Walking to my car this morning at dawn there were the unmistakable signs that summer had passed: the cooler temperature; the sun just rising just that little further south and the mist over the water meadows. Summer is over – autumn has arrived. That only means one thing. Winter is coming.
Another day another test and the I am starting to understand my new lens just a little better. The one thing that is more than abundantly clear is that it is a great addition to my current lens range and fills in a gap…oh and the quality is just what I expected so that is good.
I really haven’t reverted to old habits – honest guv. No I have been field testing my new lens and where better than a local country park where there are plenty of birds, I was going to say wild but most of these creatures seem to hang around just waiting to be feed so you decide if that makes them wild. Not a bad set for a first time but I have still got a lot to learn before I am totally comfortable with the lens.
Another day and another enjoyable time with my Apple Pencil.
Some days I wonder what little talent I have – ‘Where the hell has that gone?’ Then for no apparent reason it reappears – glad this isn’t the way I make my living as I don’t think I could cope…but that is a whole other story.
The other day I rewatched V for Vendetta for the first time in our Post Trump/Brexit era and I found myself being chilled to the bones. The first time I watched this movie, some time ago, it was a just a great film of a graphic novel but now? Well I think it is just a whole lot more chilling.
The scene that made me sit up and think more than any was at the start of the movie when Lewis Prothero makes a speech that now has too many resonances with the Fake News attack on the free press. Of course these same distortions of the truth can be found on the other side of the argument which doesn’t make it any more acceptable. We seem to be living in dangerous times.
I guess we all have different memories of National Trust properties when we were growing up. For me it is a total absence of ever having visited a National Trust property . Whether that is true or not I have no objective way of checking. However, what I do remember is being taken to see Staunton Harold reservoir being built and slowly filling up with water. I was not aware that just to the left of the car car park was one of the strangest stately homes in Britain – but then again I suspect I wasn’t the only one. It wasn’t until Calke Abbey was given to the National Trust to look after in the 1980’s that the full strangeness of the house became apparent.
I have been around the house once or twice and once you’ve seen one stuffed animal you’ve seen enough – unfortunately Calke has an abundance of the things which doesn’t really do anything for me. The parkland around the house however is another matter and I find myself visiting the parkland again and again. (Also writing about those visits a lot in this blog.) Yesterday was just the latest in a long line of visits and I can state with out fear of contradiction that Calke Abbey is my favourite National Trust property – although the Farne Islands are up there as well along with….you get the idea.
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