Category: image

Long weekend diary

Thursday evening

Bought and brought P’s new car home — a Tucson. It’s full of jazz and gadgets, but the lack of acceleration is a major bummer, especially after getting used to the Leaf.

Good Friday


Started the day with gardening. Potted the last two hydrangeas, three new mums, a bougainville, and a huechera – all nearly dead from thirst.
Deadheaded some daffodils, and watered all the pots.

Took the boys for a short walk, then drove to Coventry to see parents and sister. First long drive in P’s car. Acceleration is still totally crap, but it really comes into form on the motorways.

Spent the evening with family, including a trip to the pub.

Saturday
Dad and Chewie hugging
Dad and Chewie getting going

Lots of lazying around, and gorging on great food. Bit of shopping for Indian groceries. Some tidying up in Sis’ garden. Liverpool v City on the TV. Drive back home, with a bonus passenger – dad came along to spend the week with Chewie.

Easter Sunday


Bit of gardening – prepared a new basket, trimmed and topped up an old one, another attempt at getting a plant going in the fixed semi container. The mums and huechera that I potted and watered on Thursday were looking sprightly already.

Went swimming. Visited R’s friends, 3A+S. Was real fun to meet the two kids. Didn’t get to speak to A much.

Back holiday Monday

Morning of bit more gardening. Affixed the hanger for new basket. Watered the baskets and container, and the pelargoniums that spent the winter in the conservatory. Added support to two Clematis.

Cooked English breakfast for all. For lunch.

Went for a long walk in the Chantry woods with dad and the boys. Bluebells all around!

I miss this.

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This was one of my favourite bits about Bombay, despite all the ‘sights’ and smells it often involved. Standing at the open gate, preferable along the middle pole, and just enjoying the humid air hitting the body. Simple, unmatched pleasure.

I miss this.

Agra sky over the decades

The BBC has an article with photos of celebrities in front of the Taj Mahal over the decades. The thing that caught my eye was how the sky is nearly never blue in the recent photos. While the yellowing of the Taj’s marble is well documented, the slow yellowing of our sky is well known but rarely discussed (GDP growth trumps everything else).

Here are the photos, chronologically arranged:

1959, Eisenhower
1992, Diana
1966, George Harrison
2000, Putin
2001, Aussie cricket team
2001, Musharraf
2015, Zuck
2016, Kate & William
2020, Trump

Of course this set is in no way representative. They are too few data points. All susceptible to the weather on the day, the camera settings, and the post processing.

There is also a bit of confirmation bias on my part. I’ve noticed, sadly, the disappearance of blue day skies and starry night skies for over two decades. And I probably looked at the photos to confirm that.

But this also gives an idea that this may not be the worst approach. There are probably billions of photos shared of the Taj on social media every year. We could create a program that scans for them, dates them, filters out the outliers, and then analysis the trend of sky colour (and Taj’s marble colour) over time. Time to put all that social media oversharing to good use :)

Budapest ‘87, Attila Manek

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Source, via this isn’t happiness

Everything about this photo is … ❤️

The strength in her left arm. Her erect posture, and core strength; no sinking hips.

The heels on her shoes. The wicker basket. The way she’s balancing the basket with her knee. And so how her right heel is so slightly lifted to help bend the knee.

The baby, unbothered by her state but keeping an eye on something. Sharing the carrier bag with the produce, nonchalance.

The clean, but not western supermarket clean, produce on display. Pedestrians all around.

The birthmark, or otherwise, on her right forearm. The angle of bend in the right arm. The strength, and maybe stress, in her shoulders.

The handsome guy with the dark red suitcase. He’s either checking her out, or the produce. His suitcase!

The guy, dressed like my dad in photos of his 20s & 30s, carrying a wire mesh bag.

The white shoes of the woman in the background, sharply in contrast with her well tanned legs.

So much more… but I keep returning to the first thing I see every time… the strength in that arm, those shoulders and her core.

I went to pick up a book from the library…

Books from the library

I ended up getting five. I would’ve brought more, but I’d gone late and the library was closing.

I’d reserved Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, so got that.
I’d been looking for a few Hemingway books. I didn’t find anything from top of the list, but did find these two, so got them.
Brad Stone’s Everything Store has been on my radar for a while. When I saw it on a shelf, I picked that up.
And close to it was Seth’s little book. So got that too.

I didn’t get to visit the Sports or the Scifi sections before they announced the library was closing.

Aside: I like how the three small books on the right are, together, about as big as the fourth book. And the four books on the right are again, together, about as big as the one on the left. Fibonacci-esque.