22. elementary my dear

[ j: do we have a challenge for the coming week?

t: Oh merde!  We do!  But am at work and iporn book in (icy!) bedroom (only currently visited in nano-seconds prior to sleeping)... do you want to go off-piste and choose?

j: what are you doing at work at this time of night?  happy to choose.....have book within arm's reach!  husband (who, btw just suggested 9, which is ‘look for odd combinations of elements’) is in the throes of planning (currently at ‘reading-out-menus’ stage) a gastronomic few days in Lyon.....it’s half term next week (maybe where you are too)

ps have no voice other than mere squeak; makes controlling a bunch of 5-year-old hooligans a touch tricky! 

pps am wondering if Lyon has familiar monument for fresh view; it does have a park with a couple of giraffes and an elephant but not sure I am up to forming some kind of bond with their keepers.....

ppps am definitely counting chickens!  or ostriches!

t: NINE! let's do nine!  Are we ok with 9?  Mail me, early bird stylee, if you wish me to choose alternatively tomoz.  Am happy with 9.

ps Just to be clear.  Counselling work = working late (but actually, drinking wine in a bar with chum, post-work = this late) jeez my room is freezing; -3 and no radiators. And no sign of oil. Doh.

j: 9 is fine haha a rhyme (update on possible Lyon trip.....now rather less possible as apparently huge dump of snow scheduled for next week = better to remain near base than venture off somewhere) ]

so - in spite of the week’s brief being to look for odd combinations of elements, for some bizarre reason, meatballs (more precisely the lack thereof) seemed to figure prominently…..

t: I have not fulfilled brief…Nowhere NEAR... am visiting IKEA tomorrow... and am (misguidedly?) hopeful?!

j: IKEA?  That definitely sounds like a plan! Good Luck!!  (we have one a mere twenty minutes away; when I was visiting hospital regularly and being driven there by my husband, his 'treat' afterwards was to go to IKEA for a plate of meatballs!) 

t: to be honest, meatballs are the motivation for tomorrow's visit too!

…

t: I did not achieve…Daughter blew me out. No IKEA. No meatballs. No 'owt. Tomorrow she is to be frogmarched to photographic nirvana. Just not quite sure where that is...

…

t: I have an idea for a picture…but it involves a long drive and waiting for a high tide (15.21, I checked...)... and the presence of a least one boat.  Hmmmm.  So sorry not to have achieved by yesterday, it was my place of work's annual conference, Sat - organised by yours truly... so last week a bit chaotic.  Happy Valentine's day + where are you?  Did you make it away?  The BF is a non-believer, so stroppily I sent neither card, nor token of love.  Only to discover this morning that he has made a complete u-turn... ooops...

j: blah - all a load of hot air regarding few days away.....

I LOVE that you have ideas for your photos - whereas I take a load and then peer at them from all angles to see if there is the faintest possibility of interpreting the brief to fit the pic.....can't wait for 15.22.....

<3 Valentine's Day???  not that you'd notice.....husband currently writing stroppy letter to Orange (he has a penchant for writing stroppy letters) 

but the sun is shining, the snow is sparkling and He has been persuaded that it might be nice to run down by the frozen lakes where I shall wander avec mon appareil photo in the hope that something elemental might happen.....

PS Xkcd valentine dilemma 

PPS sorry about your lack of meatballs

t: Xkcd = EXACTLY my life, quote for quote.  Oh! How I laughed!  High tide delivered... just not any boats.  A milk bottle used as a vase in pub, will be in dropbox tomorrow (just got in from work).  Hope the day delivered something good for you.

j: I offer you - a car in the Rhone.....

[t: i WANT to see 'car in rhone' - which i feel trumps, any any attempts that might have been made elsewhere...!]

 

j: a discarded jam jar frozen into pond…..

and, just for fun, two elements.....although not especially odd ones!

t: thanks for these - got called into work today, so spanner in works re photo scheduling.  Just home.  Plan to walk dog, clear head, feed child... and then be creative!

