Black and white and grey
Jul. 8th, 2008 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI work in the shadow of a church; the spire looms over the office kitchenette. The view through the window yesterday: stormy grey skies, cream spire, white corellas circling it in the distance; closer, three black crows sitting on a bare tree branch. Oh, it was picturesque.
A few years ago, a kindly but misguided soul gave me a book called (365 Ways To Do Less, Have More and) Feel Good!, which lists something special to do on each day of the year (thus, I feel, giving lie to the title's promise of letting you do less). It has been sitting, untouched, on my bookshelf since I got it, but I finally picked it up again a few days ago and decided to do the thing for that day, so I could at least get a LiveJournal entry out of it.
I looked at the book on July 4, otherwise known as Celebrate The Season Day because "[m]arking the turning of time is a magical way... to simply embrace the beauty of life itself". It suggests a number of ways to mark the onset of winter, including "Light a fire". Which do you think would be the best answer to give the police during the subsequent investigation? "Well, senior constable, I burnt down that house to simply embrace the beauty of life itself" or "I did it so I could blog it"?
On second thoughts, I decided to go with an option less likely to see me jailed for arson: "Shoot a roll of black and white film around your neighbourhood". Well... It's not actually a roll of film, since I used a digital camera. And how many photos were on a roll of film? The ones I used to buy were for twenty-four photos; I didn't take that many today. Those things aside, here's my black and white tour of the City by the Sea in winter.
These two photos actually aren't of my "neighbourhood" at all so much as they are of "the other side of town", but Stingray Bay is one of my favourite parts of the City by the Sea. I know I've written about Stingray Bay before: I remember writing something about walking here on a summer evening with a carnival going on behind me, and also about a family of tourists being swept out to sea a few years ago while trying to walk to Middle Island. It is actually possible to walk safely to the island at low tide and in fine weather, but it's forbidden for the time being: the island is home to a small colony of Little Penguins, which are being protected from predators and curious onlookers by a pair of maremma sheepdogs.
This also isn't strictly my neighbourhood, although it's a little closer and I see this view quite often. I love seeing the backs of buildings and the tops of roofs, and so I enjoy walking past this view on my way to work every morning. No corellas round the church spire today, though.
Now we really are back in my neighbourhood. This is the view from the western end of my street: across to Lady Bay, the main beach. It started raining heavily while I was here and I wasn't inclined to spend a lot of time getting wet, which is why the sea is blurry and that pole in the foreground isn't.
This is the view from the eastern end of my street, more or less. The building on the right is Proudfoot's Boathouse, formerly a (yes) boathouse, now a restaurant. Beyond the bridge is the river mouth, where I often go for a walk. Years ago, I used to take the Old Black Dog walking down there too, much to her horror. She had spent all her life thinking that water was confined to swamps and pools and hoses, only to discover at the river mouth that it also came in waves that went away and then came back to chase her. I find the bridge itself fascinating. There are (large and expensive) houses on the other side of the river, as you'll see below; if anything ever happened to the bridge, the people in them would have a thirty-minute trip inland to get to where I was standing when I took that photo.
The neighbourhood McDonald's has recently moved to the shopping strip on the city's eastern fringe. No great loss; I haven't been there since I was at school (and only then because my best friend lived next to it). The now-vacant block has been bought by the city's oldest funeral parlour, much to the horror of some incredibly stupid local residents, who have complained bitterly about having dead people so close by, obviously having failed to notice what's been on our doorsteps (on the other side of the road from Proudfoot's and just down the road from a retirement home) all these years:
I don't know about you, but nothing says "winter" to me like a good, old-fashioned headstone. This was the first angel I came across walking through the old cemetery. I hope I get a nice river view like that in the afterlife... or even that I leave someone "sorrowing" for me.
On my return to the car, these seagulls walked off in disgust when they realised I didn't have any chips.
