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Frequently I’m confronted with scenes – on this day (and many similar occasions) it’s stunningly gorgeous skies – that my iPhone’s camera totally fails to capture. It’s really frustrating.

The photo at the top of this post, above, is the best of the many wherein the camera is focussed on the screen, not the view beyond. I keep/include this example, crap as it may be, because it does at least go part of the way towards capturing the colours in the sky, which were simply sublime.

Yesterday I picked Teresa up, mid-shift, as a drop I made was right next door to where she works, and the timing’s were perfect: dropped off the packages, drove to her workplace – literally seconds, as it was right next door – and there she is, walking out of work chatting with a co-worker.

From this point onwards, and for about the next hour or more, there was an absolutely sublime sunset. One unusual feature of which was a visual phenomenon I’ve rarely if ever seen before, and desperately wanted to capture. A perfectly vertical ‘column of light’. But, alas, due to the crapness of the iPhones’ cam’, I was unable to.

One of the most annoying things about this iPhones’ camera is that 99% of the time it’ll focus on the car windscreen, not the landscape beyond. This is so infuriating! Above and below are two rare instances where this didn’t occur.

Of maybe 30-40 attempted shots, the few here are the best. And, frankly, they fail miserably at capturing the awesome majesty of this incredible sunset. I really must get a better camera!

The most annoying part was the cam’s complete failure to capture the ‘column of light’ effect that was the most singular aspect of this particular evening’s display.

The ‘Flying V’, or arrowhead of cloud, was all that remained of the spectacular display, by the time I’d dropped my last delivery. This was also the first moment on the route that had found me stationary and with a view of the sky not totally blocked by buildings. So I took the above shot. But by then the really spectacular display was over.

The thing was, that the only times I had an unimpeded view of the skies were between drops, whilst driving. And on this occasion it was frustrating how, at no point, did a natural opportunity for a decent photo opp’ occur.

This little paperback volume, that I recently got for £3 (from a charity shop in Cambridge), is a publication by/for the Marlborough Fine Art Gallery, of Bond St, London.

It’s described as ‘a small loan retrospective… based around his visit to London in 1938.’ I’m looking forward to learning more about this artist, who I first got to know and love – very much in passing – as an eager young kid, with naïve dreams of my future life as an artist!

The painting pictured above, Carnival, was the first Beckmann work that drew me in. Now I feel less drawn to it. It’s rather unctuously smooth! I think I now prefer his later slightly rougher ‘hatchet’ style, which looks like a cross between lino-cuts, stained glass (with all the black linear elements), and Expressionist painting.

I love green! So this painting is a new favourite. It’s not one I recall seeing in my previous youthful encounters with Beckmann.

I’m not usually one for figurative art, to be honest. But with certain artists I can make exceptions. I don’t go a bundle on many of Beckmann’s landscapes or still lives – though there are some I like – but occasionally Max’s people do it for me.

As usual, I’m keen to see what I might learn or absorb from a study of another artists’s style. I’d like do a series of figurative paintings – not sure what subject on as yet (jazz musicians, military subjects?) – with a very deliberate Beckmann influence.

Poss’ combining that with a bit of Stanley Spencer’s? To my mind and eye they share an approach to the picture space: their paintings are often like 3-D shallow relief friezes. They have depth and solidity, but all squeezed into a pretty compressed space.

These qualities – along with their distinctive palettes and predilection for expressive distortion – give their works an impressive energy.

I only ever owned one Eagle publication. The one pictured above. How I came to have it, I forget. I have a vague notion that I bought it at a village fete.

I’d prob’ have bought this copy, for nostalgia’s sake. But I felt £7.99 was too much, for me. Esp’ as it’s only one article that I really recall. This one:

This story was a catalyst for my burgeoning interest in the Napoleonic era.

It was a short piece. But packing a hefty punch. At least as far as I was concerned.