(lovely in the teeny window of visibility in the back of my camera. more than slightly disappointing in laptop screen view. sigh.)

am also feeling all 'teeth gnashing' about work this week - is supposed to be 2 x 4hrs per week, yet it's taking up so much time that there is no space for creativity... and yet, feel need for creativity to make time worthwhile.

have new printer.  am going to try to print bottle.  blur will look ok on absorbent, arty  paper, me hopes...

21. something old, something new

juxtapose; to place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast

j: am thinking…..new snow on old leaves

or maybe a slice of (new) ice on a frozen lake.....

or even (an old body of) water underneath a slice of newly-formed ice.....

ps - brrr it's minus 12 right here right now

t: was also thinking 'new' catkins on 'old' trees... and um, 'new' trees near 'old' trees... and yes! new season's snow on old season's seedhead…..

so equally creative in my pursuit... will upload tomorrow - got back from photo walk, bent down to stroke dog and whacked head on metal edge of door lock. cue surprising amounts of blood and now feeling quite icky...

(ps lovely, lovely photos of yours today - partic the dreamy leaf echoed in snow...)

got bored lying on sofa with no-one to impress with injury...

j: the trees.....I LOVE the trees

t: ah, thank you. I did do a little snow-flurry of a hop when I saw those trees! Still waiting for oil delivery here though (saved £3.47, by not being in a hurry for delivery... which I wasn't, ten days ago, when placed order. Gnash) so am like Victorian scullery-maid, dragging in logs and coal for fires. Bah

j: and on top of all that, tomorrow is Monday.....

t: Am hoping Monday cancelled due to Too Much Snow. Ha.

j: here it's now minus 13.....but sadly work cosy and warm and no sign that they might send us all home again

t: Snow melted here, too :-(

20. there’s a hole in my bcket

t: this week we must 'fill up a bucket of water to reveal your reflection'. I think I punched holes in all tin buckets, in order to plant well-drained tulips in them...!

j: know any Dutch boys?

t: :–)     !!!!!!!

BTW... was that a 'yes' to the challenge? (subject to Dutch boy availability)

j: I'll have you know that MY buckets aren't leaky!  We're posh here!

PS - how closely related to a bucket does this bucket of water need to be?  I'm wondering about the village horse trough (or actually a neighbouring village's; ours is filled with soil and blubs, waiting for spring)..…

PPS - have just sed Google dictionary to look p bcket - lots of scope there for 'interpretation’!

PPPS - (the U key on my compter fell off yesterday; I now have to try and hit a tiny plastic 'knob'; I keep missing of corse.  have to try and by a new one; can only get in America - was wondering about trying to swap it with z or something I don't need to se as much, bt may end up with no keys left.....)

decidedly NOT a good effort this week; not even a tiny glimpse of sun
attempted cleverness in water trough which was dismal failure
ended up going down into a ditch and taking pics of the bubbles in a stream
got a wet foot for my pains
and not much else
how about you?

t: … ah! but at least you have BEAUTY in your shot... I have but a frizz-haired moi, reflected from a bridge over the (very slow!) river teise... no light, no horse-trough... no now't (not really sure where that apostrophe goes...)... so, herewith, pic taken via 'creative' use of mobile phone...

j: BEAUTY????? well, my frizz was newly washed and scraped back, still wet, into an elastic thingy; right now it has escaped and is at least as wild as (if not more so than) yours! I had my feet one on either side of the stream bed, hence the akimbo stance.....(btw, did you notice sp in goat’s eye of last week?)

t: ah... well... the... aherm, 'straddle' of the shot [you athletic woman, you] had eluded me until seen up beautifully large... and interesting, how somehow, the ‘you’ captured in the bubble is not dissimilar to the ‘you’ in the goat's eye.... 

j: next week it's 59; juxtapose something old and something new…..

19. going deceptively large

T: Please could you bail out self and refresh - What was the EXACT challenge again? ... is it big things extracted to abstract state?