Let's all be thankful I didn't pick up the book on July 21, Be Aware Of Your Bowel Movements Day. (Do feel free to give me a date, and I'll tell you what the book says to do on it, if you like.)
A few years ago, a kindly but misguided soul gave me a book called (365 Ways To Do Less, Have More and) Feel Good!, which lists something special to do on each day of the year (thus, I feel, giving lie to the title's promise of letting you do less). It has been sitting, untouched, on my bookshelf since I got it, but I finally picked it up again a few days ago and decided to do the thing for that day, so I could at least get a LiveJournal entry out of it.
I looked at the book on July 4, otherwise known as Celebrate The Season Day because "[m]arking the turning of time is a magical way... to simply embrace the beauty of life itself". It suggests a number of ways to mark the onset of winter, including "Light a fire". Which do you think would be the best answer to give the police during the subsequent investigation? "Well, senior constable, I burnt down that house to simply embrace the beauty of life itself" or "I did it so I could blog it"?
On second thoughts, I decided to go with an option less likely to see me jailed for arson: "Shoot a roll of black and white film around your neighbourhood". Well... It's not actually a roll of film, since I used a digital camera. And how many photos were on a roll of film? The ones I used to buy were for twenty-four photos; I didn't take that many today. Those things aside, here's my black and white tour of the City by the Sea in winter.
These two photos actually aren't of my "neighbourhood" at all so much as they are of "the other side of town", but Stingray Bay is one of my favourite parts of the City by the Sea. I know I've written about Stingray Bay before: I remember writing something about walking here on a summer evening with a carnival going on behind me, and also about a family of tourists being swept out to sea a few years ago while trying to walk to Middle Island. It is actually possible to walk safely to the island at low tide and in fine weather, but it's forbidden for the time being: the island is home to a small colony of Little Penguins, which are being protected from predators and curious onlookers by a pair of maremma sheepdogs.
This also isn't strictly my neighbourhood, although it's a little closer and I see this view quite often. I love seeing the backs of buildings and the tops of roofs, and so I enjoy walking past this view on my way to work every morning. No corellas round the church spire today, though.
Now we really are back in my neighbourhood. This is the view from the western end of my street: across to Lady Bay, the main beach. It started raining heavily while I was here and I wasn't inclined to spend a lot of time getting wet, which is why the sea is blurry and that pole in the foreground isn't.
This is the view from the eastern end of my street, more or less. The building on the right is Proudfoot's Boathouse, formerly a (yes) boathouse, now a restaurant. Beyond the bridge is the river mouth, where I often go for a walk. Years ago, I used to take the Old Black Dog walking down there too, much to her horror. She had spent all her life thinking that water was confined to swamps and pools and hoses, only to discover at the river mouth that it also came in waves that went away and then came back to chase her. I find the bridge itself fascinating. There are (large and expensive) houses on the other side of the river, as you'll see below; if anything ever happened to the bridge, the people in them would have a thirty-minute trip inland to get to where I was standing when I took that photo.
The neighbourhood McDonald's has recently moved to the shopping strip on the city's eastern fringe. No great loss; I haven't been there since I was at school (and only then because my best friend lived next to it). The now-vacant block has been bought by the city's oldest funeral parlour, much to the horror of some incredibly stupid local residents, who have complained bitterly about having dead people so close by, obviously having failed to notice what's been on our doorsteps (on the other side of the road from Proudfoot's and just down the road from a retirement home) all these years:
I don't know about you, but nothing says "winter" to me like a good, old-fashioned headstone. This was the first angel I came across walking through the old cemetery. I hope I get a nice river view like that in the afterlife... or even that I leave someone "sorrowing" for me.
On my return to the car, these seagulls walked off in disgust when they realised I didn't have any chips.
Let's all be thankful I didn't pick up the book on July 21, Be Aware Of Your Bowel Movements Day. (Do feel free to give me a date, and I'll tell you what the book says to do on it, if you like.)