Hibernating bikes (sorry, Andy S., look away...)
For many years, it has been my custom to venture outside on New Year's Day, whatever the weather, and try to take at least one decent photograph. We always used to take ourselves off somewhere fairly remote for New Year until we had children or, more accurately, until the children came to realise it was not actually compulsory to be stuck hundreds of miles away from their friends, in what is often the dreariest week of the year. So, in recent years, I have generally simply gone for a walk.
This year, I made a token excursion into the back garden. The weather and light were abysmal -- a heavy blanket of cloud and rain driven up from the south by a blustery wind -- and I'm still feeling beaten up by a couple of hours yesterday spent with "my" consultant (though I'm beginning to suspect our relationship is asymmetrical, and I'm really just "his" patient) who was clearly bored to be at work on New Year's Eve and decided to run me through all sorts of uncomfortable procedures. Hey, it passes the time.
So, here's one I made earlier, on the 28th -- close enough for jazz -- which seems to capture something of the nature of the season.
Amazing, how I got that owl just right... Beautiful plumage. The empty cans are nice, too.
2 comments:
The tyres still look OK so try gently rousing the bikes at the beginning of March and then feed the moving parts with a bit of oil until they properly wake up.
On New Year's Day morning Jane went for a swim in South Bay and I went for a run. Oh, I wrote the following e-mail response to New Year greetings from a friend in India.
" Our room faces east so we get to see the sunrise and notice where it comes up on the horizon. I suspect the reason we mark this particular arbitrary point in the cycle is precisely because the days are starting to get longer.
So I also suspect that if the major civilisations had been in the southern hemisphere we'd be starting the year in 6 months time."
So, have a good year whenever we might agree that it begins.
Damn it, you looked! They're just sleeping, I tell you...
Did you watch that utterly incoherent series on the earth's orbit, wobble, etc., presented by Kate Humble and Helen Czerski? We did all that better at school with a blackboard and coloured chalks, never mind jollies to Canada, Central Ameria and India...
Happy 23.4 degrees!
Mike
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