Capturing the Castle - Photostory Friday

 click any image to enlarge

I haven't been taking photographs lately, like  a lot of things, it just hasn't been on my radar. When l left work yesterday evening the light was brighter as with each day our evening get longer, and l looked behind me at the Castle and noticed the dazzlingly tulips along the kerb. I knelt down to try and capture them in the foreground with the Castle peeking through.

As l walked the short way home through the town centre 

with my camera still in my palm I started noticing so many arched doorways

and in the 7 years working in the Museum l had never noticed

 the Museum's name in sandstone up on high.....

often we don't see for looking,

 on many levels.

skating..

Perhaps it's the lilting cadence in a post
that will catch me out

I can fall sideways in to the flat of the day

the small vulnerable moments
when something innocuous can trip you off guard

An evocative smell or a memorable song
is overwhelming

sometimes

the light smell of a face powder.

a suggestion of vintage perfume

a random melody from a car radio
evokes searing memories
across the heart

and sticks in the throat
powerful, raw, achingly painful

l'm skating on the ice of sadness

An evening with Rufus ...

A soupcon from last night live at the Sage Gateshead... the night was my gift to ME!!
This song always gets me at the few first words...



He was his usual sentimental, camp, hamming it up, performing at his best, self. Poignant, funny, lovely and why the heck can't he be my new best friend....he included a wonderful tribute to his mother and in the first half he performed his entire new album. 'All the days are nights: Songs for Lulu.' Sublime! It takes a couple of listens, then you are hooked. Again.

With thanks and much love to Fhina, who took me on a whistle stop tour of Newcastles finest vintage shops and amid much chat and laughter a lovely meal...thanks


No matter how strong
I'm gonna take you down
With one little stone
I'm gonna break you down
And see what you're worth
What you're really worth to me

Dinner at eight was okay
Before the toast full of gleams
It was great until those old magazines
Got us started up again
Actually it was probably me again

Why is it so
That I've always been the one who must go
That I've always been the one told to flee
When it fact you were the one long ago
Actually in the drifting white snow
You left me

So put up your fists and I'll put up mine
No running away from the scene of the crime
God's chosen a place
Somewhere near the end of the world
Somewhere near the end of our lives

But 'til then no, Daddy, don't be surprised
If I wanna see the tears in your eyes
Then I know it had to be long ago
Actually in the drifting white snow
You loved me

No matter how strong
I'm gonna take you down
With one little stone
I'm gonna break you down
And see what you're worth
What you're really worth to me

where is the sand man

when you really want him? Does he come along only when you're not looking or is he like Santa and only arrives when you've fallen asleep or is he like a London bus, no not big and red, but comes along in sets of three?

These days, or nights, I don't get to sleep until around 2am, which is a huge improvement on the 4 and 5 am watch l have been on in the last few weeks. Last night at 1.00am I was grouting around the tiles l had put up around the bathroom sink because l saw it needed finishing and not feeling very tired I just got onto it.

I do like my bed though, truly love it. On several levels! I love to read in bed. I love to sleep in bed. I love to sleep in. I love to just relax in bed.  My new bedroom is a haven of all the little things l cherish. A place to relax and ponder. Pictures. Photographs. Paintings. Books. Jewellery. Solid wooden furniture. Vintage textiles. Pretty items arranged on the dressing table and other surfaces. More clutter, no more less is more. My style. Me.

But frustratingly at the moment, l find l cannot read at all. It is something l've too often taken for granted as a simple pleasure, but even reading a magazine seems to take on Tolstonian proportions. It is par for the course, l do recognize this and acknowledge it as part of the process. Moving out. Moving on. Claiming my future. In my hands. Just mine. A chink of excitement tickles my spine and fades.

Many of us here are miles, even continents apart but we are still in it together;  Chic Mama, Amy, Erin, Suburbia, me... the guys too and there are many more of you out there. Moments like these all add up and as time passes, peace and acceptance lingers...
l hope, just hold on.

Say what?

l''ll go to the bottom of our garden... er well duh! Where do these weird and wonderful phrases come from?? I stopped myself about to say this today as it made no sense. Contextually or otherwise. Got me thinking. It doesn't make sense, though l think l remember the context in which it was often used; gobsmacked or surprised.

you could blow me down with a feather! you could, well that's a sires. get it?

Well l'll go to the top of our stairs - why where else would go on stairways?

I get philosophical quotations and literary quotations... not because l'm particularly clever, or that I paid attention in lessons. Cos l didn't. It's that their meaning is hidden within the text. Usually. But in these colloquial type of quotes or sayings, the meaning is a tad more difficult to burp.

Being, as oft mentioned here, that I am a list maker of Antarctic proportions- no not cold, but vast expanses of nothingness, might well apply here. I have a book where I collect phrases, potential blog ideas and titles, great words or metaphors and similes. Useful. But some old sayings are nonsensical.

Life is just a bowl of cherries! - not if cherries gives you diarrhea ? Or an ideal? Mine would be raspberries, but it doesnt have the same ring to it!

Heavens to Betsy- what gives there then? Betsy was our old dog, but who was the original Betsy? Boop?

It will be in the last place you look. - the place I looked before I lost it? or the last place I will look in, cos then I'll find it... if l knew where that was, how is that?

At bedtime l have heard Mums and myself say to our toddlers, ' up the stairs to Gregory'..er now that is weird or worse! Who is Gregory and why is a stranger upstairs in my kids room? A sinister edge here?

Don't pull that face, cos if the wind changes you'll stay like that.' Scare mongering? Bribery?


and these few are more obscure in origin, that  l daren't try and work them out in contempoary times

...a bums rush'- used in the context of getting a raw deal

..going to wet my whistle - often heard on the way to the lavatory! WTF?

.. mind your P's and Q's...! - watch your language

There must me hundreds of them. Come on do share!

Malcolm McLaren RIP

essence of Style, SEX, sensuality...

woman in the window

... as I look out of my living room window...

what do l see?

Victorian town houses....

and ....

  do you see her....?

 Breakfast at Chiswick Street?

click any image to enlarge

(genuine no photoshopping)

Phenomenal

something for the weekend...

PHENOMENAL WOMAN
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing of my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can't see.
I say
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

from And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.