Thoughts while waiting to walk from Manchester to Rome in 2022
Your experience of this chapbook starts with looking. Perhaps you’ll find more geographic detail than can be comprehended, perhaps less image resolution than you’d like.
Advance and Retire
Every stone and brick herein is a handstone, each a memorial to the smiths that shaped and placed them using skills honed over a millennium. Their work has withstood the tests of assaults, sieges, invasions and regeneration schemes. The craftsmens’ names may have been effaced by time but their legacy still supports and renders the city in good light.
Omne Bonum (Every Good Thing) is an incomplete encyclopaedia created by James le Palmer (died ~1375) which survives as four volumes in the British Library. Can we say that every thing is good in our knowledge 650 years on?
Having leaves two inches broad …
This collection of photographs shows recent activity on the twenty year old Salix caprea ‘Kilmarnock’ (formerly ‘Pendula’) in our back garden. Whether presenting bare canes in winter, early catkins in spring, luxuriant summer leaves or an autumnal colour show, it’s a hive of activity in all seasons.
Do you really see yourself when you study your reflection in a mirror? Can others ever know how you see yourself?
I planned to document a bicycle trip from Cheshire to Kent with images of street art. I imagined this afterword would be drawn from street artists’ words and ideas. Yes, I’d expected that murals and graffiti would be ubiquitous. But no, there was less urban scrawl than I’d expected, especially rare in the heritage parklands of the Peak District. Instead, it was the elusive Chiffchaff that inspired us.
