We were at our Bristol flat over the weekend, which has a rather spectacular view from the main kitchen window across the Avon Gorge to Leigh Woods, as seen above. As you can imagine, it's very easy to spend a long time gazing out at it, taking the occasional photograph as the elements of the scene compose and recompose themselves, and the sun makes its way from left to right. You'd have to walk a long way to come across such a viewpoint, and at inconvenient hours, so to be able to stumble out of the bedroom to make a pot of tea, in nothing more outdoorsy than a pair of slippers, in order to witness the dawn mists clearing as the sun rises is a real privilege. Sometimes I get a satisfying shot, sometimes I don't. Like any landscape, its attraction depends on the light, the time of day, and the weather. Photographically, it also depends on feeling inclined to open the window: those reflections (not to mention the slightly grubby double glazing) can be a nuisance.
However, our kitchen has two windows. The other is smaller, and faces west, past some neighbouring blocks of flats. This view is rather less spectacular, but comes into its own when – as often seems to happen – there is some eye-catchingly luminous sunset going on outside, as in the picture below.
I grabbed this shot with my phone whilst cooking: it's not a great picture, but I liked the way the light was catching on the balconies of the next block. I had to turn off the kitchen lights to avoid internal reflections and to get the exposure balance right. With a bit more work it could be improved, especially as the kitchen clutter and angled window frame help to defuse the conventional prettiness of the sunset somewhat. But I have included this picture here not so much for any picturesque qualities as for documentary evidence. I simply want you to ignore the aerial fireworks and get an impression of the building opposite.
Why? Because the very next morning my eye was caught by some movement on that same wall, between the third and second storey windows. Incredibly, a squirrel was climbing down the vertical brickwork, thirty feet above the ground, with nothing more to hold onto beyond the texture of the bricks and the mortared pointing in between. I snatched up my camera, put on a long zoom, and took some pictures through the window. Again, this is a case of the documentary function of photography winning out over any aesthetic value: I just wanted to share what that crazy squirrel was doing.
It was clearly intent on getting its face right into the recess above the window, and was gradually working its way across from left to right. Again, why? Was it casing the joint for a break-in?
Well, the main reason I hadn't been opening the window this weekend was that we were being swarmed by a cloud of some kind of fruit fly outside. I'd never seen anything like it before. It's likely, I suppose, that this unwelcome over-abundance is a by-product of the "mast year" we've been having. That, or some one has left a bag of melons to decay into deliquescence out on their balcony. [1] Whatever the reason, dozens of these tiny flies were constantly landing on our windows, and nearly all of them would then steadily crawl upwards, presumably to find shelter beneath the brick overhang. So I can only imagine that squirrels have a liking for them – perhaps they taste of fruit, or even fruit fermented into alcohol? I wasn't prepared to find out for myself – such that it was worth the risk of free-climbing a high brick wall to get at them. Certainly, a couple of wasps were also having a great time repeatedly landing on our window and grabbing up a mouthful.
Meanwhile, down at ground level autumn begins to work its seasonal magic. Yes, yes, autumn leaves... But a certain amount of conventional prettiness is always acceptable, I think. No defusing necessary. Not until it becomes as overwhelmingly kitsch as a gaudy sunset, anyway.
1. A good opportunity to remind you of the words of that great philosopher, Marx: "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana..."
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