I pulled on my anorak and welly boots and bravely marched into the March sunshine to capture some daffs, except the sun had gone in and the wind had come up and it was bitterly cold and very muddy.
Focusing on the positive, however, you can't feel how very, very cold it was from the photographs. Be grateful.
This photo blog is ten years old today. I published the first two posts on it on 8th February 2014. How time flies.
To celebrate, I am uploading ten photos, mostly from the archives, that all have something to do with the number ten or celebration (or, at least, how I like to celebrate).
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| A Random Photo From 2010 |
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| Because it's a celebration |
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| 10th Month of 2014 |
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| A10 |
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| Cake (from my 2015 Witchlight launch party) because it's a celebration |
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| 9+1=10 (from the countdown to the 2020 launch of Old Light) |
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| Candles because it's a celebration |
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| A photo from day 10 of my 2020 daily lockdown blog |
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| Flowers, because you have to have flowers when it's a celebration |
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| A photo from the first photo-post on 8th February 2014 |
Landscapes
This is the landscape of others' daydreams
dinner plate flat and domesticated like a tablecloth.
It’s too predictable to be perfectly safe.
Small ducks paddle in its bilges
and moorhens waddle pond-toed
to tidy perfection.
Even its countryside is disciplined.
an ordered game of chess played out
on clearly delineated fields
with rolled hay-bales for pawns.
Let your imagination stroll off
and it will return
appropriately and impeccably chaperoned.
There is no chance of inadvertently
stumbling on where the wild things are.
This was your land
though I never saw it.
I thought you were with me
chasing the swallow's tail to the next new horizon
when all you wanted was to play hide-and-seek
in the not so long grass;
the extent of the wilderness you hankered for.
but the buzzard on its way to the high places.
My ears dreamt of the wind's drum beat
and the sea moaning for the rock heavy coast.
I climbed moorland and mountains in my sleep
but when I came down again
you were not there.
playing hide-and-seek with reality:
our landscapes sundered without us noticing.
Go feed the ducks
they will need looking after.
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| January 2023 |
So, another year, another start-the-year blog post. Except, this time round, as promised last January, it has to be a bit special. I started this primarily photographic blog ten years ago (or it will be ten years come February, because my first ever post was Saturday, 8th February 2014).
So, another year and now a 10th Anniversary blog post. Who’d have thought? Well, I certainly didn’t back in February 2014. Indeed, I worried whether the blog would make it through 2014. If truth be told, last year I wondered whether I’d make it through 2023. I only managed ten posts last year – the lowest level of posting in the ten years this blog has been running. “Why was that?” you ask.
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| February 2023 |
Well, actually, you probably don’t, because, let’s face it, this blog and its owner don’t exactly have influencer status, which may be one of the reasons I felt, last year, that both I and the blog were running out of steam. I also had a lot of “stuff” going on and, whilst I was still taking photos, many of last year’s photos were phone pics. The pics made it on to my personal Facebook page, but few were posted here because, well, you know, quality.
So, as this is a post in which I look back and look forward. I’m going to make a thing of 2023’s phone pics. On and around the text of this post you will find twelve photographs taken on my phone in 2023, one for every month of the year just gone. The link going forward is that I undertake to post at least twelve posts in 2024, one for every month of the year to come. I may post more, who knows? I certainly don’t. You can, however, expect to find a post for each month of 2024. There will, hopefully, be new photos, but there may also be photos from the archives. It’s going to be a proper ten-year anniversary celebration.
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| March 2023 |
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| April 2023 |
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| May 2023 |
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| June 2023 |
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| July 2023 |
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| August 2023 |
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| September 2023 |
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| October 2023 |
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| November 2023 |
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| December 2023 |
This post is very much a diary of my brief rambles between the rain drops. I won't claim the photographs to be worthy of anything beyond diary entries. Some were taken on my camera, but some were taken on my phone and none of them are technically brilliant or artistically outstanding. They are, however, what I saw in this small corner of rural Monmouthshire at the beginning of November 2023.
For those looking for greater specificity in terms of my location, the above photo is of the Holy Cross Church, Kilgwrrwg seen through a rain splashed window.
The photo below (taken on an iPhone, but not mine as I don't own one and so with thanks to its owner and the photographer of the picture) is of yours truly, in Chepstow one evening after dark, with Chepstow Castle illuminated in the background.
