We’ve had a quiet but busy day here at Bigland Towers. I’ve been whittling down a list of ‘things to do’ both business-wise and socially, whilst at the same time lining up some jobs for the future with varying degrees of success. During the process I received a phone-call from a work-colleague of 12 years standing who’s become more than that as we see each other as good friends. She wanted to let me know that she’ll be leaving her job by the end of the year but wanted to tell me herself rather than me find out on the grapevine. I was delighted for her as she would be crazy to turn down the opportunity she’s been offered, but also sad that we probably wouldn’t work together again as she’s leaving the industry completely. Such is life, when you’ve been around for so many years as I seem to have been now you often see people come and go. Some of them you miss, others not…

Apart from that note of sadness it’s been a positive day. The weather’s been kind I’ve managed to bump up my exercise regime as a consequence and still get a lot done. Oh, there’s several blogs in preparation too – all I have to do now is find the time to root out the pictures for them.

As well as everything else I’ve also managed to get around to scanning a few more old slides. Not a huge amount, but the logjam is starting to be cleared once more. When the photographic work quietens down again (as it normally does in December-January) I’ll be rattling through slides at a much faster rate. Normally, January would be our big holiday. Dawn and I would get away for at least a month in SE Asia and I’d often stay away much longer, but Covid’s put paid to those plans, at least for now. Instead, I’ll be clearing the decks of various projects here in the UK. But, in homage to warmer climes and those long trips to exotic locations that have been the mainstay of my life for so long – here’s the picture of the day from today’s scans. I took this picture (on slide film) on the 14th December 1993. This was my hotel in India – honest!

The building you see is the Umaid Bhawan palace in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. The palace was begun in 1929 as a job creation scheme as the area was suffering from a severe drought that deprived many farmers of their living. It was commissioned by Maharaja Umaid Singh and designed by the British architect Henry Vaughan Lanchester (a contemporary of Edwin Lutyens). The Maharajah’s ancestors still occupy the majority of the 347 room building, but when I was there part of it had been converted into a hotel. Lynn and I hadn’t planned to stay there, but it was Lynn’s first time in India and we’d had to sleep in the luggage racks of a packed overnight train from Delhi, so I thought a bit of luxury was in order as a commiseration. Of course, in 1992, the cost of luxury was very different to what it is today and the room we had was actually quite reasonable! That evening we sat out on the balcony you can see here, sipping cold beers, watching peacocks wander the lawns and through the bougainvillea bushes. Then at sunset, a sitar and tabla player appeared to give us our own personal performance. Magic! If you want to see more pictures that I took at the palace, you can find them here.

Oh, to be able to have the freedom to do these things again…

I’ve a favour to ask…
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