View allAll Photos Tagged tensor
This road, so much the same, so different at once is like memory lane, and a history lesson; all in one.
Behind me is a great avenue of English elms on the frontage of "The Briars", surely a reference to "The Old Country". Across the road is "Sharrow"; South Yorkshire, not.
To my left is a great line of untended hawthorn. They remind me of my mother's country, the dirt tracks and lanes to my grandparents place —clinging to the edge of nowhere — cold as in winter, baking in summer, and as warm as a hug from Nanna anytime. I was the one who knocked out the bricks that brought down the chimney — the last built thing — before we moved them into town.
I don't remember any evidence that the hedges on this side of the world were ever properly laid. I'm always sad to see those in the homeland of these ones grubbed out. But the road goes ever on. My sentiments aren't ever consulted ahead of these actions.
Monochrome? Yes, well it was back then. The road threw up clouds of dust and by this time of year the once green hawthorns were a uniform dun colour. It was so fine that you'd choke on the stuff. The sky was like this — bigger — but without the contrails despite being within cooee of the aerodrome. They still cut the wheat the old fashioned way, with a machine that bound the sheaves that those walking behind raised into stooks; even before the Sunshine Harvester. I was on the edge, between the uncertain past and the inevitable future.
Not so long ago, this road was a dirt track. Progress? Why do we need to hurry? There's a new future I discussed with The Painter, and one of the attendees for tea on ANZAC Day. The Painter swapped the big petrol Mercedes for a little EV, not a hybrid. Their pace has changed. Now a road trip is from charger to charger, and a break with a cuppa every so often; like when I was young and the journey that takes just over two hours now once took six. The company for tea came in a diesel van. They're a bit younger than The Painter. But the last words we exchanged as they left was how they were keenly watching the EV van market for the diesel's replacement. The same topic arose. They were actually looking forward to lowering the pace; punctuating the journey, relaxing about the destination, restoring the past; being less tense.
On Friday, the dreamed of photovoltaic revolution of the 1970s will arrive. In the 50s/60s I was promised a nuclear powered flying car. I've given up waiting; that's passed into the past. I'll get a big three-phase battery, and electrons for free. As I watched TV coverage of La Doyenne — the Liege-Bastogne-Liege cycling race — I couldn't help but notice how even in NE Belgium the roofs are bedecked with solar panels. I'm clearly behind the game. But the momentum is overtaking the past, the competition is tense, and change, it seems, has its own ideas.
Meanwhile, the past just pootles along as a reminder of why the bits of it that survive weren't bad ideas after all.
One of a number of ballpoint sketches I created for our Scaling of Everest Interactive. Full thing can be seen here. www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/scaling-everest/
He was all riled up. Thought it best to keep my distance. Wish I could have worked the shot better to separate his antlers from the background.
Bit of a squirrel kick, despite what I promised myself earlier. Sharp fellow, was hoping on the fences (although I didn't nab focus in time to get useful results out of those shots).
Liverpool Pride is a weekend-long festival to celebrate LGBT culture held annually at the Pier Head and Gay Quarter in Liverpool City Centre, England. The event is held on the closest weekend to 2 August, in commemoration of the death of Michael Causer, the young gay man who was murdered in the city in 2008, and has grown to become one of the largest free Gay Pride festivals in Europe with 2013's audience numbers reaching up to 75,000 people