Month: October 2017

When mum came to stay.

Friday 06 October 2017 – London.

We had the great pleasure of mum coming to stay for a few days over the past month. Mum turned 80 in May and my sisters and I conspired to buy her return ticket from New Zealand as a present. Mum had not been here for (I think) seven years, and was not sure if she would come back, so our birthday present was a welcome surprise!

In 1973, mum and (my late) dad emigrated to New Zealand, taking me and my sisters along for the ride. I am very glad to have mostly grown up in NZ, a fabulous country to be boy and young  man in, and something I will be for ever grateful for. Mum has two brothers and other friends and relatives in the UK, some of dad’s family are here too.

Mum stayed with El and I for half of her time in London and was out and about with her brothers visiting friends for the rest. If I had not recently started a new job I could have spent more time with her. I was lucky enough to be able to take a few days off here and there, and have the odd ‘work from home’ day.

Mum arrived on Saturday 2 September after 27 hours of travel with Singapore Airlines, she was glad it was over! I took a couple of days off work so Tuesday mum and I went for a drive out to Southend, a place mum had been to a number of times over the decades. After faffing trying to find a place to park we stopped on the west side of Southend and decided to go for a walk towards Westcliff, before turning back for a traditional fish and chip lunch on the waterfront, followed by a gentle post lunch leg stretch and then a Rossi ice cream.

I parked as close to the centre as I could, near a tiny section of virtually empty sand.

We headed westward, towards Westcliff, and view on to London. It was not a hot day, nor was it cold, some where irritatingly inbetween. It was windy and quite cloudy. A bit grim, bit not terribly so., which probably sums up Southend.

Soon after starting our walk, it started to rain, not heavily, though the drops were big and solid and the promise of a windblown downpour was strong. We had coats but chose to turn back, skip the walk and go for lunch instead.

By the time we were half way back the threatening rain had been blown away and while the sky stayed heavy and full, it did not rain on us again. We walked along the seafront, past the pier and the entertainment area.

We were looking for somewhere reasonable for lunch. Somewhere on the sea with a view over the water; and somewhere selling fish and chips. We found that somewhere, and lunch was excellent, we chose the right place. It was full, with small groups of retirees also eating fish and chips, if is full then there has to be a reason. After a large lunch we waddled back to the car, stopping for a famed Rossi ice cream on the way. It was good day out.

On Saturday we took a trip in  to central London to visit the Tates. None of the special exhibitions were of interest to mum at Tate Britain so we took a walk around and perused the general galleries. There are no photo restrictions in the free galleries which was fab.

I am not sure who painted this massive piece but I really like it,  you will have seen similar in some of my photos; A tiny stretch of beach/land and a massive sky taking up most of the frame. The colour reminds me of Turner.

Speaking of JMW Turner, Tate Britain has an exceptional collection of his work. For a long while I was not a fan, art is very subjective, and I just did not get him. Even though he was active during my favourite artistic period and certainly has a lot in common with the impressionists I love, I just did not get him. Over the past couple of years that has been changing and the more I look at his work and think about how it could influence my photography the more I have come to appreciate what he has done. This work from Lausanne from 1841/42 is a great example of what I want to be able to do with my camera. I am not quite there yet.

It was a nice day so mum and I took the opportunity to stroll the south bank of the Thames to Tate Modern. I love the Thames, it is such a nice walk;  history, space, views, city, what more could you ask for; though there are places where the crowds are just maddening. We were lucky in that it was still not too busy, yet…

The office building next door but one to mine!

I took mum for lunch in the members lounge in the new extension to Tate Modern, the view over south London, and up and down the river is just lovely, and worth the members fee alone. The extension is magnificent, a wonderful concrete and steel construction on the side of an already brilliant space.  They should offer afterhours photography tours of the building. Though having the odd person in the shot does give the scale of the building some perspective. 

We had a walk around the Giacometti exhibition, it was really busy and quite hard work, being able to stand back and read the signs and take  a decent, broad view of the pieces was impossible. I am not really a sculpture person, but I do love his mid-period tall skinny people work, fabulous. Hopefully El and I will get an opportunity to go back and take a longer look; at a members only session Smile

Mum stayed with family for most of the next week, coming back to stay with us for a few days when Meliesha was visiting on her way from Bristol to Austria. It was great that mum and Meliesha could hang out for a few days together in my neck of the woods. 

