Tag Archives: Photography

11th May picture of the day…

11 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Picture of the day, West Yorkshire

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Today’s been another day of mixed fortunes working from home. I can’t really complain as it’s been rather productive. I’ve no commercial writing to do this week so I can concentrate on pictures and rebooting scanning my old slides. A few weeks ago I managed to buy 4 packs of ‘Gepe’ glass slide mounts on eBay. I’ve been using the same 40 old mounts for nearly 15 years now and they’re showing their age. The plastic starts to split after hundreds of times of being remounted, so many of them are ‘cream crackered’ (Cockney rhyming slang for knackered = broken). Now with another 80 in the arsenal I can mount 60-80 slides at a time which speeds up the scanning process. OK, it’s still a tedious thing to have to do but there’s certainly light at the end of the tunnel now as I can see the physical pile of albums dwindle. Hallelujah!

Aside from scanning and answering emails Dawn and I did manage to get out for an afternoon constitutional – and avoid getting soaked. For the past couple of days we’ve experienced thunderstorms and some very moody skies. They’ve been wonderful to watch but you really don’t want to get caught outside when the heavens open. Thankfully, because we live high up on the valley side there’s normally plenty of warning as you can see the rain approaching which can make for some very dramatic sights. One of those sights is today’s picture of the day – just to give you all a break from exotic travel images (oh, and have I got some great ones in store)…

Here’s the view from our bedroom window earlier today as the latest in a line of thunderstorms darkened our door – and the valley…

One of the wonderful things about living here in the Pennines is the skies. They’re constantly changing to provide amazing backdrops to the green hills of the Calder Valley. I’ll never get bored of trying to capture their variety and moods…

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

9th May picture of the day…

09 Sunday May 2021

Posted by in Musings, Picture of the day, Travel

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After last nights failure to deliver a Pacer I got home around 3am this morning which meant today was initially a slow one whilst I caught up on some sleep. The plan was was to potter around at home anyway, so the indifferent weather forecast didn’t make any difference. It’s not as if I had to go out and get any exercise as I’d walked the 7.5 miles back from Huddersfield so I was quids in on that front!

Instead the days been taken up with a mixture of gardening and household chores to try and catch up with stuff that I’ve been promising to do for ages. The rain held off long enough for me to get several hours in the garden without getting drenched which allowed me to dispose of a lot of the remains of a Russian Vine that had been invading us from a patch of no-man’s land above the house. God, I hate that stuff! We haven’t been able to kill at its source (yet) but we’ve hacked it back so much that it’s not going to bother us again for a while. By the time the rain arrived I’d moved indoors to catch up on some internal DIY and cleaning, so the day’s not been a complete waste of time. Now, in the evening I’m trying to catch up on some work and old slide scanning as I’ve exhausted the backlog of pictures awaiting editing so I need to get some more in the bank. I added over 100 old travel images from my solo trip through Asia in 1992 to this gallery on Saturday. There’s a large selection of stuff from Sumatra to enjoy and one of them is the picture of the day….

I took this shot in the market at Bukittinggi in West Sumatra on the 3rd June 1992. I love Asian markets as they’re fascinating places to explore and to indulge in people watching. There’s always something to new to discover, whether that’s a variety of fruit or veg I’ve never soon before, bizarre kitchen utensils, or ornamental ironwork for homes and gardens. The market here had the lot! In this case what caught my eye was some of the market porters who made their living moving goods round the market for a few rupiah a barrow-load.

Apart from the battered leather jacket and traditional hat, notice the man’s barefoot? If you look through the other shots in this series you’ll see him pushing his barrow through floodwater at the market after a heavy storm. This is no easy gig. In the background are ‘Dokars’ – horse-drawn taxis who’re waiting for trade, hoping to take shoppers and their purchases home. I made a couple of visits to the market whilst I was staying in the town before heading off to lake Maninjau. It remains one of my favourite towns ion the island but then I rather fell in love with West Sumatra. It has some of the most fantastic scenery, the people are a delight and the local food is superb. ‘Padang food’ as it’s known is famous throughout Indonesia, just look for ‘Masakan Padang’….

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P-p-pickup a Pacer (with apologies to Penguin biscuits)…

08 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in Huddersfield, Northern Rail, Pacers, Photography, Porterbrook, Railways, Uncategorized

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23:18.

There’s lots of ways of spending one’s Saturday night. Well, OK, not as many as there used to be pre-Covid, but tonight is a little different.