Today I had a meeting with ‘my solicitor’. God, it feels weird even saying that! Anyway, I try and stay off this thread, by and large, at present, for the sake of reducing the levels of stress I’m under.

After our meeting was over, much sooner than I’d anticipated, and with (very expensive) spare time on the parking meter, I wandered up and down nearby Burleigh Street.

*The idea is to cut out pics, frame a load. Keep favourites, and sell the rest. Maybe even ‘turn a prophet’, so to speak.

There are a plethora of charity shops here, as well as a Forbidden Planet book store. I went in to the latter – nowt of interest to me, not even a bit of R. Crumb! – and many of the former.

I bagged me a fab haul of new books (see pic at top of post!). And, on the recommendation of a member of staff, at Forbidden Planet, I also went to the Amnesty International bookshop, on Mill Road.

Whilst in this latter and wonderfully cosmopolitan street, I bought myself a portion of spicy pork noodles, from Noodles Plus. Chopsticks n’all! Very nice.

I drove out to Horningsea, and stopped in a spot where people park to take their dogs walking. Or go ‘dogging’!? Either way, canines are indicated. Not wanting to see anything of this sort, I did want to stop and eat somewhere a bit more scenic than Mill Rd itself.

The food was tastier than it looks in my rather lust-lacquer photo. I had expected finer thinner noodles, as per the pic I thought was the dish I was ordering. Think I was mistaken about that?

Noodles Plus is popular both with Orientals themselves – it’s always packed, frequently with queues out the door – and on account of their delish looking dumplings, which I’ve yet (this was my first visit) to try.

Back to the books… On getting home I was so exhausted I didn’t really have the energy to gloat over my swag. Most of which are art books, inc. yet another Picasso title.

The one exception to this theme being the Napoleon book, pictured below, which, as it’s sub-title suggests, is about Napoleon as… warrior? lover? er, no… gardener.

For a total Napoleonic history nut, like me, this unusual angle on the subject looks very intriguing. Judging by sheer volume of books published, Napoleon is, it appears to me, a far more popular subject for biography than, for example, Jesus. Sorry, John (Lennon), Boney beats y’all, hands down.

A final funny little anecdote, regarding this tranche of new acquisitions; at one point the Max Beckmann title was casually tossed onto the upper dashboard, where it slid down into the tight angle ‘twixt dash and windscreen.

I thought nothing of this at all. Until later, in fact the following day, when a male member of staff at the Amazon depot in Peterboro’ alluded to it, with a wide grin.

I initially thought, ‘What? a fellow Beckmann connoisseur!? How unexpected!’ Only to realise that what he saw was an amply fleshed buxom naked woman, spread, somewhat salaciously, I suppose, arms and legs akimbo, on the cover of what might’ve been an ‘art mag’, instead of an Art Book, ‘pon my dashboard.

The dark text of the book title would’ve been illegible, on a background of dark blue, as it is. Funnier still, just a few minutes prior to this, a more ‘senior’ female member of the Amazon depot team had been over to briefly chat, in support of one of her more junior colleagues, who had totally pointlessly requested that I back my car up a few feet.

This prior ‘incident’ found me pulling up to the designated stopping point, to await instructions on my shift, only to be told to reverse a few feet. This left me parked in a position (over a designated zebra crossing style pathway) I’d previously been told – in a similarly brusque (i.e. rude) manner – I must never park on!

As can be seen in the above snap. I’m now parked over the walkway, a significant distance away/back from the grey and white rectangular sign (just right of the 5mph speed sign) denoting the normal point at which drivers stop, forming the head of the pre-shift queue.

That grey sign instructs Amazon Flex (and other driver/delivery ‘partners’) to stop at, roughly, the point where the large depot building at left starts. Where those big yellow plastic doodads commence. In over a year of working for Flex out of this depot, this is always where head of the line is. That is, unless it’s further inside the depot.

