English Dreaming, English Rain as an Illustrated Publication

In the last few days, many readers have asked me to post some pictures of Avignon, Musée d’Orsay and the Three Bridge Kingdom. I am afraid to say that this is not going to happen. As a writer, it is not unreasonable to expect that the focus of my primary blog is always going to be words.

Besides, photography is not my strongest area. I do not have the eye. All my good shots echo the tricks I learnt from working with and managing photographers when I was a newspaper editor. The little I know about composition and framing devices* rarely rises my pictures above the barely competent or commonplace.

While English Dreaming, English Rain as an illustrated publication is not going to happen, I have created a new blog where readers who want to see my photographic hackings will be indulged. Given the continuing need to occult certain information about my life from those that would stalk me or see some profit in making threats into manifest action, the new blog will be strictly invitation only. If you are a friend, regular reader or correspondent and want an invite, just email me at the usual address.

*Strangely, when I used be curious about Anne-Marie Forker, I saw that the photographs she was selling in galleries used the same ‘shoot through an archway/ogee or other dramatic window frame’ that I had demonstrated to her when we both used to take shots for one of her younger sister’s art projects. I guess this means that at least some of my framing devices do not suck.

Cobbled Streets and Cat-wide Alleys

My broken body has forgotten sleep. Bruised lungs protest the need for rest. I want air unburdened by its city clothing of carbon monoxide and diesel fumes.

I head south. As much as landscape, it seems as if I am travelling through weather. Forests trapped by mist; encased in static silence as if every vapour droplet was composed of resin. Shoulders of mountains wet where low cloud clings to them in a tearful embrace. Fields wearing the penitent brown of sackcloth are lashed by rain. With Mont Ventoux growing in my vision, the mistral roars. Its growling gusts so forceful everything but blue sky flees from them.

The mistral chases me up Avignon’s cobbled streets and cat-wide alleys. Barely existing pavements splutter out as rues narrow and turn like dying streams. To let motorists pass, several times I have to press myself to medieval wall or ravaged plaster, scored and failing like grandfather skin. Cars here are clearly driven by owners that believe aluminium can pass through stone or flesh like a phantom when faced with a problem of width. The saints of the city must be constantly called upon to bestow the grace of millimetres.

Fording the trickle of traffic on rue des Infirmières, I finally reach my new home. Number 35 hugs the Avignon’s walls like a child sheltering beneath a parent’s coat. I have private courtyard roofed with wisteria, tiled floors and cabbalist blue shutters. It feels as if I am living in a Provençal postcard.