Over at dVerse Poets Pub, lillian is hosting Live, OpenLinkNight, when we can post a poem of our choice – I wrote this for Akua Lezli hope’s Mini Speculative Poetry Book challenge…
I lie here languid as a lily of the field in the reverie of an artist’s model I may look demure what with my rosary between my hands as requested by his nibs but he also tipped my negligée strap from my right shoulder baring the nip “The perfect mix of seductive and saintly” according to him I am really just here for the money and if there are extras once he has had enough of painting I get a little more… I know I’m his favourite model ‘cos he always asks for me and gets cross so they tell me if I’m otherwise engaged of course, he’s married which is a relief really I hate it when they get all enamoured and desperate and I have to explain – it’s the single life for me, ducks… The only thing’s strange about modelling for artists, is how they stare at you so intensely – and yet it’s like they’re not really seeing you…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics, invites us to a haunting selection of ekphrastic prompts, with a stipulation of 31 lines or less as the only limitation…
Juan Luna was a famous Filipino painter, who shot and killed his wife and mother-in-law and severely injured his brother-in-law. He was later acquitted as the crimes were considered to be “a crime of passion.”
While many believed the painting to depict his late wife, Paz, art historians assert that the physical features are that of Angela Duche, who was a favorite model of Luna’s.
According to legend, owners of the painting suffered misfortunes such as illness, bankruptcy, car crashes, and other tragedies. It is believed that at a showing of the artwork in the Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 1987, a spotlight bulb directly over the painting mysteriously exploded. The painting is currently housed at the National Museum of the Philippines.
I realise that my TToT’s have become vast and sprawling of late, understandable when covering travels, but perhaps placing an undue demand on you lovely readers and so I am trying to rein in a little this week…
1- Due to my travels I missed out on the TToT meme of photographing the second bookshelf down on the right-hand side of the right-most bookshelf as you enter the room – which in the case below, is my bedroom/study…
In this case, the shelf is for art books…
2- Grateful for the view from the smaller of our kitchen windows (we live in an upside-down house, so the kitchen is upstairs) and here shows the lovely early morning Autumn sunshine. Hypograt, the view is being overtaken by a Christmas tree which a neighbour planted in the graveyard many years ago. During our 6 month abscence during covid, said neighbour curtailed the top of the tree, but, as trees will do, it simply sprouted a new crown which is now well past the kitchen window and I include a shot (with different weather altogether) from a mere 15 months ago to show how fast it grows…
3- Going to the cinema – we have a choice of Northern Morris Cinemas in two of our local towns – independents who struggle but are surviving, albeit with slightly sticky carpets in the lobby, and The Ilkley Cinema, a posh independent with three rows of settees for seating (so quite small audiences in two screens) and where pizza, cake and coffee are brought to your seat! I went to watch “Pressure” about the conflict between and American and English meteorologist to deliver the right forecast and allow the D-Day invasion to proceed – excellent! A tribute to meteorologists…
I really must work at smiling for selfies but in my defence, Barbara had not come (though they gave a credit note) and my grandson, who I was waiting for) got the time wrong , reading 17.15 as 7.15pm and arrived as I was leaving…
4. At the risk of inflaming Clark’s bulb envy, the last in the bulb succession for the year flowered this week, the Spider Orchid Lily. I showed them to you last year, when they were a late planting yet still flowered in July so I expected them to be earlier this year, but here we are in October, after an admittedly late Summer/mild Autumn…
5- Hypograt – Barbara cannot bring herself to go out today as planned, which means that I will be working on my mini-poetry book project instead. I would much rather we were going out – depression is the pits…
6- The last few weeks have been so busy that I have hardly got any writing done, you may recall that I had to get up at 5am to complete my Deadlines short story last week, however I managed to write for one of the dVerse Poets Pub prompts this week which you can read here. The Deadlines story was my second attempt at a piece of fan fiction and although I didn’t flag it as such, I was surprised that none of the commenters picked up on it! I can’t link to the Deadlines site because it is closed to non-participants but I realised I can make it available to you here – see if you can guess the book it is a fan-extension of…
