In praise of artifice

I’ve just had to add another category to this blog – ‘Art’- in order to have somewhere to lodge this.  ‘Random observation’ somehow doesn’t carry enough gravitas. I couldn’t quite bring myself to change ‘observation’ to a sort of meta-category and add ‘cultural’, ‘social’ or (worst of all) ‘philosophical’ alongside ‘random’. I mention this partly […]

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Basket of light

Found a special place a couple of weekends ago, although it took me a while to realise it. I wandered around a bit, taking in the sun-drenched loveliness of every prospect, and a few photos. Then I sat on the stout wooden bench outside the village hall, enjoying the view (pictured above). Conscious, once the […]

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The other red shoe

Perhaps it says something about me, and the people I know, but I’ve been hearing the same thing a lot recently. People talking about ‘a weird energy’ or ‘strange vibe’. Trying to put something into words, a feeling of dislocation, something not quite right. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to be directly related to the financial […]

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Blinking in the sun

view all the photos It’s been so dismal these past couple of days – grey, brooding, blustery weather that seems to add to the sense of impending  doom (financial and otherwise) currently being assiduously fostered by the media – that the golden glory of the weekend seems like a distant memory.  (Apologies if it rained […]

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Swimming in the sky

More and more, I find my gaze drawn to the window, drawn to that mesmerising strip of blue. Just the faintest wisps of cloud at the moment, lazy white scribbles on a field of milky blue.

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Absolutely Buda’d part 9 – racing them home

Sun 1st June view all the photos Last day, so of course I’m burdened by an un-realistic list of things to do, presents to get, places still to see. Or maybe I’m just pre-emptively stressing myself in preparation for the return to ‘not being on holiday’. (I was going to type ‘normality’ there, but a […]

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Absolutely Buda’d part 8 – in vino…

Sat 31st May view all the photos This could get muddled, as I found myself whiling away the evening (and writing notes, badly) at a local wine festival. As near as I can work out it cost me around £3.50 to get in (plus free glass of wine), subsequent glasses being about 75p. Most bottles […]

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Absolutely Buda’d part 7 – either side the river

Fri 30th May view all the photos Time to go to church – Mátyás Church, to be specific. Like many of the major buildings around here, it has been built, destroyed, re-built, collapsed, re-built etc. more or less since the 13thC. In an effort (presumably) to stop this happening again, it is currently being extensively […]

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Absolutely Buda’d part 6 – reinventing ravens

Fri 30th May view all the photos National Historical Museum I know where I’m going now – which metro, tram etc…or so I think, until I try and take a short cut up to the castle again (in search of some things I missed yesterday) and hit two dead-ends in quick succession. Doubling back for […]

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Absolutely Buda’d part 5 – cherries

(still!) Thurs. 29th May Tired and happy, on the metro on the way back to the hostel; a youth, sitting opposite me. My first thought (due mainly to astounding girth of trunk-like legs) was ‘shame, he’s caught America’. Very short, seriously gelled hair, t-shirt proclaiming allegiance to some brand or other, listening to music on […]

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