Moons & rainbows

We live in a rainbow of chaos.

Paul Cezanne

(1839-1906)

Not a sight often seen, a full moon and a rainbow together... a little bit of urban magic.

Thin ice or ice cold water?

Actually, I think I'll just walk away from it all.

Roll on the holidays...

Thankfulness, every day - Two

I walk through this lovely square most days on my way to and from my local office. The building in the background is an old school that was converted into a great little modern art gallery and hosts some fantastically innovative and interesting exhibitions, placing an emphasis on education. They also serve a delicious hot chocolate in the gallery café, always a good sign I feel. 

I love the contrast here of the ornate neo-gothic architecture and the minimalism of the gravelled garden space in front of it.  

This evening as I was walking home through the square in the dark, I was struck too by the contrast of light and dark: the deep indigo of the sky and nighttime shadows against the glow of light flooding out of windows and doorways, reflecting on water, and twinkling blue and silver in the bare cherry trees.

Contrast. How much less interesting and beautiful this square would be without it. How much less depth and texture my emotional life would have without it too. Loss, sadness, frustration, loneliness, anger... dark things. But all there to provide a foil to the light, bright, joyful bits. And so, because of that, I am thankful for them.

Tonight I felt that. Deeply.

Brief journeys - transition zone

Sometimes, even when it's wet and grey, the best thing is my walk to and, especially, from work. I like the water. I like the mix of old and new buildings and brickwork. I like that the seasons are evident here, in the heart of the city.

And most of all, I like that sometimes it helps me shrug off the day.

Morning sky

Not what we have

but what we enjoy,

constitutes our abundance.

Epicurus

(341-270)

Some days this is all it takes to set the tone right.

Other days it takes a bit more effort.

Today I'm going for the former.

Brief journeys - Wednesday walk to work

Wellies are the way to go!

November's golden light - fight, flight, insight?

The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of.

Henry David Thoreau

(1817-1862)

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth

seeking the successive autumns.

George Eliot

(1819-1880)

Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.

Elizabeth Lawrence

(1904-1985)

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its tone is mellower, its colours are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content.

Lin Yutang

(1895-1976)

Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth,

and distance.

Hal Borland

(1900-1978)

This time of year is always one of introspection for me; time to take stock and make plans. It's not always a comfortable process but it's apparently as necessary and inevitable as the changing of the leaves and the shortening of the days. I've come to accept that. I don't fight it anymore.

Normally it involves looking at where I am, what I'm feeling about where I am, and reviewing the plan. It's a big list, my plan. Dreams big and small. Some things are intended to be achieved in a year (or less), some in a lifetime. In a good year it involves checking off those things achieved (and celebrating being able to do that), rolling over any that remain from that year to the next (and I've come to accept that there may be a few of these too), and (most excitingly) considering what to add. Tweaking the plan is an ongoing exercise, but revising the plan in this way, an annual event.

This year I'm distressed to find that I have very few things to take off the list and the overwhelming feeling is one of having spent a year running very hard and very fast, to stand still. Err, that's not good.

I wonder whether it's because the things on the list are not things I actually want to achieve? Surely if they were important to me, I'd be motivated to make them happen? So I look at the list critically. Nope, all good stuff. All things I still feel I'd like to manifest in my life.

Perhaps even more disturbingly, I find it hard to think of new things to add. Things that energise and excite me. That's not good either.

This has not been the worst year ever. There've been others that have brought much harder challenges. And there's been fair bit of good stuff this year actually - some of it unplanned and all the more enjoyable as a result (there's always room in a good plan for a little of the unexpected). But overall it's felt like a year of relentless swimming against a strong current. I've slept less and worked harder and it doesn't seem to have moved me on, or any closer to my biggest goals, personal or professional. I'm tired. But restless.

And when I read back over my journals, I find I've been singing the same song since this time last year and beyond. I'm bored with singing it. I'm bored with the sound of it. Stagnation is in many ways worse to me than having a mountain to climb.