7- I am still getting dribs and drabs of Poetry Postcards arriving (though I still have about 10 bonus ones to reply to) – its nice that the festival putters on…
8- Grateful for the TToT since, as well as the lovely people it connects me too, it acts like a kind of diary – which was after all, the original idea of a Blog…
9- I did manage to write a poem for my Keighley Library Poets Group which will be meeting on Tuseday evening. The prompt was Wonder which was also the National Poetry Day prompt for this year. Keighley library was the beneficiary of a £10,000 grant towards its construction, by Andrew Carneige the Scottish born millionaire who made his fortune in America and used it to promote literacy by building many libraries all over Britain – bless him…
10- Hypograt – I fell over in a building site, an old Department store, Brown and Muff, known eventually as “The Harrods of the North” after it was bought by the House of Fraser which owns Harrods in London. I was checking some measurements for my boss who bought the building to convert into appartments. It could have been worse, everybody else had just left the building but I was not badly hurt and picked myself up and am now nearly recovered from a merely sore calf – it did though, make driving home that day feel as if the clutch was twice as stiff as normal going home that day and it reminds me that I need to write a lone-working safety policy for the factory where I work! Incidentally, another hypograt, we are applying for SALSA Accreditation, without which some wholesalers will not buy from us. We had the mentoring day which is like having a mock exam, lol! We have a lot of work to do to pass but – and here is the hypograt – it may make my bosses take seriously, some of the things I have been telling them need doing…
Hmmm… Not sure I was any less sprawling in this week’s TToT – but as Archy the Cockroach in “Archy and Mehitabel” was wont to say “wothehell wothehell” (Archy – a reincarnated Free Verse poet, communicates with the humans in the newspaper office where he lives, by jumping, with great effort, on the keys of a typewriter which they leave primed with a sheet of paper each night – he cannot work punctuation or capitals…
Wishing you each and every one, the very best possible week to come…
Never having had a baby of my own I always check out strollers hoping to catch the newly delivered out of the womb and into the world – that wide-eyed look of wonder of “Where on Earth am I now…”
The moment I looked into them I was lost or maybe found drowned in those blue eyes or maybe saved – thrown a life-ring on a long lifeline
I watch “Here” a movie that explores the inhabitants of a place then house from prehistory to the present with familial moments of life’s joys and tragedy such as dementia
Forty-seven children and teachers board my train and one sits next to me I ask what she will remember from visiting Saltaire – not the Hockney Gallery but playing in Roberts Park
With age I move from making memories to reviewing them and observing in others the actions and dramas that make a life and lose count of the number of times each day that I find occasions to tear up…
Now many people wouldn’t consider this a weed, but if a weed is a plant which is growing in the wrong place, then it certainly is. I only noticed this Sweetcorn plant growing in a flower pot after we returned from holiday and it was only when I figured out where it had come from that I knew what it was – I had installed a bird-seed feeder above these pots, and I have to say the little blighters scattered a fair bit of seed on the ground including, I realised that included sweetcorn, although I examined the remains of the packet and couldn’t see any whole seeds – such is the determined power of nature…
2.- I have bought some fat balls for the birds this winter and am awaiting a special caged feeder that will only allow small birds to feed and keep them safe whilst they do it…
3.- Another exhibit from the Museum of the Confluence in Lyon. Another temporary show was one of ceremonial costumes from Mali. What was as interesting as the costumes/masks was the degree of community participation involved with their use – these one are worn specifically by the sons of Blacksmiths who dance through the village at night…
Apologies for the light flare on the English captions…
The feathers are from domesticated birds, these days…
4.- As children, a treat in our family was to have a spoonful of leftover pudding from the night before at the bottom of our bowl of cornflakes and now, the leftovers are more and I can indulge for a few days… This is an apple crumble with walnut halves nestled into the crumble. My sister in Canada says they don’t know what she means by crumble and would refer to this as an Apple Crisp – how about you?
