Life Observed

In comparison with Midhurst Museum , ours in Newbury is large and spacious. It is also brand new and a little bit odd. There is a big push to make museums interesting these days, so ours has some quirky and mystifying signs. The have kept the flint arrowheads to a minimum and there's quiet a lot of this sort of thing:

Out for a walk one sunny evening. There's cricket practice round the corner, an old tractor rusting in the field and a barn of straw bales to my right. A timeless piece of old England? Well, perhaps time is running out for this little corner... Behind me is the Newbury Bypass, and ahead is a housing estate. This little scene occupies the infill region between town and country.  I suspect the local builders would no doubt like to drop ten thousand houses right here, if they could get permission and willing buyers.

Its Saturday, the shoppers are out and about, their pockets full of change. Now is the time to get your guitar out and wander into town and busk for money.   It looks like a lot of hard work. Do they do it for the money or the fame, or is it just that you can't stop a performer performing?

Well, as I reported earlier , the whole nation took a day off yesterday. I suspect a lot of us just sat in front of the TV, while others headed away from the commotion and ignored it all. Some of us had street parties ... Now the Street Party is a strange and infrequent thing in reserved British society. I don't remember going to one before, and it smacks a little of Empire and flag waving.  It is the sort of thing we used to do, but now seems rather quaint and at odds with the twenty first century. However, once the idea takes root and you get enough people involved (about eighty percent of our little street) then it works out well. We didn't quite have the jelly, cake and Union Jack street party from the 1950s, but we did get ourselves proper trestle tables and a real Silver Band. A nice tight focus shot of a  valve trombone. Even though it seems a slightly odd thing to do, it worked out well, the neighbours spent more time chatting together ...

I like taking pictures. The actual process of seeing the image and capturing it in the way I wanted is endlessly fascinating. I put them on the web, and I print and display a few of them. I do not sort and catalogue my images exhaustively, that would take too much time. I used to use Photoshop Elements, with its slightly toy town interface, and that included an image catalogue section. In fact it was quite hard to escape its vice like grip, so I did attempt to sort and tag my images by date and context, but it was such a pain that I soon gave up. This cavalier attitude does come back to bite me now and then:  Here, for instance,  is a picture taken at Newbury Lock on the Kennet and Avon canal. This is located in the centre of the town and I have countless boring and conventional shots of it, but I wanted to show something different. So, here is my alternative take on it. Now I wanted to add another image I remember taking in the same place, something equall...

Newbury town council have reinstated the boating pond, you can actually boat on it again. Here are a selection of pedal boats to prove it. Quite why it was taken out of service is a mystery to me. I expect it was some health and safety thing, after all the water is nearly six inches deep.   For a while it was drained dry, but it started to fill with rubbish and shopping trolleys.    Decades ago it had a nice little brick sculpture in the middle, but that was removed for some reason: Perhaps it was dangerous.

The best camera is the one you have with you... It's no good having some super pro camera and lens set if it it too bulky or too heavy to take with you.  Having said that, it is a very dedicated photographer that carries a camera at all times... Anyway, here is a street shot that I was able to grab because I did have my camera with me at the time. (I will not be showing you all the great pictures I missed because the camera was at home...)

For some reason, Newbury seems to have a remarkable number of Almshouses. I did a Google on the subject and ended up with this list: St Mary's Almshouses, Newbury Pearces Almshouses, Newbury Coxedd's Almshouses, Newbury Child's Almshouses, Newbury Kimber's Almshouses, Newbury St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as King John's Almshouses, Newbury Raymond's Almshouses, Newbury Church Almshouses, Newbury Essex Wynter Almshouses, Newbury Mabel Luke Almshouses, Newbury Robinson's Almshouses, Newbury So, here are some examples of this ancient tradition: This below is St Bartholomews Hospital, in Argyle street. The other entrance now faces a car park and looks very old indeed... Part of the Upper Raymonds almshouses Some are not as old as they seem. I think this below is a lot newer than its Tudor hints suggest. If you want to see the original and genuine item, I comment the Hospital of St Cross at Winchester, which ...