Friday, October 15, 2010

a small counter epiphany in the norfolk room

















waiting somewhat vacantly for a recital by the fabulous guitarist Laura Snowden, i was admiring the elaborate gilded carvings and thinking how marvellous it was when the craftsmen of the good old days managed to position the mirrors exactly halfway between the objects and their reflections

Sunday, October 10, 2010

a cast-iron phoenix in crowhurst churchyard

Three beautiful things … 10th October 2010

A long train ride to visit a friend I’ve neglected in the cancer ward in a south coast hospital.  And a long wait until visiting time.  The patient is sleeping, or is she already gone ?  No, the wind is whistling through the valve in her throat and they’ve removed the stomach tube and they've attached the help-yourself-morphine drip.  In mournful silence, I turn to search for a chair and then the old familiar smiling voice whispers from the pillow, “Hello, stranger!”  “Stranger than fiction!”, I reply before we embark on a three hour conversation.

Darkness advances as the train pulls out on the return journey and we pass the beach at low tide.  Three men with spades, for all the world like grave diggers, are silhouetted against the twilight waters.

Falling asleep in the loved one’s embrace, and waking there some time later, refreshed and healed.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Sunday, September 19, 2010

ignorance is often more expensive than education ... i was fascinated by this large painting rescued from a ruined monastery at san pedro de arlanza near burgos and cleverly restored















http://art.mnac.cat/fitxatecnica.html;jsessionid=0f34369b92a1c918d6200caffe420f64deaa8eb20d894e8295f156e5369e3302?inventoryNumber=040142-000

and i was completely astonished when i found this picture taken by the rescuers before they started work

you can see where some plasterers had hacked into it before it was rendered over in the bad old days


















here is another fragment, now kept in the cloisters section of the metropolitan museum in new york ...