I’m in Huddersfield, waiting for the latest old Pacer train to be delivered to its new owners, the platform 1 charity based at Huddersfield station.

Unlike the first delivery which was to a school in Bradford this one is much, much more complex. It involves two large cranes (one’s a 500 tonner) half a dozen articulated HGVs plus loads of support vehicles. To make it even more interesting it also requires a possession (complete line closure) of the railway, which isn’t scheduled until 01:00.

Here’s how things look right now.

This is the smaller of the two cranes with the Pacer behind it to the left. It’ll be craned into position over a wall behind where it sits now. Thankfully, although the evening’s wet it’s not windy as that would kibosh the lift.

Right now, all we have to do is wait fot the possession – a feeling familiar to anyone involved in rail engineering! I’ll update this blog as events unfold…

00:00.

Don’t you just love it when a plan doesn’t come together? The job’s been cancelled at the 11th hour. I won’t go into detail other than to say it involves cranes – and mats…

Right now everyone’s busy deconstructing the site and packing everything away ready for another day.

Me? I’m off home to a warm bed. Sorry about that folks!

Meanwhile, in the best quiz show tradition – here’s what you could have won. 55801 from set 144001 repainted especially for platform 1.

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Thank you!

3rd May picture of the day…

03 Monday May 2021

Posted by in Indonesia, Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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I’m so happy we took note of the weather forecast and went out walking yesterday as today we’ve had traditional bank holiday weather – absolute crap! When I first gazed out of the bedroom window this morning I thought “well, it’s not brilliant, but at least there’s no rain”. Little did I know what was in store for the afternoon…

As we’d nothing exciting planned and Dee was feeling the effect of so much walking uphill we decided to have a lazy start to the day. Well, it was a bank holiday after all and we’d certainly put effort into yesterday! Several cups of coffee later we both decided that – actually – a day at home wasn’t really a bad thing. Then the rain arrived…

One of the beauties of where we live is that we have a commanding view across the Calder Valley and the direction that most of the weather arrives from, so we can literally see it coming. Today was a case in point as the skies got darker and more ominous, making it clear what we were about to experience. Depending on the speed of the wind we can normally expect to see the rain sweeping in about 10 minutes before it hits us and today was no exception so it was a case of batten down the hatches, make another coffee and get on with other things. In my case this was sifting and editing pictures for my next article in RAIL magazine then spending time Photoshopping another load of old slides from my 1991-92 travels that have been added to this gallery. So, not entirely a wasted day and listening to the rain beat against the windows was actually rather therapeutic.

Having felt virtuous because I’d achieved so much I decided to venture out for some shopping and get some exercise despite the weather. OK, I’d have to don full walking waterproofs, but what the hell, I was only going to the supermarket, not the North Pole. It seemed like a great idea at the time until I started walking back and the high winds arrived which turned the rain almost horizontal! It was at that point I realised that perhaps my waterproofs need a little TLC as they were were more water than proof! Despite my rainwater revelation I rather enjoyed being out in the eye of the storm. I don’t quite know what it is but there’s something about being out in the elements when you feel the full force of nature. Perhaps it’s the fact it puts you into perspective – puny humans with their momentary lifespan against the elements that are timeless and ageless.

The theme of the elements brings me on to the picture of the day which is another of my latest batch of old slide scans. I took this at Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra, Indonesia during the first week of June 1992.

In some ways Maninjau reminds me of where I live now although the landscape couldn’t be more different. Maninjau is a lake in the caldera of a massive extinct volcano. But, the lake is so wide and where I was staying faced the prevailing weather you could watch storms approach in the same fashion that I can now. The little ‘homestay’ I shared with several other travellers was right on the lake. We has access to canoes and rubber rings (old wagon inner-tubes) so we’d spend many a happy hour floating or swimming in the temperate waters of the lake. In the evening we’d sit there with a few beers, chatting and watching the sun set, which sometimes produced scenes like this.

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Thank you!

West Yorkshire wanderings…

02 Sunday May 2021

Posted by in Musings, Photography, Travel, West Yorkshire

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The bank holiday weather’s been mixed to say the least but today was meant to be the best of an indifferent bunch so Dawn and I chose it to get out and go walking. We’d originally considered driving over to Derbyshire but then I suggested exploring somewhere more local – the hills above Todmorden. We’ve often hiked around the town but that’s either because the pair of us have walked up to Stoodley Pike (a favorite walk with fantastic if windswept views) or I’ve been up in the hills around Walsden as it’s an excellent location for railway pictures. Today we tried somewhere different. After parking the car on the edge of the town we headed up some steep paths through an area called Hole Bottom (no, really!) towards Todmorden golf club which gave some wonderful views across the town. We also passed some really interesting and curious properties. I love this old mill towns as they contain some fascinating buildings tucked in backstreets or on the edge of town. Many have seen several incarnations in their lifetime so often have original features like doors or windows bricked in. Trying to work out what they might have been is always fun. Here’s a classic example.