and what makes the pudding all the sweeter is that these were foraged for free from roadside trees…
5.- Barbara, who stayed with her daughter whilst I was meeting my friends last weekend, has been intermittently better this week…
6.- I am still getting the odd postcard from the Poetry Postcard festival – I still have 10 or so bonus cards to send replies to…
7.- I am doing a writing challenge called “Deadlines” to write 12 short stories in 12 months and of course, there is a deadline day each month. By the last deadline, on Wednesday last, I had not written anything so I got up at 5am (it was a work day) and completed and posted an 1800 word story by 7.30 – talk about pantsing it! The prompt was “Daisy” and I immediately thought of Daisy in The Great Gatsby and wrote a fan fiction piece about her final demise…
8.- I am making some miniature poetry books for an exchange which I thought was this month but am relieved to find is not until November – in the words of the Fairport Convention song by Sandy Denny “Who knows where the time goes…”
9.- I like to watch 10 minutes of TV while I eat my breakfast and have discovered that YouTube is perfect for this – either I watch a short or I can work my way through a longer item such as a documentary about the story of Fairport Convention the group who invented British Folk Rock…
10.- Online friends here and on other sites, scattered around the world who bring joy and variety to life…
1.- My Patience Rewarded! I bought some bulbs a few years ago but they remained steadfastly blinf – I think I planted too many too close together. Barbara urged throwing them away to free up the pot but I gave them a last chance by planting them in a new pot (though hardly more spacious and this year one has flowered! I long ago lost the packet and can’t remember what they are called (answers on a postcard please) but I think they may be “Naked Ladies” so called because the foliage dies back and the flower comes up on its own (nothing to do with the excellent band of a similar name (see end of post…
2.- Schoolfriends! This is the class of ’72 of Magdalen College School, Oxford. The picture was taken on the world’s smallest tripod hence the low angle, following an attempt to photograph the gang whilst staying out of the limelight, by the WAGS…
This year we sported 2 wheelchairs and a walking stick (me)…
The WAGS (Wives And Girlfriends for those not in the know)…
3.- Since Oxford is expensive to stay in and we all have few ties there any more, we have taken to holding our annual reunion in different parts of the country as organised by a local member. This year, we stayed in Exmouth, Devon and Peter and Alison organised a day out on trains (and a ferry) from Exmouth up the Exe valley to Exeter, then down the other side and along the coastal railway built by the great Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is literally along the edge of the sea at the foot of cliffs. In Teignmouth we switched to a steam train down to Dartmouth with spectaculat views of the estuary – a Ria or drowned valley…
These old railway posters were a great influence on my art…
Rias have steep sides emerging straight out of the water…
The Royal Naval Academy – think West Point for naval officers…
Here the engine “Braveheart” is preparing to change ends of the train for the return journey to Teignmouth…
A slightly abstract shot of the rails used to switch the engine around the train…
A view of the sea from Brunel’s railway line…
4.- On returning to Peterr and Alison’s for a fish and chip tea, there were more trains – Peter has a train set in the attic which keeps him young at heart…
5.- Are grown men with train sets an example of (not just) English eccentricity? Check out Rod Stewart’s train set pictures here. When touring, he hires a second hotel room where he relaxes by building elements for his train set. Anyway something which is definitely British – Post boxes were marked with the intiials of the current king or queen – the one below is for Edward Rex VII…
6.- Barbara stayed with her daughter Beverley in the next village, and despite anticipatory anxiety, had a lovely weekend!!!
7.- Last week I had to go to the nearby town of Skipton, it is joined to our village by the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and below is the main basin, now home to daytrips and canal boat hire…
I have a fondness for canal boats since living on one (70 footer) for a year as a student…
The names of these two day-hire boats may or may not mean anything to you…
8.- After a holiday come the memories and I realised I had not shown you anything from actually inside the Museum of the Confluence in Lyon! There was an exhibition (that’s an “exhibit” to those of you of American persuasion) by a photographer who visited North Korea numerous times and, always heavily supervised, and with profoundly different cultural norms, set out to create portraits within the limitations. I show one of the pictures below and a commentary by the photographer below that.
