive entertainment system, quick flying time (6 hours) and friendly service. We took off into a deep blue and burnt umber sunset with the full moon rising on America, and landed into a dark grey dawn with the full moon just setting on England. Being Manchester it was cold (7 degrees), dark and raining. What else ?

This is where the plans run out and I start having to make things up as I go along. This is the blank sheet bit, albeit rich linen paper as it seems now, and the way it always seems to happen best. I feel a list coming on, just as I feel an urge to build a tent on every mountaintop. So far so good.

We rode the subway to Times Square in rush hour

Day 2 in New York so now we're locals, crossing the road against the lights, laughing at lost tourists consulting maps, strolling through Central Park and talking about the streets in numerical shorthand.

A relatively lazy day to finish our Stateside sojourn: here's the bullets.
Brunch at EJ's luncheonette (you don't know it ? A favourite with us locals) followed by a walk to the Metropolitan Art Museum and a few hours looking at art. Altogether more edifying than our visit a few years ago to the Tate Modern, which I thought might be a wind-up. A stroll through Central Park; families playing ball, kids on bikes, people sitting under trees reading, lots of dogs. Onwards to Zabar's deli and down Broadway to the subway station where we rode to Times Square (see above). Last-minute souvenirs, then to Grand Central for tea at the (fabulous and familiar to us locals) Food Concourse.

Back at our hotel in Queens it was a hot and noisy night of traffic, sirens and bursts of rap music from passing cars.