Further up the hill on the edge of the golf course we discovered this view. I’ve often tried for this shot from the other side of town without the same degree of success so I’m pleased to have found this place – even if you’d be shooting directly into the light on a sunny day.

Here a train from Blackburn to Southport traverses the viaduct which bisects the town centre before it arrives at the station just to the right of the viaduct. The imposing building behind the train is the neo-classical Town Hall. Designed by architect John Gibson it’s a grade 1 listed building that originally opened in 1875. Beyond the town hall is the Gothic splendor of the Unitarian church (The Unitarian movement originated in Todmorden in the early 19th century). Another grade 1 listed building designed by Gibson it was constructed between 1865-69. Both buildings were paid for by the wealthy Fielden family who were local mill owners, reformists and philanthropists.

By the golf course we joined the Calderdale Way footpath and headed west along the edge of the valley for several miles. This gave us some stunning views – even if we did end up stopping to eat our sandwiches in one of the rain and hailstorms that passed our way! You can see what the weather was like from this wider picture.

What’s very different about this side of the valley are the number of rocky outcrops and strange formations that dot the skyline. Places with names like Whirleaw, Stannalley or Golden stones – or the one we walked to – Orchan Rocks high above Lydgate.

From the rocks we continued on for another mile or so along the valley edge as far as Cross Hill before heading back to the valley floor. The first part was easy as we followed the road but then we cut across country along various footpaths to a place called Shore before descending an incredibly steep and narrow path through the dense woodland along Wittonstall Clough. I’m glad we’d not made the mistake of trying to climb this way as it’s band enough on the way down!

Reaching the main road at Cornholme we decided discretion was the better part of valour and walked back along the main road to Todmorden, although if we’d had time it would have been very tempting to scale the opposite side of the valley. Instead we decided to leave that for another day.

Now we’re back at home and relaxing. Dawn’s making one of our favorite weekend treats – spicy prawns and garlic bread. After that it’s time to settle down in front of the TV to join a large chunk of the country to watch the final episode of ‘Line of Duty’ – what a perfect end to a great day…

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

1st May picture of the day…

01 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in London, Musings, Photography, Photojournalism, Picture of the day

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The pair of us have had a productive if hardly exciting sort of day – unless you count the opportunity to tour garden centres again! Maybe it’s one of those signs of ageing, a bit like realising how much you enjoy watching the ‘Antiques Roadshow’ on the telly! As someone who’s been a keen gardener for nearly 30 years I make no apologies for such a pastime – even if my present patch of land is a lot smaller than I was used to. Even so, there’s plenty of opportunity to be creative as the massive stone walls that make up the terraces at the back of our cottage do lend themselves to some imaginative opportunities. Sadly, there’s not a great selection in our local garden centres. Maybe I was spoiled with living in London for 25 years, you could find almost anything you wanted within just a few miles and a trip to the Columbia Rd flower market in the East End was a must when you needed annuals. One centre we visited was just getting a delivery from Holland. A large HGV was taking up a chunk of the car park as pallets of plants were unloaded. I hate to think how much extra the Brexitshambles is costing them in both time and money. What was once a seamless operation is now mired in bureaucracy thanks to us throwing up rather than taking down barriers to trade. Despite the deliveries I’ve noticed that it’s really difficult to find the variety of ferns that I used to be able to buy in London. Maybe they’re not as popular up here? The back of the house is sheltered and in perpetual shadow, so it would ideal for displaying ferns – if only I could find the ones I want. Still, first world problems eh? At least I managed to restock our herb garden and replace some plants we lost due to the harsh winter.

Back at home I had a happy couple of hours replacing knackered hanging baskets, repotting and replanting and generally tidying up the garden – even tho’ the weather’s hardly spring-like as the temperature rarely makes it into double figures at the moment. As soon as the sun gets trapped behind clouds the temperature plummets. Frost is still a concern so I’m being careful what I plant out right now. How different to this time last year when we had such balmy days!

