Postcards from the Road

Sunday 7 November 2010

Dreaming of escape.

High above the harbour, a kitchen maid washes and dreams of what could be.

Tea Rooms in Conwy.
Wales
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Chance of Precipitation

Time to bring the washing in methinks.

Conwy

Wales

Broken Dreams

Perhaps there's a little bailing to do before we can take her out again.

Conwy
wales
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The Castle Again

Conwy Castle is inescapable. A few minutes' visiting turns into hours poking through it's towers and chambers.

Wales
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I love the uniform drab of Welsh villages. Conwy less than many because of it's splash of whitewash and colour, but there's something that attracts me to the unattractiveness.

Conwy
Wales
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Conwy Castle

I suspect the English have never forgiven the Welsh for deleting the "a" from Conwy, and the Welsh have never forgiven the English for building a castle there in the first place.

The castle has been there for seven hundred years and seems abandoned. Perhaps the Welsh are winning the battle after all.

Conwy
Wales
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Window Shopping

London Lamborghini have a shop in Kensington, which seems to attract as many people to its window displays as Selfridges does.

Old Brompton Road
Kensington
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Monkeys!

High above the crowds, the fossils fly.
Museum of Natural History
London
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Dinosaur!

Entry Hall, Museum of Natural History.

London
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View from a Cafe

View from our breakfast table while drinking hot apple juice and ginger.

Bristol.
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Altered View

Anish Kapoor’s mirror sculptures will sit altering one's perspective in Hyde Park until next summer.

London.

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On a clear day

On a clear day, one can see the top of the Monument.

London
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Millenium Bridge

Just across the river is the Tate Modern. We wanted to cross, but the nice man said "come back tomorrow", so we went the long way round.

London.

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Hunger is the best sauce.

The Gamble Room in the Victoria and Albert Museum was designed as a place to partake of refreshment, and to this day one can still enjoy a nice cup of tea (or a passable coffee) from within.

The inscription on the frieze is a quote from Ecclesiastes II, 24 and reads 'There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy the good of his labour.'

Indeed.

Victoria and Albert Museum

London

Autumn in London

St Paul's from Southbank, Autumn 2010.

London

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The light at the end of the tunnel

Or in this case, a Parisian street.

Somewhere in Paris.

Pharmacy

I've heard it said that France is distinctly visible from space, made obvious by the green glow of all the pharmacy illuminations. Certainly they seem to be in abundance, but then Optometrists are in proliferation as well, but when a Pharmacy is also an Optometrist, one can only be in Paris.

Sunday 3 October 2010

Rainbow

Somewhere near Portobello Road

London

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London Morning

Sunrise below the curtain.

Kensington

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View from a small window.

The number 23 trundles past the gallery.

London.

Perfect Reflection

On a still Paddington evening, there is barely a ripple in the glass facade.

London

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Communication

The Pizza shop in Dettwiller may have been there for half a millennium, but it seems to be embracing the new electronic era.

Dettwiller
France

Rural Texture

With just a hint of satellite dish, because I have a thing about them and the way they don't intrude except in photographs.

Lutzelbourg
France
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Texture

A barn sits minding its own business somewhere near Hoheyerstein.

France

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Canals

The Canal de la Marne au Rhin, at it's eastern end travels through mountains, actually through them, but this is just a windy bit along the edges of one of them.

Near Saverne
France
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Sun at last!

I've wondered at how few photographs I've taken of late, but between cleaning things and waiting for the weather to break, there have been precious few days for wandering.

Perhaps now that the sun is out and the washing done, we may see some more.

Arzvillier
France
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To answer your question: "That thing" as you so unkindly put it, would appear to be a flower, wearing sunglasses and singing into a microphone.

I'm fairly certain, that if one were to play some sort of a tune, "That thing's" hips, insofar as a flower can actually have hips as opposed to being thus described, would move in time to the music.

And you wonder why I don't watch tele.

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Ripening

Things are ripening, cottage at an ecluse, Canal du Marne au Rhin.

Alsace
France

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Shame

To my great shame I didn't get back to find the name of either building. There's always next year.

Strasbourg

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Smoked Salmon 5€

It's almost enough to make one stop and eat.