What on Earth this totally pointless bit of lil’Hitlerism was about, I have no idea. But I really hate that kind of shit. And I don’t hide that fact. I wonder if the manageress who came over to support her hapless colleague was the instigator? And if she saw the Beckmann book? Whose potential to amuse or offend I was blissfully unaware of.

Back to the books. And following on from the Beckmann business… Taschen’s Erotica Universalis, whose title says it all, frankly. I remember lusting after his when it first came (titter) out. Bought it at the Amnesty bookshop, for £3!

My wife Teresa has watched this series innumerable times. And I along with her! It’s incredibly well done. The stellar cast are absolutely superb, and it’s brilliantly realised in every way, from the music, to the visual look of it.

Few such adaptations could, I think, sustain such repeated viewing, and not pall. That this can and does is down to numerous factors, some already cited. But the central one is the source material. Bleak House is a very great work by a very great writer.

This 2005 BBC adaptation (read more about it here) benefits from a terrific ensemble cast. And they, and the production crew as a whole, are brilliant at getting over the full range of meaning Dickens himself implies in this most highly nuanced of his many novels.

As I’m typing this, he – Dickens – masterfully wields his scalpel-sharp wit, lampooning medical quacks (Dr. Growler, and his ‘black mixture’), the British class system (as Inspector Bucket deliberately overdoes his deference to ‘Sir Leicester Dedlocke, Baronet’), and the vampire Vholes, feeding off Richard Carstone.

There’s an embarrassment of riches here. With so many levels or degrees of nuanced observation, about class, wealth, The Law (from which background Dickens himself came), family ties, religion, honour, and so on.

Shortly after the above-mentioned stuff, we get a great juxtaposition, of Sgt. George and Phil Squod, celebrating the latter’s birthday ‘feast’, with that of Ada Clare’s anniversary, more sumptuously staged, at the home of John Jarndyce. How closely the TV series follows the book, I don’t know.

Some of the themes, like honour and the class system might at first appear rather cutely antiquated. And certainly things have changed. But not so completely as to render such themes redundant.

Two of the ongoing themes that most engage me are: family ties, mostly unfolding in a tragic line, re Esther Summerson’s provenance, as the bastard love child off Miss Barbary (now Lady Dedlocke) and Captain Hawden (lately known as Nemo); and hypocrisy.

There are some lovely moments, re the family, as when Sgt. George’s mum, Mrs Rouncewell, is reunited with him, as he languishes in a jail cell. The latter theme, of hypocrisy is also adroitly explored in numerous ways. From the more seemingly innocent, Mrs Jellaby’s obsession with African charity, to Vholes and Tulkinghorn, who hide behind veneers of professionalism, but enjoy bullying those ‘below’ (and even ‘above’ them) and exist by parasitism.

Another interesting thread is that concerning Inspector Bucket, who may perhaps be the first truly modern detective, of the type so popular in literature nowadays.

In this adaption – although you wouldn’t know it from the publicity materials at the time (which favour Gillian Anderson’s Lady Dedlocke) – the character of Esther Summerson is really the central driver. That said, Lady Dedlocke is perhaps a more realistically flawed character. We pity her, but she can herself be selfish and cruel.

I could blather on endlessly about this marvellous adaptation. But I’ll just finish by reiterating how damnably good the casting is. All the main roles are brilliantly done. Amongst those I’d choose to single out, Charles Dance is pitch-perfect as the icily ‘efficient’ Man of The Law, and several actors excel in more minor roles, such as Johnny Vegas’ Krook and Matthew Kelly’s Turveydrop.

Today I had a three hour Flex shift, entirely within Peterborough City. The first third thereof was in the snazzy modern blocks of flats, near HM Passport Office.

I’m in the lift in one of these, having unloaded my handy little collapsible trolley, in the top pic’. Foxy-eyed observers might note one final remaining package?

Initially I hated delivering to blocks of flats. Now that I have this trolley it’s a lot less onerous. But the Flex app’s routing leaves a lot to be desired! More often than not, one needs to re-order the drops into a more geographically rational sequence.