All this talk of gardening has chosen the picture of the day for me because it fits the theme. I scanned this one recently, although it was taken on the 12th March 1994 at Columbia Rd flower market.

Lynn and I were still living in London’s East End at the time and a trip to Columbia Rd was a regular occurrence for myself and some of my neighbours in the Housing Co-op where I lived. Decorating the communal balconies of our flats with plants was a great way of adding a splash of colour. Not everyone who joined us was green-fingered, it was just a great morning out as there were plenty of cafes offering coffee and cake and the opportunities for people-watching – hence this image which was a ‘grab-shot’ through the crowds.

Sadly, this sort of street photography has become harder for all sorts of reasons – especially to do with privacy laws. We’re in danger of losing the ability to document everyday life in the way the old masters of documentary photography never had to worry about – but that’s another blog entirely…

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Thank you!

30th April picture of the day…

30 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by in Malaysia, Musings, Picture of the day

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Wait? What? It’s the end of April already – where’s the year gone whilst we’ve all been sat on our backsides at home? I thought time was meant to drag during lockdown but the opposite seems to be the case. Either that or someone’s been sneakily stealing days off my calendar whilst I’ve not been looking. As we’re now allowed out will someone please give me some of those days back so that I can savour them in the style in which they should be enjoyed? Joking apart, the year does seem to be flying by but for the life of me I can’t work out why unless it’s the ‘Groundhog Day’ effect. I wouldn’t mind but I’ve got so much that I want to do this year I really don’t want to run out of time.

Today’s been a good day – apart from the weather which has been cold with momentary flurries of rain and hail. Mind you according to Facebook’s memory prompt a few years ago we were covered in snow at this time – so I shouldn’t really complain. I certainly had a valid excuse to hole up at home ‘type-swiping’ to get an article written and a few more archive pictures added to my Zenfolio website which makes it rather a productive day.

Those old slides supply me with the picture for today. My 1991-92 solo odyssey has moved on from Thailand (yesterdays picture) to Malaysia where I discovered what – 30 years later – is still what I regards as a ‘happy place’. I’m sure many of us have them. They’re somewhere you’ve discovered where you feel perfectly at ease and at home for a whole host of reasons. Georgetown in Penang island, Malaysia is one of mine. I’ve been going back there every few years ever since. The first time I arrived I fell in love with it and that feeling remains despite the fact it’s changed a lot since those early days. What hasn’t changed is the mix of cultures (Malay, Chinese and Indian) the fantastic food, the fascinating architecture or the laid back atmosphere. Like many backpackers I ended up staying on Lebuh Chulia. In may case it was at an old Chinese hotel called the Eng Aun. It’s still there today but it’s gone much more upmarket from when I took this picture on the 1st May 1992.

Hotels like this had a central hall with reception on the ground floor behind which was a central staircase to the first floor. Each floor had rooms off to each side. The thing I remember about the Aun was the smell. It had a really weird one and I never worked out what it was. It wasn’t Durian (the stinky SE Asian fruit banned from most public transport) but it did smell like something had died beneath the floorboards! After a couple of days you got used to it, but I’ll never forget it! I passed through a couple of times on that trip and met some great people staying there. Nowadays I stay just around the corner in a place I first discovered in 1997, but I’ll never forget this place as my first introduction to Malaysia after a long trip overland from Thailand.

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

14th April picture of the day…

14 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Malaysia, Musings, Picture of the day

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In an effort to be positive, optimistic and get loads of stuff done I was up and scanning old pictures at 06:30 this morning but by day’s end I find myself in pensive mode for a whole range of reasons. Maybe I’m just feeling the weight of history on my shoulders when I look back at pictures I’ve not paid attention to for nearly 30 years and I realise just how much the world’s changed in that time – as have I.

It’s not that a lot of the day’s been a bad one as I’ve achieved quite a bit, but there’s still a niggling feeling that no matter how hard I run, time’s catching up with me…

The day dawned bright (if not particularly warm) here in West Yorkshire. It’s almost like the weather Gods are teasing us. They dangle Spring in our faces then slap us with frosts and freezing temperatures just to remind us how capricious and powerful they are! Despite the weather, Bluebells are beginning to stick their heads up in the local woods – the brave souls. Back at home the central heating’s still earning its keep especially early morning, although we’re hoping that can’t be for much longer. I’ve noticed the temperature more as I had a crap week on the exercise front compared to the previous so I’d been stuck more indoors but I’m determined to up the ante this one – so far with success, but the long round-trip walk through the woods can still be rather chilly although its wonderful to hear the bird chorus now it’s Spring. You certainly don’t feel alone when you’re walking as you’re followed by the sounds of all manner of feathered creatures – even if you can’t always see the buggers!