9.- Time for another texture repetition shot…
10.- TToT which serves as both a list of gratitudes (keeping things positive) but also as a diary – surely the original purpose of Blogs…
Have your best weeks, everyone -and here are The Barenaked Ladies to give you a nudge of positivity, as promised above…
Things for which I am thankful – Travelogue 3 – unlimited by numbers, gratitudes…
After three days in Mohern, we continued on our way to a village a few miles outside the city of Lyon (B on the map) and itself, on the banks of the River Saône where we would spend four days exploring. First off, I have to say – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY IS LYON!!! We drove through the city on the evening we arrived despite warnings from the hosts about traffic, but actually, being caught in rush hour offers the chance to look around which as the driver, I am not always afforded. On this excursion, we also drove up and over one of the ridges of the city away from the river and saw that whilst not as delighful as the (no doubt expensive) riverside areas, the city is still pleasant enough. Rochetailee-sur-Saône is crowned by a Chateau which is now a motor museum but I picture it here to give a flavour of the architecture…
The first whole day, we drove a short way down the Saône to board a ferry/bus that took us as far as the old city quarter…
Barbara and I sailing down the Saône including a hapless photo-bomber. I really must work on my selfie smile!
I managed a sketch of this from a Cafe across from teh Old Quarter but didn’t quite finish it so took this for reference…
Lyon considers itself the gastronomic capital of France (though I am sure other cities would dispute this) and one of its most famous chefs is Paul Bocuse whose restaurant was close to us. He is responsible for developing the Nouvelle Cuisine in which a selection of small “refined” dishes replaced the heavy sauces and large dishes which had dominated French cooking.
The splendid facade of Paul Bocuse’s restaurant…
Returning to the car after taking these photographs to show Barbara, I told her that the great man, pausing from his labours on the balcony, had given me a wave – she believed me for a moment before zooming in and realising it was another piece of Trompe l’Oeuil – Paul died in 2018 but for a moment, I had her fooled!
Sometimes, it is only when you review your photos that you spot things you had not realised were there – here, the shadows of vegetation mingle with the fabric pattern of Barbara’s trousers…
I couldn’t resist shooting this little video of a strip club which seemed curiously out of place in the Old Quarter but wait till you see the name of the pottery shop next door…
(The Angry Pixie – presumably at having to share the street with a strip club!)
Another lovely shop sold vintage items – appropriately, for the Old Quarter which included, light fittings, photographic rolls of film and all sorts. Take a peek at their website here.
Some gargoyles for Cai…
On our last day in Lyon, a Saturday, we drove to Les Confluences Museum – a very futuristic piece of Deconstructivist architecture near to the confluence of the Saône and the Rhône rivers. Notice the difference between the French and English use of confluence – in French, it is plural because there are two rivers whereas in English it is singular because the confluence is a thing in its own right. (no wonder English replaced the French as the international language) Sorry to any Francophiles but English is so much easier to learn (though not to speak or write perfectly) sufficiently to be understood. Sorry France – the world has spoken…
Here is Les Confluence with the Saône river in the distance to right joining the Rhône river in the foreground. An array of houseboats too…
This one, moored in front of the museum is perhaps a houseboat or pehaps a tour boat…
Les Confluence Museum in all its Deconstructivist glory…
Taking a tea break from present shopping in Neuville-sur-Saône – shoppimng is hard work – honest!
Finally, we set off back towards Rotterdam and the ferry back to England, but we broke it into two six hour drives, stopping for two days in the Champagne region near Rheims. The motorways were free flowing with little traffic and the French drivers (99%) were well behaved as regards the speed limits. We continued to see many wind-farms – at times, we could see 100 or more in all directions in an area similar to the Downs near Misky (but much more extensive). This is just the kind of area where English nimbys (Not In My Back-yard) would protest loudly at the mere mention of windmills… Europe has embraced the need for energy security and freeing itself from Russian gas and oil…
The Marne River runs through Champagne – grape vines in the foreground….