Ironically, my guiding principle for the year is all about integrity - aligning what I think and feel and say, completely, with what I do. Surely that means making the list come to life, swimming with the current of authenticity instead of against it? And that means either I'm swimming the wrong way (despite my best intentions) or I'm in the wrong stream. Strange, it didn't seem that way when I stepped in. And when I review the plan, it still looks good. And yet... here I am. Not going anywhere. Fast. And not liking it.

So what's the answer? How do I turn this around? Is it me or the plan that need to change? Or both? And how? Or to what? I have no idea.

I have no idea.

So I guess I'm hoping that if I just pause to reflect and enjoy November's golden light, and the beauty of the changing trees, the answer will swirl out of the leaves and make itself known.

I'm ready.

Welcome October

I'm pleased to see you.

Brief journeys - How walking the city with my eyes closed helps me see it

So, the idea for this week is to close my eyes, point the camera randomly in any direction and take some photographs. I tried this out on my walk home from work yesterday and these are the pictures I took.

What struck me about these (apart from how blue the sky is - it was a really beautiful day) is how obvious it is that I live in a city. Strangely, I seldom take overtly urban images. A city environment is not somewhere I feel particularly at home, although there are many things about living in a city that I enjoy and, having done so for so long, I wonder now if I would truly be able to settle in a country location*. I like the accessibility that city living offers - to restaurants, to theatres, to cinemas, to shops, to travel from here to wherever else I want or need to be. But cityscapes don't really make my heart beat faster. I'm not a city girl at heart. And yet, I really like some of these images.

I like the starkness of the angles against the sky, and the shadows and reflections against city textures. I like how that huge building with the even bigger cranes has grown out of an enormous hole over the past two years (there's as much of it underground as there is above ground) and that I have been able to observe that process on a daily basis. I like that I am surrounded by a modern city that was also at the heart of the European industrial revolution and that the layers of history are evident in the canals I walk every day and the bridges and the railway lines I travel. I love that I can walk to my office most days. And into a huge bookshop on my way home if I want to. There's a lot to recommend it.

But what really makes this city living bearable for me is that which is not city. The details I usually seek out, which speak of what is beyond the city limits: the sky and the clouds when I look up past the buildings, the small patches of grass along the pavements, the trees and other greenery that are in the parks and line the canals I walk, or the sound and reflection of the water on the underside of a bridge...

What I need is a city, with the sea on one side and, preferably, mountains on the other. A green city. Anyone know of somewhere like that, that would make me welcome?

Happy Friday lovely ones!

♥

*I do honestly dream of living on a beautiful island or in a relatively remote spot near the sea but it would need to be attached to the outside world with a fast internet connection, a speedy and reliable postal service, and great travel links so that I could blog, browse, shop online and have my books and goodies delivered daily, and so that loved ones could easily get in to visit me and I could get out just as easily to them, or even to a city if ever I needed a shot of cityness. Oh. And a way of making a living that doesn't rely on me being anywhere geographically specific. What I do now relies very much on my proximity to people. Lots of people. That's my biggest hurdle so far to making the dream come true. So far.

In the meantime, my city and I are bound to each other.

Brief journeys - there and back to see how far it is...

a green and pleasant land

{click to embiggen if you'd like a closer look}

After my Sunday afternoon nap the sun was shining still, and so I decided to take a wander out along the canals towards the university campus and back. It reminded me of the title for this post, which is what my mum always used to answer to the question "why?" for a walk or drive taken for walking or driving's sake and not because there was a set destination at the outset. I often set out to go there and back to see how far it is... walking just as far as I feel inclined - usually to a bridge - and then looping round in a circle or, if I'm on the canals, turning back.

Sunday's path is familiar, and one of my favourite routes for a stroll. Despite the trains that woosh by every now & again, it's hard to believe I'm in the centre of one of the most industrial cities in the country and I love that. It's leafy and green and the sound of birdsong, children playing and the soft pock-pock of a tennis match waft on the air, along with the smell of rich wet soil, the deep waterways and honeysuckle hedges. Lovely.