Back at home I managed to make a sizeable dent in my email inbox by wading through a four-figure sum of the traffic contained therein. Remember the old days when it was exciting to receive an email? I do – but a bit like my youth – those days are long gone!

I mention stuff like email because of the picture of the day which is from my 1991/92 travels when such things never even existed. Then ‘you got mail’ was a physical letter sent to a ‘poste restante’ address which was normally the main Post Office in a city on your route. It was all a bit hit and miss as many post offices would only hold mail for 30 days before returning to sender (and I lost a few that way) so you had to have a pretty good idea of where you’d be and when.

‘When’ or rather maybe ‘where’ is a question I’ve been asking myself about the location of today’s picture. I’ve loads more new scans to choose from but I’ve been trying to keep the trip linear, so today’s shot comes from the country I moved onto from the last pic in Thailand. I took this in Georgetown on Penang Island Malaysia on the 3rd May 1992. This was my first visit to Georgetown and I fell in love with it immediately. It’s one of my ‘happy places’ and I keep returning to it as a consequence. I really feel at home here. It’s laid-back, cosmopolitan, colourful and with a fascinating history. Oh, and the food is divine because of that melange of cultures.

Of course it was rather different 30 years ago as it was a lot more run-down, but maybe that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with it. It had the air of a place time had rather passed by – as this shot shows. I had to chuckle when (as an English speaker) I saw the name of the coffin shop…

Nowadays many of these of Chinese shop-houses have been converted into fancy homes or boutique hotels or eateries. It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand old businesses like this are forced out because of prices and the area becomes more gentrified and loses some of its history. But, on the other, it means more are restored to their former glory. My concern is that it could mean the place becomes another Singapore where the buildings are saved but the character of the place is lost.

You’ll be able to find more of my pictures from Malaysia in this gallery very soon…

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

13th April picture of the day…

13 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Musings, Photography, Picture of the day, Thailand

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Apologies for my absence over the past few days but I’ve been concentrating on other things. It’s the old story, there’s only so many balls a juggler can keep in the air at one time!

Like many people I’ve spent several days in awe at what the weather’s been throwing at us. It’s been bleeding ‘Baltic’ up here in the Pennines as the Mercury has dropped below freezing and we’ve been gifted with alternating show and hailstorms or bright sunshine. There’s certainly been some spectacular weather patterns but I’m hoping we can now have temperatures back in double figures – especially as we’re no longer in ‘Lockdown’ and the country is slowly returning to normal. To be honest, it’s made little difference to me as I’ve stayed away from those initial crowds as people queue to get back into shops or pub beer-gardens. I’m happy to wait a bit longer and let the novelty wear off again. I’ve still plenty to keep me occupied at home.

That said, I’m looking forward to being able to get out and about when the time’s right but in the meantime I’ve still several things to tick off my lists and until commissions start coming in I doubt I’ll be going far. Instead I’m still wading through work at home and trying to get another juggling ball in the air by beginning to scan old slides again and get as many done as I can before the summer months.

Here’s one from the latest batch of scans from my 1991-92 trip to Australia via SE Asia. I took this in the Khao San Rd in Bangkok, Thailand on the 12th April 1992 which was during the Thai festival of Songkran (Thai New Year) which is also a water festival.

Traditionally, Thai’s would pour water pouring on Buddha statues and the young and elderly is a traditional ritual, representing purification and the washing away of one’s sins and bad luck. But that’s been broadened out to Songkran being one glorious, nationwide water fight!

In the picture a couple on foot are unaware of what’s heading their way from a hotel balcony!

