Taking a closer look at the world

A friend of mine recently observed that on a beautiful, sunny day in Canterbury everybody seemed to be in a rush, few seemed to be taking the time to appreciate that rarest of occasions, a British summer's day. This travesty is, unfortunately, all too common in world where many become twitchy if a communication takes longer than a nano-second to be returned. So, this post is dedicated to taking a closer and longer look at the world, both natural and man-made and before and after the snap: be it the intricate make-up of petals on a flower; the wave-like effect of bark peeling from a tree or the water droplets skimming off the feathers of a bathing goose.

Many of the photos you'll see below are a result of me experimenting with the Macro function on my camera. These shots I then took home and played about with on i-Photo. I have divided them up and put them under four self-explanatory titles: 'Birds and Bees', 'Flowers and Trees', 'Wood, Metal and Concrete' and 'Plants plus People'. I hope you like them.

NB:Where they were taken is not really important, but there will be a short description under each picture/group if needed.

Birds and Bees:

Wildfowl of the Serpentine:

Close-up of Egyptian goose plumage

Mooching like a moorhen. 

Flowers and Trees

Daisy chain

 

Wood, Metal and Concrete

Locks in Hyde Park

Time for art plastique (métal) a Marseille

    

Books and what they're made of

Writing on the wall (or door)

Plants plus people

The unexpected garden (15eme)

Aix-treme chic

 

These last four photos are among my favourites from the last year and almost purely because I came across them unexpectedly.

The lovers' names scratched into the bark of a tree, clichéd but, by tweaking the saturation levels, the sap becomes bloody and the image takes on a sinister quality.



The computer's off, there can't be anything worth seeing on the screen, or can there?

Photo by Stephen Gildersleve

The seed pod that fell onto just that spot on my rucksack


and (my favourite photo of the year) .... a tree's detritus caught and collected in the eddy of a flushed out gutter.



Small things, unexpected things, things found where you wouldn't normally find them or found by simply looking a little closer. So, next time you're out in the sunshine with your iPhone, just let your eyes wander a little...you never know what you might find.

Just a quick addendum...

My friend Steve, who took the computer photo and has been to more places in the world than I can name, is currently compiling a video scrapbook of one-second recordings taken each day of his life this year - things that meant something to him, summed up the moment, or simply caught his eye. - He's up around the 120s at the moment, but by the time he's finished, he'll have just over six minutes of footage that could mean something different every time he looks at it. A year's worth of memories, emotions, weather, people and nature distilled into 365 seconds of film. - Why pick that one second out of the thousands more that took place each day? "Why not?" is what I say. Now, that's what I call living for the moment!

Escape to La Roche-Guyon

Looking for a spot of more far-flung escapism, my friend Dan and I ventured out into the Isle de France to the wonderfully picturesque village of La Roche-Guyon. Nestled at the foot of a chalk escarpment, in the scenic Val de L'Oise, you couldn't wish for a more perfect afternoon away from the city.

Arriving by taxi, in the searing heat, from Mantes la Jolie - buses at mid-afternoon in this part of the world are rare birds indeed - we were right in time for lunch. Save for a few hardy merchants selling saucisse seches beneath the colonnades of la mairie, everyone was enjoying their dej. Following suit we tucked into gammon and chips (jambon grillé) and the most welcome of cold pressions, while tapping the locals for info on the best sites to see.

We were both keen to head up to the ruined tower on the hill we'd noticed on arrival, so, after taking a post-lunch stroll along the Seine, we made our way to the Chateau de La Roche-Guyon. Built up against the chalk cliff itself, the castle contains a melange of different architectural styles ranging from 12th to 18th century. Facing the river are additions made mostly in the 18th Century and the grand designs of duc Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld and his daughter la duchesse d'Enville. Intricate ironwork gates and ornate pavilions catch the eye, but it is the hidden, older buildings that take the breath away (quite literally)

Various views of the chateau

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Coat of arms of the de La Rochefoucaulds

A very grand entrance!

At the eastern side is the imposing cour d'honneur, flanked by a round tower and abutting the cliff that contains a series of tunnels, storerooms and bunkers hollowed out by the Germans during World War 2. Inside the grand entrance a stunning stained glass window refracted a rainbow of coloured shards of light across the otherwise austere stonework.



Upstairs, amongst the usual trappings of life two centuries ago, we found immense, exquisite tapestries that both of us thought must have been paintings, until we saw the weave. There was also a room of curiosities, containing myriad stuffed animals and mysterious balls of rock. Perhaps most curious of all was the red, leather sofa placed half way along a medieval walkway. What with temperatures touching 30º, we could only imagine duc Alex was on intimate terms with Palin and co.'s Spanish Inquisition.