There weren't too many people out on bicycles, actually not too many people out at all, so it was peaceful and relaxing. I chatted to a couple passing on their narrowboat, who slowed down and swerved to miss the ducklings, and are visiting from Worcestershire via 58 locks; a woman on her way to the botanical gardens, who's doing a post grad thesis on gardens in the East End of London (1840-1940), asked directions and then walked with me for about ten minutes before leaving the towpath; a fisherman with a bowl of wriggling pink worms who'd caught fourteen fish in his two hours on the bank, and a guy out jogging who said "nice skirt" on his way out and then slowed down to catch his breath and pass the time of day for a while on his way back. Nice guy. And he didn't ask me what I do. Loved that. He apparently runs twelve miles, three times a week and also loves that route because of how pretty it is. He liked that I was photographing the little plants growing against the railway fence and invited me to join him on his run should I ever feel inclined... He made me smile. Amazing how openly friendly people become (even the most reserved of Brits) when the sun is shining.

So, all in all, a lovely little journey. And just in case you're wondering: It's about three miles (just under five kilometers) each way to the bridge numbered 83 and back... Perfect for a gentle afternoon wander. And no, although I could probably do with the exercise, I'm not planning to start running it any time soon. Walking is definitely more my style.

Brief journeys - walk to work on a soft day in May

I love the soft days: summer-green trees, fresh gentle rain, air not too cold, sky not too grey, Canadian babies on the canal... It's a sweet way to start the day.

Brief journeys - my daily commute

I live in the heart of one of the most industrialised cities in Europe. At least, these days the economy is based on service industries, retail and tourism, but it's a city that was described in the 18th century as "the first manufacturing city in the world". Situated just south of the place recognised as the home of the Industrial Revolution, heavy industry was at the centre of the economy here.

In the 1760's a vast canal network was developed, which supported and aided the city's industrial growth by providing a transport system for raw materials and manufactured goods. Apparently there are more waterways here than in Venice!

Now, centuries later, I live near one of those same canal systems in the very centre of the city and walk along those same routes that the canalboats travelled to get to work everyday.

Door to door, it takes me about 15 minutes at a leisurely pace and less than 10 if I've dawdled around at home a fraction too long and need to speed it up a bit. For most of my working life, I have commuted by road and rail for an average of an hour or more each way. So this one of the things I am daily grateful for in my current lifestyle... I walk to work. I love that I can walk to work! It's good for me and it's good for the environment. What's not to love?

Over the past 15 years or so, massive regeneration has taken place in the city centre and the 18th and 19th century warehouses and factories along the waterfront have been converted into residential units, offices, shops and restaurants. There are new developments too but somehow the historical character of the place has been retained.

This is my route:I live just behind that Mailbox sign and cross the bridge to walk along the bank in the foreground. The Mailbox was once the central sorting and dispatch centre for Royal Mail. Now it's the home of the BBC regional studios and offices, luxury apartments (I don't live in one of those), a couple of chic hotels, and a great selection of shops, bars and restaurants.

Lots of residential and tourist narrowboats moor along the canals.

Newer buildings on the left...

This statue is one of many visual gems tucked in along the canal routes and is one of my favourites, just off Waterfront Way.

Beautiful big tree that hangs over the path and, opposite it, overhanging ivy against one of the original canal walls.

Nearly there. I go up the stairs on the right - back to street level - and my office is less than 2 minutes on from here.

I think it's a lovely route and considering where it is, not too removed from nature. The seasons ring the changes and I love the juxtaposition of foliage, water and urban features. Also, there are lots of birds that live on, or regularly visit, the canals including geese, ducks, gulls and swans. I'm not a city girl at heart, but I reckon that if I am living in a city, I like to live right in the city. These little reminders of nature just help to soften the edges and make it somewhere I am happy (for the most part) to be.

The path continues on under the bridge towards the University and beyond to the home of Cadbury's chocolate... But perhaps that's a journey we can take another day? You'd be very welcome to join me!