Back in 1992 the Khao San Rd wasn’t as big, bold and brash a tourist area. Many of the little hotels like this have given way to much bigger complexes as tourism to Thailand has grown massively in the intervening 30 years. Back then it was a real backpacker hub as Bangkok was a crossroads for people criss-crossing Asia. It still is, but now there’s many more less adventurous tourists too. I’d just flown in from Nepal and spent the first 48 hours as sick as a dog as I’d contracting food poisoning just before I left Kathmandu. I hadn’t known about Songkran (I didn’t buy a Thailand Lonely Planet guide till I arrived and could sell my Nepal copy) so it was quite an unexpected but welcome surprise and a real pick-me-up. To add to the fun, the local hoteliers association had set up strategic water dumps along the street – groups of 40 gallon oil drums that they kept filling up with a water tanker that sucked water up from the nearby Chao Praya river. People would hang around them with whatever water container they could find, waiting for victims. Tuk-Tuk drivers were especially prized as a way of getting your own back on people who’d been charging you extortionate fares, tio their credit, they took it in good spirit! For two days we had an absolute ball! Bangkok is so hot and sticky that time of the year it was bliss to be so wet. Mind you, the fun came at a price for me. I’d carried my camera around in a couple of plastic bags so that I could get shots of the fun without taking too many risks – or so I though. Sadly, I got caught in the same way as this and on the 2nd day my Nikon F801s (nice camera, not very waterproof) caught the full force of a soaking. Despite taking it into the Nikon dealers a couple of days later it was a right-off (the electronics were fused) and a new one cost me £358. Even so, I couldn’t be upset as the fun was worth it. You can find my other Songkran pictures here. I’ve always promised myself I’d get back to Thailand for Songkran – only with a proper waterproof housing for my camera. Of course, it’s Songkran in Thailand right now, so I hope my Thai friends are enjoying it, even if the atmosphere will be subdued because of Covid. Maybe next year…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

7th April picture of the day…

07 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Musings, Nepal, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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Apologies for the lack of pictures recently, I’ve been sidetracked by various other events like the farcical protests against the HS2 railway which I can’t resist poking fun at! That the protesters have a level of bombast that’s inverse proportions to their ‘achievements’ is too good an opportunity to miss – hence my earlier blog today.

I’ve also been keeping busy trying to catch up on some work after the bank holiday where I took some ‘us’ time in order that Dawn and I could work together on household/garden projects rather than being holed up in separate ‘his and hers’ offices where we only come together to eat. One of the ironies of this working from home malarkey is that we still contact each other via email even though we’re only separated by a floor! I’ve no doubt we’re not the only ones and I suspect some readers of this blog might be breathing a sigh of relief whilst saying to themselves – “thank heavens it’s not just us”!

Whilst the old slide-scanning has had to take a bit of a backseat I’m still managing to get a few ‘banked’ ready for editing although my Zenfolio gallery page is a country behind at present as I’m scanning pictures from Thailand whilst editing and adding ones from Nepal. I doubt I’ll be able to catch up with myself either as I realise the most important thing is to have the pictures scanned as I can only do that at home whilst the editing can be done anywhere. I have dreams of taking a month off in Asia at a gorgeous beach somewhere where my days are split between relaxing and slowly editing pictures as the mood takes me. Mind you, it’s not just the slide scans. Recent events (mostly deaths, sadly) have made me realise that I’ve got a huge digital archive that I’ve never really sorted out and must get around to doing – one day. Maybe that month on the beach needs to be extended to two as I’ve got some wonderful material for a whole host of picture of the day blogs and ‘trips down memory lane’ – a series I’ve sadly neglected recently as there’s been too many other things to concentrate on.

I have to admit blogging has been one of the things that’s helped keep me sane throughout the Covid lockdowns. It’s a catharsis, a way of purging oneself of thoughts, feelings and ideas that need an outlet. The fact so many of you have signed up to read these rambles is as gratifying as it is mystifying but thanks – at least I know I’m not shouting in an empty room!

The mental gymnastics many of us have had to put ourselves through to get through this unique time with its unparalleled challenged is (sort of) reflected in my choice of picture of the day. Only these gymnastics are physical rather than mental – although they’re no less extreme!

I took this picture in Bhaktapur in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal on the 13th March 1992. Myself and a mixed group of fellow travellers whom I’d met up with on the overland trip from India had got the bus from Kathmandu and stopped off on our way up the valley to Nagarkot. Whilst we were wandering around the square and I was busy taking pictures I spotted a crowd, so (naturally) my curiosity was piqued and I strolled over to see what they were gawping at.

It was an elderly Hindu Sadhu (a holy-man) who’d put himself in an extreme yoga position where he stayed for hours whilst raising alms from the admiring crowd. His long dreadlocks and fantastic eyebrows gave an indication of his real age, but his posture belied his years.

I’ve always been full of admiration for the fact so many Asian people of advanced years are far more supple than their Western counterparts – even if this is an extreme example. Still, it does show you the benefits of practising Yoga, something I wished I’d found the time to keep up doing. Maybe I’ll add it to the rota when I’m on that beach…

I’ve a favour to ask…
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