J: is "minimize the view of a seemingly complex scene"

J: have been angling for lunch out at a place that we reach by driving underneath a wonderfully complicated bit of French road engineering.....but sadly my request fell on deaf ears

PS and anyway, the brief being 'seemingly' complex rather than actually complex.....is it perhaps rather like 'estate agent speak' when they talk about a house being deceptively large?

T: Will upload (rather lame) photo tomorrow... ricoh definitely dying. Sniff.

PS antwerp the Liverpool of flanders. True.  (saw peter lindbergh show at photo museum there. Made me want to take more portraits. Just need a few supermodels to experiment with.) MeaNwhile, in reality, am tempted by more immediate, lower-brow, photobox 'pic on a Thornton's choc box' concept...

T: antwerp brickwork

J: ooh - that's VERY exciting, in an optically illusory way!

meanwhile, mine is a seemingly complex fence, rendered.....well, you decide!

(I also have an apparently complex rainbow minimized to a blur of pink…..

a tree [possibly even a forest] reduced to a mere speck of moss…..

and an 'attention aux enfants' sign reduced to part of one letter…..

[the letter T since you ask] - and am now having albeit restorative cup of Earl Grey when what I really need is a glass of wine.....)

18. all lined up

on taking notice of people or objects aligned with lines on the ground…..

as I was pondering whether or not footprints count as ‘objects’ (more of which later) in popped this decidedly bouncy email:

“had planning to mail you for an assignment extension - living out in 't sticks, there is little opportunity to find straight-line-ness, and i'm off to a print workshop at the de la warr pavilion [ http://www.dlwp.com/  ] on monday, so was hopeful to conjure up something there... but i've been taking my compact ricoh on every dog walk...and lo! this morning, i found myself ambling by a very shadow-strewn farm gate……

pic in dropbox now.  i say pic, as camera seemed to die on me mid-multi-attempts... all settings freezing and refusing to write to memory :-(

i loved that camera…..”

in response – one ‘word’ I think says it all: *

meanwhile, back to my tussles with my conscience about being overly ‘creative’ with the brief (or to be more accurate, to my not having read the brief quite carefully enough).  I had originally had high hopes of this…..

where doggy paw prints (perhaps not strictly speaking ‘objects’ but ‘aligned’ they definitely are) trot alongside the lines of the sled they were pulling (with a few herringbone cross-country ski tracks for good measure) and also of this…..

which probably also breaks the ‘aligned’ rule

a day later, in a different snowy location, there was this…..

where the line of the shadow of the barbed wire is echoed by a line of birdie footprints – which I don’t mind admitting I didn’t actually see when I took the photo

so you see, if footprints don’t count as objects, then I am kind of screwed…..

17. best friends

something of a seasonal hiatus has there been; but finally we have the makings of a post - and it goes something like this:

J: helloo helloo helloo - and a vvv happy new year to you. having to resort to a Word document - and the delicious possibility of a wi-fi lunch out yet again (what my poor tummy [hips, upper arms, bum] must go through in order that I remain in touch with the world!)

the OG (old git) has come up with a number (about time too, I hear you say) or to be more accurate, he came up with three, the first being 55 - and we have already crept in close - the second 56 (I am all for taking an executive decision here about best friends - unless we can hunt down some beach buddies in the next couple of days) and yup you guessed (he’s nothing if not predictable my OG) the third was 57, or ‘minimising the view of a seemingly complex scene’

I am all for having a go at the friendship one if you are up for it but unless we (we being me ‘n ‘im) get off our proverbial backsides and down to the seaside (and I guess unless too that these elusive best friends get off theirs and do likewise) then it will have to be the simplification of complexity – and I am certainly all for that! – so can I keep you posted (wi-fi lunches notwithstanding)?

and now I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.....

J: Had fun on the beach yesterday (late) afternoon, hunting for ‘best friends’ to snap.  Sadly the sun had almost set and anyone who had earlier been playing in the sand had clearly already gone home.  However, I got one or two possibilities; two little girls on a see-saw…..

a couple strolling along the shore arm in arm…..

an old lady throwing pebbles for her dog (not in focus) and a very colourful brother and sister.  We chased the last remaining rays of sun into the marina and found a toothless old man who bent down to stroke a semi-wild cat (unfortunately this was shot right into the sun and so was rather overwhelmed by sun-flare; also he had a very hairy arm which meant that it was hard to tell which was cat and which was him).  Then, just as we were heading back to the car, a fishing boat came in and one of the young guys had a puppy in his arms; clearly they too were best friends!  Crap photo though as it turned out.  Shame…..