The latter part of the shift – mostly around Priestgate and Cowgate – was even more arduous, including several drops where I simply couldn’t access properties, with customers who didn’t reply to texts or calls. All leading to a record no. (for me) of returns – five packages – to the depot.

For some reason I find these urban delivery routes not just the least enjoyable, but downright unpleasant. They’re very stressful. And unlike country routes, I’m confronted with urban ugliness, and ‘human pollution’, in stark contrast with the abundance of stuff, on countryside routes, that lifts my spirits, and tempts me to take the occasional snap.

The trolley is so helpful. Partic’ on multiple deliveries. And even more so in ‘flocks of bats’, as I call ‘em. But I might benefit even more from one with some form of (detachable?) storage bag? If the boxes are big ‘n’ rectangular, all is well. But little and irregular packages tend to fall orff!

Having mended the broken frame, and found the missing glass, another little Vermeer went back up.

Two little Samuel Palmer postcard prints are back up, as well. Formerly downstairs, they’re now either side of the large bed-head end bedroom mirror.

These dinky little images are lovely. Kind of deep sepia-brown, and very pastoral. I need to get their proper names!

Teresa continues her crocheting apace. I bought her some more wool. And also I bought a bit for myself. She’s encouraging me to try my hand(s) at crocheting. So I’m going to have a crack.

Our delivering in The Fens again. Place names around here have an Earthy Magick I adore. Here’s another good’un:

And, as is so often the case, there’s many a golden hour to be savoured.

Not all my pics are quite as charming as the above, which is actually a cropped zoomed in detail of a larger snap. Here are a few more from the same drive:

I often pass this place, when I’m out delivering, or doing other stuff. And I always find it intriguing.

The strange white semi sculptural structures appear to be for the displaying of stained glass. Perhaps this was a stained glass manufactory – the large outbuilding in back? – and maybe also a museum of sorts?

The property has much wrought-iron work about the place. Much of which is painted a very attractive retro-looking Victorian or Edwardian green.

More skilled metal work, making this an interesting property. I ‘googled’ the address, to see if any business is or was listed there. But no dice! The photo below is a screenshot from Google Maps/Earth.

On this same day there were, as there so often are, very beautiful skies. So here are a few snaps. Sadly not great. I must get a better camera! But they capture something of the atmos’!

I love The Fens! The water, the skies, the waving backlit seed-heads. The subtle shades.

The intense blues and greys, and numerous other subtle hues, make these almost monochrome images sing with a deep almost melancholic beauty.

I’m hoping that all this photography might have some use or purpose. I’m planning to resume artistic activities. As is Teresa. And to such ends we are going to refurbish/patch up and equip one of several sheds as an art studio.

It’s Saturday. Earlier today we did a big Tesco shop. And had brunch in the café. Teresa totally bowled me over on Friday by calling our place our ‘Heavenly home’.

I can get down on our home, on account of several things, from the clutter, and the old inherited decor, to some difficult times I or we have experienced. To hear it described as Heavenly, and to therefore be brought back to the living truth of that observation, is… well, manna from Heaven, so to speak.

I’m very lucky to have Teresa in my life. I’m not altogether sure that, without her, I’d even be here at all. I’m not being a drama Queen, either. I really mean it.

This theme of ‘Simple Things’ is really terrific. I’m learning to be less snobbish. It’s easy to make one’s own life less pleasant by saying only certain things are up to snuff. Being discerning has its plus points. But if you’re not careful, too much stuff can become distasteful. And then all the joy is sucked out of life.

Teresa’s crocheting a baby blanket for her cousin Oliver’s child. I adore the colours. She’s said she’ll make me a tank-top. I’m going to hold you to that, Sweets!

I love how we’re organically developing a theme of greens. This hasn’t been planned. It’s just evolving, naturally. Love it!