The orange boat
Posted on March 17, 2020
Judy at Lifelessons has had the brilliant idea of posting the last image from either your SD card or phone. As she says, it’s something to pass the time while we’re all in solitary confinement in isolation.
This, from my iPhone, is one of the model boats (pleasingly, the other is blue) that one of our neighbours floats onto the pond at the centre of our little hameau when the water level permits. As it’s rained more or less constantly since September, that is no constraint.
Monday Window: Pompadour
Posted on March 16, 2020
In the town of Pompadour is the spectacularly painted Chapel of St. Blaise. This, however, is the plain window of an austere little side-chapel.
52 Week Smartphone Challenge: 11 – Fill The Frame
Posted on March 14, 2020
For week 11 of the Smartphone Challenge hosted by Khürt, we’re invited to fill the frame with a single colour.
Spring seems to have come earlier than usual this year and there are plenty of the usual harbingers already in evidence – like this narcissus.
52WeekSmartphoneChallenge
Bateau Mouche
Posted on March 13, 2020
The bateaux mouches are the tourist boats that ply the River Seine in Paris. Business wasn’t so good on this particular day….
Someone to look up to
Posted on March 11, 2020
The headquarters of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) on The Corniche is a landmark in Abu Dhabi.
It’s also where I toiled (figuratively speaking) for the last ten years of my working life, the final part of which was spent in an office on the inner side of the left hand tower, somewhere near the bottom of this image. It was on the 23rd floor, so from ground level you’d certainly have to look upwards.
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Scale
Posted on March 10, 2020
Petra is built on a colossal scale, as is evident from this view of the Treasury from the Siq – the 1.2km long narrow passage that is the most common way to enter the ‘rose-red city, half as old as time’.
Monday Window: Abbaye de la Reau
Posted on March 9, 2020
52 Week Smartphone Challenge: Week 10 – Hometown
Posted on March 7, 2020
Week 10 of the Smartphone Challenge poses me something of a dilemma. Does the theme of ‘Hometown’ refer to the place I grew up, or where I live now? There is a vast difference.
I was born and grew up in in the town of Birkenhead, in north-west England. Its principal redeeming feature is that it is just across the River Mersey from, and therefore boasts a very good view of, Liverpool, which I think of as much more my spiritual hometown.
Now, however – and since 2012 – we live in a very small French hamlet which for blogging purposes I refer to as ‘Tranquility Base’. We really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and we certainly think of it as our home.
It’s where we want to watch our sunsets.
52WeekSmartphoneChallenge 10
Circulation Perturbée
Posted on March 6, 2020
Down here in la France profonde, the more common causes of circulation perturbée (traffic problems) – such as roadworks or a jack-knifed lorry – are just as likely to be supplemented by finding yourself on a country road behind a local farmer in the process of moving his flock of sheep from one field to another.
The ubiquitous white van is the modern-day sheepdog.
Glass Masters
Posted on March 4, 2020
In the entrance to a factory on the Venetian island of Murano, rightly famed for the manufacture of glass.
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