Far from the beach, but still surrounded by treasure of all kinds just ready to be found, looked at, gloated over, gleaned and swiped or simply created! Here are my latest finds....
Here's a
violet-coloured Valentine heart I made, having bought a stash of sequins from a
cheap-and-cheerful shop in England over the summer (thank you PoundLand!). I hoarded away several
packets of various different colours, but my eyes were drawn to the purple
ones first of all; there will always be something about shades of violet..
Forget-Me-Not thoughts for a dearly loved feline friend...
The
sequins were of all shades, shapes and sizes and I couldn't buy enough of them!
Valentine
Song by Klaus Nomi came to mind for today, and to go with the music here are
some other shades of purple that I've come across in flowers in the wild, or in
very tame places over the past year.
The orchids
look like painted silk, with dye running down their surface...
Or blown on with an air-brush, to give a pyschedelic speckled effect... If not created after the large consumption of psychedelic drugs themselves...
Other flowers are far less sophisticated in form but so mind-blowingly bright that I can hardly look at them!
Despite the simplicity of their form, the colours seem to burst outwards and burn your very eyes!
Other flowers take the shape of a star-burst, exploding outwards...
Or spreading out in the morning dew...
Or pushing on upwards into the rain...
Or simply intricate, with frothy forms and delicatedetails...
Their pale, ragged lace-like edges leading down into hidden interiors...
Where only insects would venture...
Or hardier creatures stroll...
Or busy themselves regardless of who's watching...
Flitting from one flower to another, even when their wings are tattered and tired at the end of the season...
And so here's to the music of Klaus Nomi, a 'gift of love' from a creative genius who fly away, only too soon, to the beautiful place he must have come from...
The mist had descended and clung around the cathedral yesterday morning, so I went out to see just how creepy and atmospheric it could be... I would love to be able to climb up close to see all the gargoyles in all their grotesque glory, but never have because even when you ascend the towers and gain access to the 'secret' paths along the heights of the cathedral, the elusive gargoyles still seem to be forever out of reach of any camera - well, mine at least.
There is renovation work being carried out - as it has for many years now - so the scaffolding and the shrouds added to the eerie feel - these looked like dusty cobwebs draping themselves over the stonework. The ram chimera looks a bit astonished, while the poor pelican on the right seems to be drooping his head in contemplation.
I always love the strange spidery-fingered branches of the trees that always grow back, despite the severe streamlining they are exposed to every year.
The facade looked as imposing as ever, though I didn't hear the crows cawing this time, or the pigeons which make the strangest plaintive cries I've ever come across, especially when the noise descends from the heights above.
As I've been reading a few Gothic Victorian novels, this all seemed very appropriate and reminded me of the Kate Bush song Hammer Horror...
In the same quest for Victorian creepiness I read the novel The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber, which I found disappointing. Still, that didn't stop me watching the BBC adaptation, which I enjoyed much more, though mainly for the great acting (and all those gorgeous costumes!) rather than the storyline itself.
The twitchy weirdness of Miss Emmeline Fox was so vivid as performed by the actress Shirley Henderson ('Moaning Myrtle'), and the bumbling, blind cruelty of William Rackham was perfect with Chris O'Doyd, along with Gillian Anderson's Madam, the keeper of the other-worldly brothel. However, the best performance had to be that of Amanda Hale, whose role as mentally-unstable Agnes Rackham gave rise to scenes where the wife's derangement seemed to come spikily to the surface, visible in the almost imperceptible twitches and tics that coursed just beneath the skin. I don't think I've ever seen such acting where the body reflects the psyche so closely - she really must have inhabited the role.
Well, the scene that made me laugh out loud was when Agnes announced her decision to write a book... "It will be like my diary, but for the public - the great web of like-minded souls waiting on the illuminatedthoughts and preternatural reflections of Agnes...."
It reminded me of what I wrote on my blog when I started writing it! Well, my endeavour didn't get much more of a reception than hers, as it turned out. But I like doing it anyway, regardless.
The snow has actually gone now, but I wanted to put the photos onto this virtual scrapbook before they disappear into the mass of pictures on my computer, and I myself get buried under work to do, or that is supposedly being done... Hmmm!
A walk in the woods was quite magical this time because the snow lay and successfully covered over the carefully laid-out tracks that make these country areas a bit too 'civilized' for me.
The woods are devoted to the hunting of game and the recovery of timber so the terrain is criss-crossed by extensive 4x4-friendly paths. It's not unusual to see the hunters driving trucks laden-down with their trophies - very impressive, but equally very dead wild boar.
Iced Cow Parsley...
Luckily it is possible, but rather unusual, to see the live version in the area too - though fortunately at a far distance because I would not relish a close encounter with an adult wild pig, especially one protecting its young!
Old-Man's Beard under a heavy sky - it was glowering by this time!
Anyway, this snowy day lent itself more to wilderness and rambling, rather than obediently following all these straight lines. The Old-Man's Beard had also been clothed in ice, and was almost brittle...
Bracken emerging...
Meanwhile the plants nearer ground-level, namely the bracken, were simply snow-covered.
Frosted fungus on timber...
Or seemed to be sprinkled with frost and ice, so that they seem sugar-coated...
Old-Man's Beard...
The snow and, more precisely, the freezing temperatures reminded me of a song I used to listen to years ago - The Cold Song.
It's a haunting aria from Purcell's opera, King Arthur. It may have originally been 17th century Baroque music, but when it was sung by the undefinable genius Klaus Nomi, it took on a whole new dimension whilst still honouring the solemnity of Purcell's music. The words, as you can imagine, are pretty grim, so despite their beauty, I won't transcribe them here. They're just too sad, and are even more so because Klaus Nomi died of Aids in the early 1980's... Here's another of his songs that I love...
I'll leave you to discover the wide variety of his magical sounds. He was such an original, giving a unique quality and ironic twist to the most ordinary popular songs of which he did cover versions.
Chamery
The journey back to the city takes you through the local
champagne-producing communities... These looked quite pitturesque in the
snow, with all the wintery vineyards tracing back to the heart of the
village from the slopes of the hills.
A lacy Lantern...
Back to civilisation, there was even beauty in the strangest of places - frosted Chinese Lanterns and red berries on a building site...
Okay, couldn't resist - here's another great one... The ultra-straight French audience probably never even knew what hit them... However, he was a great success there, and it was in France that I discovered Klaus Nomi...