Strasbourg

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Cinema Six

Facade: Cinema Six
Strasbourg

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Strasbourg

The problem with trying to capture images of Strasbourg and many other places in the Alsace region, is that the buildings just sit there and pose, like supermodels on their days off. There's no art required, just snap and there you have it, another multicoloured image of ancient timber framed buildings with shutters and flower boxes.

Oh well, someone has to do it.

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Ecluse 43

Right there at the ecluse, Snow White, if you look carefully enough, is entertaining a bunch of little people under the tree.

This is how fairy stories are inspired methinks.

Fiddling

The cap suggests he's a tradesman, contracted to repair the fire damage.

So does the fact that he's leaning on the window, watching the passing traffic on the waterway.

Strasbourg

Just another old sign

It could be anywhere in the world I suppose, but it's not, it is in Strasbourg.

Little France

In Strasbourg there is a district with a name that translates literally to "Little France". The history of the name has thus far eluded me, but it no doubt evolved during one of the times when the city was part of another country. In any case it's a very pretty district, lined with what once were tanneries and wash houses.

Petite France

Strasbourg

Communication

It was nice of them to leave room for the satellite dish when they built the place in the eleventh century.

Strasbourg

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Wagon Wheels

No matter where in the world one may find oneself, an old wagon wheel makes a zany window from a barbecue area. I have carefully chosen the word "from" rather than "to" as it doesn't do a thing to hide any untidiness from passers-by.

A salutary note for those contemplating a similar installation, and just part of the service!

Lutzelbourg
France

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Reflecting some more

I don't know, I just thought it was a postcard sort of photograph. These sorts of days are particularly magical on a boat, as we glide across the sky at 6 kph, accompanied only by the sound of a....a.... well OK, a Perkins diesel, but the view is nice!

Somewhere near Pont-a-Mousson

On a clear day

On a clear day, you can see not only forever, you can see power stations and barge loading cranes and industrial reserves, but none of that seems to have a negative impact on the view.

Moselle River, towards Nancy.

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Reflecting on the Moselle

It was late morning when we came to a bend in the river where the morning's mist hadn't quite lifted beyond the hills. We were both struck with the similar tones to a photo I'd taken in Mallacoota earlier this year, and turned on the radio to make sure we were still in France!

Somewhere between Metz and Nancy.

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Metz has been in more countries than I have, but it's also been around a lot longer. It's made me more comfortable with the thought that today's population shifts are just another form of invasion, there will be winners and there will be tourists.....

Spanish food, French ideals, Mexican beer.

Metz

France

Pas de Publicite

We usually ask for junk mail to be delivered elsewhere when we are away.

Oops. Perhaps this is elsewhere?

Toul

France

Vogue Living

Disneyland

If Walt Disney had designed Toul as a stage set, it would look like this.

Toul, France

Postcard from Toul

Toul as cities go is a bit old. Old enough to be completely fortified and for one of the cathedrals to have been commenced in it's fourth iteration in the 12th century and time enough for every last skerrick of living plant like thing to have vanished from within the bounds of its walls. This wasn't noticeable at first as everything was in its ancient context, but the main square, which is actually a circle, has a monster fountain and garden as its focal point, and buried deep within the flowers are clusters of vegetables and fruit growing, cleverly trellised upon mock fruit boxes.

Is this an exhibition of the plenty that surrounds the city, or a mocking comment on the tragic results of the siege of 1870?

I don't know, but it's beautifully done, and worth a postcard.

Toul

After midnight

I'm sure I could have improved this photograph if I'd taken the time to ... well adjust the exposure setting for starters, but although it's barely visible, as we wandered down the back streets of Toul, I couldn't help but wonder how they set the louvres in the shutter in parallel with the footpath and the road pavement.

Toul

France

Why I need a tripod

When I see something I want to take a photograph of at ten o'clock at night, it's just too hard to keep the camera still by hand.

I just loved the warmth from below and the icy blue from the apartment above. It made me wonder if the bloke running the shop would be game to go upstairs when he finished work!

There's one in every crowd

As we wandered through the streets of Nancy, we talked about how the street scapes had a consistency of proportion and texture and colour without the need for any heavy handed planning legislation, it just happened.

And then someone comes along who wants to be different. Where we come from, you'd need a planning permit to plant red flowers in a window box.

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