whilst elsewhere, an anonymous spaniard ages gracefully ... well its either arrested development or accelerated regression

artwork by roxanne

3BT ...

A dilapidated bus station.  It is cloudy and a cold breeze chills the little country town.  In a small yard surrounded by a low wall, a couple of girls, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, shiver on a bench outside a pub.  One has a plaster cast on her left arm.  Maybe their parents are drinking inside.  Suddenly they leap up and dance frantically around for a couple of minutes, shaking their arms and legs and heads to imagined music, almost as if they were trying to detach them, running about the yard and jumping on the furniture with an extraordinary lack of inhibition, as if they were burning up a lifetime of joy in moments.  An English rite of spring ?

An old stone bridge with low pointed arches spans a wide chalk stream bordered with willows, its fertile waters feeding long drifts of flowering water crowfoot on which both yellow and pied wagtails run to and fro.

A text arrives in the evening from a friend I feared had died.

i'd see through that disguise anywhere ! its the collinson kid ! run for your lives !

... fifty-seven years of friendship, on and off !

more tea, don diego ?

maintaining a discreet silence

3BT

A mare leads a foal towards the shadow of a dark oak tree at noon.

At dawn the sun is hidden by a mountain of huge grey clouds all soaked in pink, whilst in front of them there sails a squadron of smaller clouds shaded in pale blue.

The room is silent, except for the sound of bubbles in tonic water.

apropos de sumpfinque

clapham junction station's new "stepless" entrance via the original parcels office

after years and years, the people in the fancy dress shop at clapham junction have given their mannequin a new wig

ingerrlund expects ...

thinking aloud ... darling, let's redecorate the bedroom ...

dehydrated thinking

I woke up before sunrise and didn't make tea. Too noisy.

I was thinking about the proposed closure of the Sorting Office at Malmesbury, my home town, as reported in Thursday's Wiltshire Gazette. Local people are said to be disappointed.

It’s a shame about the jobs going, but at the last general election the clear majority of people in North Wiltshire voted for less taxes and more efficiency.  Clearly the subject of local jobs for local people wasn’t so important then. 

Of course, in real communities, real people need real jobs. 

 I vaguely remember that’s what socialism used to be about in the bad old days.

fabulous

http://londonstreetphotographyfestival.com/diary/vivian-maier-a-life-uncovered

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

cognitive dissonance, user's case notes part 99

entered the street door to the flats and was a divided self for one moment, being equally aware of two distinct and competing smells .... the sweetness of baking bread versus the astringency of common disinfectant

other spanish stuff ... "a bit random", as the youth like to say

bienvenido mister marshall

this 1953 film was on permanent display in the reina sofia museum in madrid when i popped in last week

i sat down alone on a hard bench and watched it through with great pleasure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC6TimziwiU

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/bienvenido-mr-marshall.shtml

high above guadalupe, villuercas at sunrise

a scenic roundabout on the way from guadalupe towards cabeza del buey

sigpac is the spanish government's rural property index and provides excellent mapping if you are patient

fly away peter, fly away paul ... seventeen vultures sitting on a wall near zorita in extramadura

went to segovia to see a roman about a dog

a girl and her valley

at the church door in jaraiz de la vera

two posters in jaraiz de la vera

the neolithic graves at the gorge above gorafe ... sadly there was no sign post directing me to the biggest and best which are beneath the rim of the gorge