It has been some time since my last post and this is something that was sadly unavoidable and not merely born out of forgetfulness. My life has been turbulent for the last few weeks and effectively so has my mood. Akin to my self-imposed rule against drunken Ebay and especially drunken Amazon, I choose not to post while highly-charged with emotion.
The main cause of my recent bout of grief has been over the sudden death of my beloved chat noir Gonzo at the hands of a local Taxi firm. Gonzo was a fantastic cat, the best I ever knew, was dearly loved and has been very missed, especially by Yuki whose having to sleep alone at night now. Since the bereavement Yuki has displayed some unusual behaviour both expected and unexpected. Firstly after a few days of searching for Gonzo he got down to claiming everything in the house as his own; being that Gonzo was the dominant cat of the house Yuki has sought to place his scent on every piece of furniture, loose item and person he could find. He has also shown a new passion for hunting. He has brought us 3 presents so far: one large half-eaten rat and 2 bird eggs of unknown origin, each has been carefully placed on the doorstep as sacrifices, now that Gonzo is not here to play worship to the almighty providers of food Yuki is clearly taking up the slack. Although the behaviour is sweet in a cat-sort-of-way I wish he’d stay away from the rats!
Prior to this event my last house mate Phil has left the building to return to the inescapable black hole of culture that is Rochdale, so we have in-fact lost 2 members of our household in as many weeks rendering a intense sense of emptiness at home. To try remedy this Carolynne and I have purchased some new artworks by an American artist named Kedra Binney, although we didn’t opt for originals on this occasion we acquired some small prints as a trial and will consider buying an original next year should she return to showcase in Manchester. We are also considering adding some colour to the drab rented wall, the cream has finally gotten to me and we will likely be painting one or two of the smaller rooms as an oasis of colour to recharge our drained creative batteries.
After Phil had vacated the rear room downstairs of our house we have used the space to create a real dining room! I purchased an Ikea “designer” table in dark wood which looks mighty fine if a little big for our own use but I expect this will encourage us to hold dinner parties in the near future, stranger things have happened; but either way it’s a big upgrade from eating from the coffee table, or more often, off my lap.
After a looong wait my Sigma 10-20mm ultra-wide angle lens arrived 2 whole weeks after purchase, I won’t mention the retailer as their poor delivery times and unbreakable wall of customer ignorance does not deserve the publicity or my future business, even negatively. This has helped raise my spirits slightly out of the gutter. The first real test of it was a Sunday walk up Pen-y-ghent in North Yorkshire, my second mountain climb in recent weeks and the highest so far. At 2279 feet I was able to capture some quite stunning vistas and the UV filter presented a gorgeous blue hue from the sky, I was very impressed even if I say so myself but I give the true kudos to the tools over my own shaky frozen hands. That part of the country is very beautiful, even the long winding drive up there was deemed pleasurable by the ever changing views, the fawn that leaped across the road ahead and the wild falcons flying above…
I hope to capture more photos next month when on holiday in Wales which I’m looking forward to muchly; it’s a family holiday which I haven’t had in some years so I expect eating sandwiches while sitting in the sun between long games of cricket, a little surfing and hopefully some kite flying!
Things are just about turning themselves around.
Bonsoir.
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