The biggest second hand bookshop in the world!

I've had a lovely short break near Hay on Wye. Watching Tim Minchin at the Hay Festival on Thursday night, having a deliciously lazy day mooching round the book and coffee shops of Hay on Friday, and a damp walk on Saturday. 

I don't know anywhere else where so many books are all in one place. The British Library perhaps, but Hay is rather more accessible. And lets me keep the books I wan :-). Bookshops with sofas, resident cats, endless rows, maps required to negotiate the bigger shops, and the quirky serendipity of the completely randomly stacked titles in outside honesty bookshop shelves. Needless to say, I bought a lot of books (9, at least count)... but all coming in at under £30. Lovely!

Back in Barcelona

Well, I'm back in Barcelona, scarcely more than a week since I left. It's hot, but I like this city. I wasn't sure on my first night here, but on exploring it's got some wonderful sides to it. I'm still a little apprehensive about the number of pickpocket warnings I've had (from locals as well as tourists), but so far, so safe, touch wood... These pictures are from two weeks ago. I don't think too much has changed in the city - except the amount of work I have done today, and the consequent increased tiredness and less inclination to be a tourist this evening!

 

Arc de Triomf, built for the 1888 Universal Exposition

A walk around Arc de Triomf, El Born, Barceloneta, Port Vell, La Rambla, and the cathedral in Barri Gotic

Another walk, this time up the Carrer de Marina to the Sagrada Familia

A rather architecture focused walk - Sagrada Familia, Gracia, and Passeig de Gracia with Gaudi's wonderful buildings, and even his paving slabs...

'My' local park by the Estacio d'Autobusos. This last evening for a last hour's unwinding before taxi and plane....

Thoughts on Project 365

I've been doing Project 365 for nearly five months now, which has given me plenty of time to reflect on what I'm doing, and why. It seems I'm not the only one who feels prompted to document some of this reflection (see for example Martin Weller, or Alastair Humphreys).

There appear to be at least three types of picture in my Project 365 collection.

Firstly, there are those where I'm trying to take interesting photographs. For me, this means finding interesting views and angles on the everyday, often focussing on the macro within the wider environment, sometimes trying to be 'arty', perhaps playing with a little bit of post-processing, and often cropping images a little from the original capture.

As most people who've attempted something like a daily photograph project will have found, there are days when I've struggled to find inspiration. There were quite a few of these through the dark evenings of the winter months at the start of the year. There are a fair few days when I've reached the end of the evening and realised I have yet to take my photograph. As a consequence, there are a a good number of shots of my kitchen table/plants/household utensils. These 'desperation' pictures are the second significant group within my collection. As it happens, some of these have made some surprisingly satisfying pictures, particularly with a little work with cropping or processing tweaks. These 'desperation' pictures are also pleasing because where they have turned out well, I know that I have a nice image which I would not have made, were it not for participating in Project 365. The most fundamental discovery I've made is how often mediocre pictures can look hugely better in black and white. That said, I really like the balance between colour and black and white or otherwise duotoned photos in my collection, and I will continue to use monochrome images... sometimes intentionally, and sometimes to disguise my lack of inspiration or planning!

The third type of images are those which are not particularly arty or notable for their photographic contribution, but which are a record of some part of my day. I wasn't initially including such 'photo diary' pictures in my Project 365 collection, but actually I've allowed more and more of them in. I'm glad I have. This is my collection, and aspects of home and holidays, visits and activities are the stuff of memories. Each picture takes me back to when, where and why I took it. And some of them are half decent pictures in themselves.

What have I learnt?

Carrying camera a lot. This is definitely a new habit. I'm not just talking about my camera phone either.... more and more often I make sure I have my camera with me. It's led to opportunities for photographs I just wouldn't have had before, and to documented moments of the everyday, which can be interesting in themselves.

I'm looking at the world a little differently - looking more for interesting images. This doesn't mean only ever seeing the world through the viewfinder, and forgetting to step into it and fully experience it for myself, but it does mean I've probably learnt something about composition. I also learnt that I like the sky, a lot. There have been quite a few images of the sky in one way or another. Through a window, glimpsed between a tree's boughs, above a beach or with the sun setting. I shan't apologise for all these, as I'm happy to have noticed how much I like the sky. It's not that surprising really. I know that being outside regularly is important to me. I know that seeing the daylight matters - days shut in an office with closed blinds were horrendous. I know that I love being in the hills, climbing, sleeping out, being in the sea... and the common thread in all these scenarios is the sky. I just hadn't noticed it before. Of course I'd noticed the sky - I just hadn't recognised how important it is to me. Partly due to Project 365 I've developed the habit of regularly taking an evening stroll, often hoping to watch the sun set, but generally happy just to watch the changing seasons. This has all sorts of positive effects and emotions of its own, and it's at least partly due to Project 365.

If you want to see my photostream which includes my daily pictures, as well as selected others, it's on Flickr here. I'm also uploading a collage of my daily shots for each month... and they're here.

If you'd like more inpiration and some beautiful creative work from much more exciting folk than I, have a look at Al Humphreys' Vimeo offering, or see Jonathan Harris' Today project.

I used to be a blogger

I didn't mean to stop being a blogger. I definitely liked being a blogger. It's just been a very busy time recently. I've still been a blogger, but unfortunately all the posts have been in my head, and just haven't made it as far as the keyboard yet!