I had never seen Walnuts growing but they were gently falling each day at the Airbnb we were staying at. You can see how the shelled nut is cocooned inside a soft casing…
A bit blurry but a picture of the red warning lights on the massive sea wind farm off the Hook of Holland which gives an impression of the profusion…
And so back to England – normal gratitudes will resume next weekend…
Pilgrim has a difficult birth but his brain is too young for it to leave scars his mother’s body is not so lucky pilgrim will be her last baby
pilgrim has a special place in his mother’s heart And she weeps when kids at school call him not special, but runt and she hugs him tighter
Pilgrim walks his own path with few companions in real life but books and films fill his imagination with places, heroes, villains vanquished and true love found, he is not lonely
Pilgrim breezes through college blossoming in the fresh soil where no one knows his story finds friends, and adventurers of the mind though love as yet eludes him
Pilgrim charts a course for his future he is not afraid to take the lonely road in search of knowledge of the world what he discovers, under northern skies will change the world for everyone
Pilgrim’s reports are not welcomed by everyone but he has seen the truth and slurs and spurs of fortuneers hold no power over Pilgrim who pushes truth to power regardless
Pilgrim finds love amongst his supporters a heart attuned to his values body set to walk beside him Pilgrim sees how life has led him to this place, his love – in and out of the world
Pilgrim led the way thousands followed in his footsteps…
Things for which I am thankful – Travelogue 2 – unlimited by numbers, gratitudes…
Home to Hull – Ferry to Rotterdam, A – Mothern near Strasbourg, B – Lyon, C – Champagne region and back to Rotterdam and the ferry back to Hull! Some 1,400 miles…
Grateful to still be able to make such a road trip at the advanced age of 71! Getting to Rotterdam was easy – 1.5 hours drive to Hull ferry port and an ovenight ferry which left us most of the day to get to Mothern near Strasbourg. This is in the North-eastern corner of France just over the border from Germany and was a good 7 hour journey with stops – the longest leg of the holiday so glad it was first…
Mothern is a fairly small village on the banks of the Rhine which divides France form Germany and much of the centre of the village is half-timbered buildings like this…
The Rhine at Mothern is already impressive in size but actually, not very interesting to look at…
Mothern was about 40 kms from Strasbourg and we spent our first day of three, visiting the city that houses the European Parliament.
Here there were also many half-timbered buildings although I never found anyone to ask about the age of the buildings – I have a feeling the technique was used far longer than in England – perhaps due to the abundance of timber in the area…
The building below was once a barracks but what really intrigued me, once we got close to it, was that all the details around the windows are Trompe l’Oueil – something I once did a bit of in one of my past careers…
For our second day in Mothern, we crossed the Rhine back into Germany (we travelled down through Germany – see last week’s account of German drivers) and headed for the mountains of the Black Forest.
The Black forest is the home of the eponymous gateau which gained Europe-wide popularity in the ’70’s (they grow a lot of cherries here) so naturally we had to go in search of some! Upon arriving in the town of Freundstadt, we discovered that they take Sunday closing much more seriously than in England so the only eateries open were ice cream parlours and so we had to settle for a Black Forest ice cream dessert ( liberally soused with Kirsch) and so eager were we to tuck in, that we forgot to photograph the desserts first and had to resort to photographing the menu – still it proves we are not of that generation that feel the need to photograph and share everything they eat – lol…
Freundstadt lived up to its name (literally Friend-town) as a Turkish couple who have lived in Germany for thirty years, invited us to share their table as the place was packed, and then paid for our desserts too – many thanks…
On our third day, we decided to head north into a national park (more forestry) and since you have to put a destination into the satnav, I chose a castle that was marked there, although I didn’t zoom in to examine the destination…. Eventually we turned onto a small road which became a track in the woods and wound up through the woods – increasingly rough – the centre vegetation giving the underside of the car a good brushing…
We were in the middle of nowhere – the fabled destination to which a satnav will famously take you given half a chance… Discretion being the better part of valour, I eventually zoomed out to see that the track continued to spiral up a hill to the alleged castle -(goodness knows what sort of ruin it was) and we decided to turn round and go back. We stopped to photograph animals in some kind of sanctuary/farm near the start of the track.
No idea what sort of porkers these are but perhaps some kind of rare breed…
These are miniature goats, the kids are about the size of a small dog. Both they and the pigs were munching on windfall apples from nearby trees…
Lastly some endearing donkeys…
And that is where I am going to leave this travelogue till next week- after all, you can only absorb so much of other people’s holiday pictures…
