"...but in battalions"
It's a long time since I posted, and I make no excuse for that - when you can't properly participate, it's better not to participate at all. And that's still the situation, although I've quietly lurked and enjoyed :)
But sometimes even silence is impossible. The last few months have been filled with what one might politely call "challenges", so on the 17th I was delighted when Lynn came to visit. We had a lovely time, and on the 24th - her last full day - we set off for Hunstanton. Looking back, I find myself remembering the astonishing voice of Ian McDonald reporting the loss of two Harriers at the time of the Falklands War, investing a single banal phrase - "the weather was very bad" - with the scope of cosmic tragedy. The weather was indeed very bad. We had stopped at traffic lights just outside Kings Lynn when a couple of seconds later a truck smashed into the back of our car.
Miraculously - and it really was miraculous - we escaped without injury, but were very shaken. The recovery crew were astonished at how well my old Citroen had taken the impact and we were told that a modern car would have simply folded up. I now have whiplash, which is ironic as I always thought it was an invention of ambulance-chasing lawyers.
All I could think about was Lynn - to have brought one's dearest friend into danger is horrific beyond words and I am haunted by the thought of what might have been. Now we face the "challenges" of insurance, lawyers and the rest - not least perhaps the loss of my poor old car, which has carried me through good times and bad for 14 years. But really, that is nothing to what we escaped.
One cannot help but think about those possibilities - and what might have been different, because that day, for some inexplicable reason, I was taking a route I never take. It makes one realise how fatuous many concerns are and how desperately fragile are the things we take for granted and without which existence is meaningless.
A Leica IIIf and 1958 issue of "35mm Photography". Not sure about the camera and lens - but almost certainly Nikon FM2n and Nikkor 1.8 50mm. Kodak BW400CN.
"...but in battalions"
It's a long time since I posted, and I make no excuse for that - when you can't properly participate, it's better not to participate at all. And that's still the situation, although I've quietly lurked and enjoyed :)
But sometimes even silence is impossible. The last few months have been filled with what one might politely call "challenges", so on the 17th I was delighted when Lynn came to visit. We had a lovely time, and on the 24th - her last full day - we set off for Hunstanton. Looking back, I find myself remembering the astonishing voice of Ian McDonald reporting the loss of two Harriers at the time of the Falklands War, investing a single banal phrase - "the weather was very bad" - with the scope of cosmic tragedy. The weather was indeed very bad. We had stopped at traffic lights just outside Kings Lynn when a couple of seconds later a truck smashed into the back of our car.
Miraculously - and it really was miraculous - we escaped without injury, but were very shaken. The recovery crew were astonished at how well my old Citroen had taken the impact and we were told that a modern car would have simply folded up. I now have whiplash, which is ironic as I always thought it was an invention of ambulance-chasing lawyers.
All I could think about was Lynn - to have brought one's dearest friend into danger is horrific beyond words and I am haunted by the thought of what might have been. Now we face the "challenges" of insurance, lawyers and the rest - not least perhaps the loss of my poor old car, which has carried me through good times and bad for 14 years. But really, that is nothing to what we escaped.
One cannot help but think about those possibilities - and what might have been different, because that day, for some inexplicable reason, I was taking a route I never take. It makes one realise how fatuous many concerns are and how desperately fragile are the things we take for granted and without which existence is meaningless.
A Leica IIIf and 1958 issue of "35mm Photography". Not sure about the camera and lens - but almost certainly Nikon FM2n and Nikkor 1.8 50mm. Kodak BW400CN.