Blogs seem more relevant and interesting when they're regularly updated and something about that immediacy is one of their attractions for me. Therefore I feel that roundups of "everything I did in the last three weeks" aren't always so interesting. However, this is my blog, and I shouldn't think my (approximately two) readers will mind too much.

So what happened?

• I got a new job. That's a pretty busy and all-encompassing isn't it?! Day one involved flying to Barcelona to meet the new people. Cue much conflicting excitement/anxiety! There'll probably be one of those roundup posts that I said I don't like as I've done a lot of exploring in the evenings, so one is definitely deserved. Oh, and the job stuff is great too.

• For some reason I decided that recarpetting the upstairs would be a good thing to do in my crazy week-before-new-job. It's not that silly really, as I'll be working at home, and wanted my study feeling nice. However, in a two bedroom house, with both bedrooms needing carpet and one needing painting first, a Towers of Hanoi-esque furniture shifting puzzle ensued to get everything moved around to allow me to get the painting done, and then the carpet fitter to do his thing.

Hmm, two things? Is that the extent of my excuse?! There's also been some kayaking and canoeing, (including some fun yet chilly wet rescue practices), orchestra, cello, ongoing shed construction, the odd climb or bike ride, panicked late seed-sowing and potting-on-despite-rubbish-weather, and making the most of opportunities to meet friends for coffees and lunches.

Hopefully soon some of those posts in my head (or the draft folder, or just on the to-do list) will make it this far!

Birthday Bath

Before you wonder, the title is not a reference to my infrequent hygiene habits. Instead it tells of the delightful way I spent my birthday in the last week, and which involved an awful lot of doing not too much. Well, for a couple of hours anyway. I was floated around the 'lazy river' in the Minerva Bath, surrounded with Eucalypus oil scented steam, and warmed, relaxed and delighted by the rooftop pièce de résistance.

Thermae Bath Spa is, well, as it sounds, a hot bath. In Bath, which is quite famous for its natural hot springs. My pictures are only of the outside of the building as no cameras are allowed inside. To be honest I'm quite happy with not being photographed while swimming, though the views from the rooftop pool would be lovely to photograph, as would the unique setting of the hot pool with steam rising, atop one of the most modern buildings in the centre of Georgian Bath. As you'd expect, the spa have some rather nice pictures of their own on their web site.

The building itself is a fusion of glass, steel and limestone, full of light and of course water, and is pretty magnificent in itself.

After a night of torrential rain, it was still cloudy and intermittently drizzly when we arrived, but after a soak in the first indoor pool we moved upstairs to the steam room and on the way, passing a terrace, we saw the sun sneaking out through the clouds. It seemed like a good time to head outside between the showers, so after a short steam we headed for the rooftop. And the sun came out... and got brighter and the sky clearer, and stayed that way for the whole rest of the visit. What a perfect birthday treat!

On Beauty

By Zadie Smith

Given that this book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2005, I think it's been on my shelf for about 7 years. I don't know why I haven't got round it it, but I think I wasn't attracted by the cover artwork. I know there's a cliché about that. It's strange too, as I actually like the detailed fabric print imagery, although even after reading I can't identify its relevance to the story.

I didn't dislike On Beauty, but I didn't have any particularly strong positive reaction either. I was happy enough to read and follow the story, and found the characters to be the strong point. The characterisation was lovely, giving me a great visual image of Kiki, beautifully drawn as the glue tying the fracturing family together, and of youngest son Levi, struggling across the cultural divide of Boston's black middle class and the Haitian activists he is desperate to fit in with. Despite this, I found it hard to identify with the characters. Their heritage, circumstances, and particularly their American setting left me feeling an outsider, looking in and not quite comfortable in doing so.

Like Smith's previous critically acclaimed White Teeth, this novel also covers some big themes; race and multi-culturalism, class, identity and fitting in, gender and sexuality, politics and religion. I've seen some reviews which accuse Smith of a 'throw everything at it and see what sticks' approach, but while she risks confirming that, I think that here she manages to tie the issues together coherently. In a large family, living across both sides of the Atlantic, with three teenagers, and drawing upon the passions, frustrations and sometimes short-sightedness of its academic father and politicised family members, it's realistic that there will be different views, interests and arguments, and I think it's this which allows Smith to cope with such diverse themes.

There is humour in On Beauty, though I didn't feel it matched up to the 'very funny indeed' claim of the book jacket. What was enjoyable was in the characters' dialogue, which was enjoyably realistic, felt un-contrived and real enough to have the impression of eavesdropping.

I feel I ought to give Zadie Smith another chance, but I don't want to be disappointed again. Amazon reviews of both this book and White Teeth are widely divergent. I expect I'll try another sometime, and I certainly didn't hate this - I just wanted to enjoy it more.

Bread and jam

It's been a delicious kind of making and baking day today. I hardly buy any bread at all these days, so the bread making is nothing unusual, but today I also made jam. That was fun. And it's yummy. It's not that being unable to get rid of rhubarb is ever a problem when you make rhubarb crumbles as often as I do in the summer months, but I wanted to make jam too. And now I have, and that's another tick for my Day Zero list as well. Hurrah!