As an opening paragraph, that beats "it was a dark and stormy night."
14/05/12
Three objects on the mantlepiece. Tacky carriage clock which was here when I moved in last Thursday. Little fat Buddha has been with me for over ten years. He's my lucky money buddha - rub his belly when you need it and he will bring you money. Trust me, it works. Just don't use him too often. The little Coco taxi was picked up by my wife and I on our trip to Cuba and was one of the many things she handed back to me when I was moving out. I got handed every little thing that was to do with us - yet I just want to hold on to everything that reminds me of her, from the little coco taxi to the passport photo in my wallet and everything in between.
15/05/12
Did a shot like this a few years back, in the last house that I rented. I stole the idea from my wife. This is a more direct steal than the last one - or at least in my memory this is more like her original shot. An homage perhaps.
16/05/12
Today was difficult and stressful with a morning visit to the doctor and finding out my car was sicker than I thought. Out of the blue, my best friend Colin rang and announced he was coming to visit me as he had gotten wind something was up. The fact that I've been ringing him twice a day for two weeks with no success - it didn't seem like the time to bring that up. Colin is an honest and decent man, and my oldest friend. He tells it like it is while reminding me that he loves me. And he did both today.
"No matter how bad you think things are or what the problems are, there's no excuse for what you did." He's right
"You're standing there looking at all the broken stuff lying on the floor and don't know what to do." Right again.
"I still love you and think you're a good man"
That's harder to either believe or understand right now.
This was by far one of the harder conversations I've had and it was made harder by Colin's poor memory at times and by the fact that he didn't seem to really grasp that I was now living by myself. I found this incredibly distressing and it left me flattened. I hadn't thought it was possible to feel any worse than I had been feeling, but after Colin's visit I did. He'll ring tomorrow again, just to see how I am.
17/05/12
Having time on your hands is both a good and bad thing. You can get things done (good) or you can sit around with thoughts running through your head that make it feel like a washing machine on a fast spin cycle (bad). I have to admit to doing both over the last while. Today I got around to having the grinding noise in the front wheel of my car fixed. Good stuff included it not costing as much as I thought, getting it back the same day and meeting Roger who runs Milford Motors in Ballyhackamore. Bad thing - the customer toilet. I'm not going into detail but I should say that it was the filthiest toilet I have ever been in and this photo really doesn't do it justice.
18/05/12
I got up early this morning and in an effort to keep myself occupied (which is frankly becoming more difficult with each day that passes) I took myself off to the Balmoral Show before it up and moves to The Maze. Have to say thanks to my wee sister who was on the gate and let me in for free. I could be unkind and say that it was wet, cold and full of culchies but I actually managed to put in a good few hours of wandering about taking photos. The sheep shearing competition was good fun and the Bulldog Lings motorcycle display team were worth seeing. These two old lads were just looking over the half door of a horse stall beside one of the show-jumping rings. I couldn't resist.
19/05/12
This picture is a bit personal (I apologise to anyone who is offended by my torso) and I took it for two reasons. Having been trying to lose weight since January I had dropped from 16 stones to just under 14 1/2 stones. Over the past two weeks due to stress, not sleeping and not really feeling like eating I dropped another stone. Yep - I know, I brought it on myself.
I think I wanted to see what I looked like at this weight and to be honest the person looking back at me is a stranger.
Connected to this was the fact that my wedding ring started to slip off my finger and I had a couple of panics when I couldn't find it. Yesterday at the Balmoral Show being a case in point (it had come off in my pocket). Again, I know that I'm leaving myself open to charges of hypocrisy, but my wedding ring means something to me. It's a physical connection to someone that still means the world to me and it reminds me of happier times. I had a look through some boxes and found a white gold chain and thought I would try to wear it with my ring, as in the picture. It only dawned on me when I looked at this shot that my dad has been wearing his wedding ring on a chain round his neck since my mum passed away. I'd always known he did this, but didn't connect it to what I had done. I'm hoping this is temporary and that once I put some a little weight again I can put my ring back on my finger.
20/05/12
Crumlin Road Car Boot Sale, Sunday morning. I plucked up the motivation to tackle doing a car boot sale and thought we'd give this huge one a try. Went with every intention of selling some unwanted stuff which I don't have room and which has been boxed up for over a year but arrived too late to get a pitch. Apparently you need to there at 6am to get a pitch - they had been turning people away since 7.30am. Having dragged Vonnie and Conor along, the decision was made to have a walk around. This meant watching Vonnie buy loads of stuff, and we went home with more stuff than we came with. Chatted to a few people about cameras, photography and stuff. The stall holder who owned the above articles was pretty quick to point out that it was the first time anyone had ever asked to take pictures of his pig's ears. Is this an analogy or an allegory? What's the difference?
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