Mum, El and I had a weekend away in Edinburgh, and I will write about that next. On the way back south Mum stayed ‘oop north’ for a few days with one of her brothers and visited some old friends. All too soon it was back to us in London for a few days and then off to Heathrow and back to New Zealand.

It was great having mum over to stay, hopefully there will be at least one more visit before mum does not feel able to travel such long distances again; though maybe we could meet half way for a catch up some time! Love you mum xx

Aberdeen

Thursday / Friday 31 August / 1 September 2017 – Aberdeen, Scotland.

El and have been considering a visit to Aberdeen for a while, finally rejecting the idea to add this to our planned trip to Edinburgh when mum visits us in September. One of the reasons for going to Aberdeen was to meet El’s Scottish family and see the places El visited when her parents were alive and living there.

Sadly one of those relations, El’s aunt, passed away last week after a short illness. El managed to visit her in hospital last week, so fortunately she got to say goodbye.

We are going up for the funeral on Friday morning, not a reason we envisaged for paying our respects to the Granite City. To compound things, my mum arrives at Heathrow on Saturday afternoon so we cannot even stay for the weekend. Seven and half hours on the train on Thursday, repeated when we return to London on Friday. Fortunately I quie enjoy long train rides.

We left London mid-morning. I must admit I actually enjoy train journeys in the UK, though fortunately so far I have never been on a journey of any distance where I have had to stand up. Being in first class also helps a little too!

I always try to take a few photos out of the window as we go, usually unsuccessfully; too many reflections and too much track side furniture getting in the way. Reflections aside I was quite happy with these two. I love rail side England; all the rolling hills, the fields of wheat, the grass, the farrowed land.

My favourite part of the journey north is once we have passed by Berwick and the train runs up the coast to Edinburgh, watching the sea always excites me, and it is what I miss the most living in London. Sometimes just seeing it is enough; though I did get this photo sort of wrong. Virgin should clean the windows of their trains.

We arrived in Aberdeen late afternoon, after what had been quite nice weather on the way up, it was cloudy and the rain came as we walked to our hotel.

We did not do a lot after checking in. The plan was to walk around the immediate area, check out some of the sights, absorb a bit of Aberdeen atmosphere and then have a meal and a quiet drink. The rain put paid to that. We walked about a hundred yards up the road, found a nice cafe that was open for evening meals – and a bit of street art. We retired early and watched TV in bed. Dinner was good, but boy, Aberdeen competes with London on prices!

The rain broke overnight and Friday started nice and bright, a shame that we had a funeral to attend. It was a small affair at the nuclear bunker-like Aberdeen crematorium. El’s Aunt Margaret had no children and there was not a lot of the wider family left. It was a short and gentle farewell.

We had a few hours before the train back to London, so after some quiet post funeral chat with other family members El and I check out of the hotel and went for a walk around. Back in the spring Nuart came to town and there was a bit of street art added to the grey granite walls of central Aberdeen. I had taken a look at the map before we left for our walk, but didn’t really expect to find much of it as it seemed quite scattered. Surprisingly I did find some as we went; so here are some pieces by,

Mr Cenz,

Alice Pasquini,

The wonderful Hera, half of the Heracut duo,

And some from artists that remain unknown.

Nice, I love coming across street art in different towns, I know a number of these artists are well represented on the walls of London, but that makes that familiarity even more special.

There are a lot of churches in Aberdeen, and I mean a lot. It seemed apparent that a lot have been converted into very un-Presbyterian dens of iniquity. Maybe the church needed the money. Bars and casinos seem to be the main theme. I am not a religious person, but found this lack of respect for these old buildings a bit of a shame. Maybe it is just the cheapness of the frontages I hate.

We had a good walk around, I liked Aberdeen, I loved the dark grey graniteness of the town, I liked the feel of the city, that it isn’t flat, there are alleyways and steps and it is not all square and straight and ordered. I would love to have explored more and to have had some time to understand its history and its famous characters.

Returning to the hotel, we picked up our bags and headed back to the station for lunch before getting on the train for the return seven and half hour journey. I confess to spending most of the journey slumped into my seat, listening to music and drinking red wine. It passed quite quickly.

The return had the same photographic opportunities as the originating journey.

With a stunning sunset as a bonus!

We will be back.