They excel in stillness. Sitting and watching. Waiting and listening. On the corner, on a chair outside the front door, at the gate to the garden. Once I asked a Native American for a clue to the future. Am on on the right path I asked her? She was supposed to be a seer of sorts and looked harshly into my . . .
Dark angels #Pilgrimage ~June
Like my own Grandmother in mourning for her mother since 1953, each one is wearing black. They peer from a chair in their doorways during the day but in the early morning or late at night they come out of their cosy seclusion. While the men are down in the bars drinking coffee, they take a chair out onto the street . . .
Growing up and growing old
They were born here on the lake last spring. Swans often don't survive that first year, foxes or mink take the young eventually. These two are about 9 months old, hiding amongst the reeds, tall and strong. My own chicks have been here for a few weeks. All six footers with beards and long legs, they are . . .
Hurtling towards our future at 1670 kilometres per hour
Myself and the neighbours sky watch and throw our wishes for light into every short encounter. From "there's a stretch in the evenings" to "as long as it's bright" we are guilty of the most repetitive weather conversations that can be had. From the top of the hill you can see the sea. In ten minutes on a dark . . .
Setting out….#Pilgrimage
At the beginning of this Pilgrimage into 2014 it's all about setting out. With January as the starting point and 12 staging posts along the way, we put one foot in front of another and we are off! While it's just another year in many ways, the older I get the more 365 spins around the sun feels like a small handful of . . .
Living in muted colour
The Rosebay Willowherb are at the end of this cycle. At their height they are pinker and deeper than a girly pink. In early autumn they go to seed in a fluffy fashion and by December they are gnarled fists of skeletal remains clinging to their stalks. In clumps along the ditches, they mark time with me, and . . .
A slow parting
It was a slow parting, the end of many years of decline. Autumn came to echo this. Slowly, deliberately, and without an exit strategy. A one way ticket. And while he waited for the end, I photographed every fading leaf and naked branch. Now September is dipping into a paintbox of change, yet again. Another . . .
Her little bed of roses
In her garden it's the sweet perfume that I remember. Her little bed of roses. She broke her back in a car accident in the 1930's and was bent over and frail. We used to laugh saying she was so wrinkled that her wrinkles had wrinkles. She was strict and made us eat things we didn't like, but . . .
The absent fisherman……
The ice has gone for now and the lake is deserted and quiet. During December last year I walked around its perimeter pacing out the last days of his illness. There was nothing surer than the beginning of the . . .
Ages older and deeper
Every day it's the first thing I see from any window in the house. If I am having breakfast it catches my eye, twinkling in the morning light. Later I could be on the phone chatting and I am drawn suddenly to notice the lake darkening and soaking up every shard of light into it's depths. At night when I close the curtains on . . .