In a passageway, just past a little, nondescript courtyard, a small sign read "There are 250 steps to the top..." Said steps began in a regular, square-cut fashion as they spiralled up and into the building. At one point, however, the stairway opened into the fresh air, the chalk cliff making up one wall and a wooden framework the other. We then plunged into the cliff itself, into a tunnel bored through the smooth white rock, the steps, worn down through the centuries, turning into treacherous, down-curving shelves, ready to catch the unwary climber.

Now, both and Dan and I have become quite obsessed, over recent months, with George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire ("Game of Thrones" for those only watching it), a smorgasbord of war, sex, political intrigue and dragons, set roughly around 200AD. So, as we wound our way up the rough-hewn passage, it became hard to rein in wild imaginations: the dwarf, Tyrion, climbing the Eyrie to win his innocence in front of mad Lysa Arryn; Varys creeping through the bowels of the Red keep, sewing intrigue and betrayal, or Grand-Maester Pycelle trudging his way to his ravens' roost (now dovecote) with some message of foreboding.

"No, no, my Lord Eddard. After you, I insist!"

"After you, my Lord Tyrion."

When, finally, we emerged once more into the air, and then into the remains of the medieval dungeon keep, each grey, stone cell, with mere arrow slits for light, became, without much of a sortie into the imagination, the prisons of the noble, but naïve, Eddard Stark, the bitter, but rueful, Theon Greyjoy and the arrogant, but honest, Jaime Lannister. There was even a genuine, 12th century privy, for the disposal of m'lord's night soil.

...and you thought Turkish toilets were bad!

Gazing over the view from the keep, over village, symmetrically laid out gardens,  and further on to the wide, looping Seine and mottled green/white cliffs, gave us a fleeting sense of power - from here, you could defend against anything. Come the Second World War the Germans must have been less certain.

...I don't know either

Back downstairs we took a trip into the 1940s and entered into the pallid chill of Rommel's caves. Square incisions into the walls indicated shelves on which the sheltering soldiers stored tinned foodstuffs, ammunition or clothing. Larger tunnels, with room-sized hollows carved into the side, could have been dormitories in which they cowered from allied bombing raids. A sound system broadcast the sounds of perpetual panic through the tunnels, though, in truth, they needn't have bothered as the sense of history was as palpable as the damp seeping through the chalk. In the final, cavernous room a monstrous contraption consisting of a chair surrounded by bands of metal connected, by a cobweb of wires, to an array of antique machines, conjured up images of unspeakable inhumanity. No labels were present so imagination, as it had done for most of the day, filled in the blanks.

The day finished as it had begun, with a couple of cold ones at the local, the conversation barely touched the realities of the working week ahead and as we poured ourselves out of the taxi a little later on, both Dan and I agreed that to really take a break from it all you need to let your mind wander.

Les Isles d'Insolitude

It was a strange feeling; sat at my computer in bedroom, surrounded by bulging boxes, bags and suitcases as the liquid sound of a string trio, blended with the hubbub of the Saturday market, floats through my window on a very welcome breeze. The days leading up to my departure from Paris were been hot, sticky and stormy, compounding the usual stresses of everyday life and leaving everyone's nerves frayed and balanced on the knife edge between depression and explosion. Perversely enough it has been in this last month that I have discovered that, even here, there are little islands of calm where you can forget it all and just be happy in your own company.

This journey into a peaceful Paris began with the purchase of a little book called "Paris au Calme". Now, the titles of many guidebooks often promise much: great views, happening nightspots and bargain shopping amongst them, without actually delivering on said promise. Even "The Secret Gardens of Paris" sometimes fails on both counts, including les Tuileries and the Jardin de Luxembourg, hardly secret and more like jogging tracks than gardens. "Paris au Calme", however, does exactly what it says on the sleeve.

Paris is seemingly dotted with oases of solitude, all the more appreciated because of where they are. Two of the most serene are gardens found enclosed in the inner quads of two of Paris's major hospitals, that of Hopitale St. Louis, a stone's throw from bustling Place Republic and La Pitié Salpêtrière, the capital's largest, barely a few doors up from Gare d'Austerlitz. Those of you who associate hospitals with poor food, the stink of disinfectant and the threat of MRSA would be pleasantly surprised.

St Louis was founded  in 1607 to ease the burden of the Plague on nearby hospitals. Now, however, its drooping pines and 17th century walls now protect those within from the fumes and decibels outside. Toddlers trace ancient footsteps around shaded corners, while mothers and nannies take a minute's repose from the stresses of la vie quotidienne.

La Salpêtrière has seen some historic medical breakthroughs, including Paris's first vaccination in 1800 and the world's first heart transplant in 1968 and was also the place Lady Diana drew her last breath. By the time of the Revolution thousands of women (of ill repute) had been partnered with convicts and sent to populate "New France". I wonder if the settlers knew what was coming. However an even greater claim to fame, in my opinion, was that for a glorious hour and a half inside its statue-strewn quad I couldn't hear the sound of a single car, bliss!

Back now in rural Kent, I have so much peace I'm almost longing for sirens again...no, I don't think I'd go that far.