T: am currently on train back from Manchester, having come oop north for BF's mum's 80th... lots has been happening at home, so am all behind on pix... I have a poss 'best friends' one I took a while ago (ie pre-challenge), but might have to cheat with this... will send over all attempts to meet challenges by end of day... I had a best-friend concept in my head, to take this morning, involving my BF and me and his'n'hers old git slippers... but my watch had stopped, so it was a bit of a shock to discover we were still talking in bed at 9.45, when my watch said 8.45... and I had to leave for train at 10.30! More soonest...

T: re: body language and friends, i hope the pic i took at tate modern aeons ago will suffice. perhaps, like a cat, we are allowed nine lives in this here challenge of ours - and i've just used one - or two! - of mine?! your pix are lovely, i had similar 'connected on the beach shots' from my last trip to france - something  quite joyful about the intimacy

J: your 'creativity' is inspiring - I love the arm that reaches out.....so very touching! in more ways than one haha! 

T: next week’s challenge is number 43: 'take notice of people or objects aligned with lines on the ground'. simple then.

(and ps new year's resolution = no alcohol during week... except bank holiday mondays... sigh...

J: PS oddly enough for me too, New Year’s Resolution = no alcohol during week… except when in ‘restaurants’; but unfortunately lunch in local trucker’s place doesn’t count as a ‘restaurant’ (I have decided a ‘restaurant’ is where you book) so am looking forward (not!) to a second wine-free lunch in a row); but Friday evenings, you will be pleased to hear, count as weekends… NYR also = fewer crisps and less chocolate [when I look down at the moment I see tummy; not a good look!])

You read it first here!  Cheers.  In advance.  For Friday.  Hic.

16. the story thingy

so – last week I forgot to mention the next challenge…..it was to ‘tell a story from a different perspective’…..so without further ado…..
toni: am here in brussels, editing photos taken in a leuven bar yesterday. used my vintage ricoh gr compact and have twiddled with pix on the BF's ancient lap-top and cutting-edge tv screen... all is streeeeeetched beyond comprehension, so am hopeful they look ok in 'real life'... the stories the pictures tell... i don't know... but they felt like stories to me...


meanwhile…..
had I followed advice given by mon fils (yes, it seems we are in the UK as you are in Belgium.....ironic, non?) I should have been lurking in toasty-warm bookshops; and on reflection it might have saved my trigger-finger from going completely numb…..
however, cccold frosty early morning walks by the river in Abingdon have their moments, especially when a very cute squirrel pokes his nose through the railings on the bridge…..

to watch (as I like to think) jealously as the ducks on the bank below are being fed.
 
and then, on the way back from Waitrose (have been having far too much fun there!)…..a man in red walks past a charity shop window…..

after which a late afternoon ray of sunshine beams through one of St Helen’s windows.

toni: cloudy churchy heavens are beautiful... as is hand-knit nativity... am sliding into sunday eve in a haze of red wine and neuhaus chocs... not quite waitrose [but did a festive shop at hema yesterday, which is a low-rent equivalent]...
jenny: found the knitted nativity in the Salvation Army charity shop window - it's open Monday - am SERIOUSLY considering asking if it's for sale.....even though it would surely mean d.i.v.o.r.c.e.
toni: Buy! Buy! Buy!
i don't have iporn book here, so choose number 12 for next week ... hope all is good - belgium v festive and snowy and twinkle-y...
jenny: no i-porn book here either but we will be back 'home' on Tuesday evening (although we leave again on Thursday at the crack of before dawn for the looong drive to.....Girona.....and lunch again at El Celler de Can Roca…..hoping v much that number 12 lends itself to arty farty restaurant pics.....)