Every park bench has a story to tell, says Ailsa. She has posted some photos of benches to inspire all of us.
If the empty bench on the right side of this small park in Paris could tell a story, it would be this: I had been sitting on it moments before I took the photo, watching a gardener and his disabled assistant plant flowers in the lawn while I recorded the details of the activity in my journal.
Clicking twice to enlarge the image will reveal the little plastic covers over each lawn flower.
Marianne from from East of Málaga has challenged us to find multicoloured photos. See what she has done.
I immediately thought of our parliament houses during this year’s centenary celebrations. Yep, the capital of Australia is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary this year; a hundred years ago, this city wasn’t here. There are lots of events in the celebration; one of them was a week where the major institutions were lit with coloured lights, like this:
Old Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, during centenary celebrations
And unfortunately, like this:
Light graffiti on Old Parliament House, Canberra, Australia during centenary celebrations.
This one was much more tasteful:
New Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, during centenary celebrations
Marianne’s East of Málaga is a great blog where you’ll find a lot of information about Spain. She has asked for challengers to point to a couple of other good blogs; lately I’ve commented on Dennis Aubrey’s blog about Romanesque churches in France, and a blog by Cobbies69, a bloke who lives in New Forest, England, and writes about sixties music and about the history of his region.
I thank my husband for taking these photos. I took some that night, but his are better.
Ailsa has posted the most awesome green photos, and I’m guessing that since she’s Irish she must have St Patrick’s Day in mind, coming up on 17th March. And so I have a King Parrot in mind: the orange and the green.
He used to visit us on our back deck. Unlike Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven which I blogged about yesterday, the King Parrot never came rapping or tapping at my chamber door, nor at my window lattice. But he would fly in under the pergola and sit on the clothes horse as though wanting to join us for morning tea.
There was once an art critic, I have been told, who had a sure way of identifying ancient Maltese art objects: he found himself crying before them.
Lest Innocent Blood be Shed, Philip Hallie
*****
The story of a village in the south of France, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where every household and farm sheltered or hid refugees between 1941 and 1944, under penalty of death. In four years, thousands of Jewish refugees were saved; only nineteen were lost.
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France, looking over the railway line on which refugees arrived from 1941-1944
Some looked away from the camera, like the Sudanese women in the header photo. (They’re bare-breasted; to be family-friendly I give you only their heads.)
Some happily faced it.
Bint (Arabic for daughter or girl), 1941
Others hid and peaked from behind a door curtain.
Village, Kantara, Egypt, 1941
The photos are from my father’s album, brought back after serving in the Middle East in 1941/42.
It was Ailsa’s idea to find photos reflecting women’s interests for International Women’s Day. Please look at her post, too.
This week I borrowed a library book, Poésies de F. Coppée, less for the poetry than for the detail in the book’s production. It packages poems like treasure. What you can’t tell from the photos below is that this book is just 10 x 16cm, fits nicely in one hand and is surprisingly heavy – 330 grams! If this is how poetry was published in Paris in 1871, I’d like to travel back in time to Alphonse Lemerre, Editeur, if ever I’m wanting a book published. And if this happens, you’ll know my book when you see it on the shelves in your favourite bookshop; it will look just like this:
Bridge photos, I’ve posted a few. But here’s one you haven’t seen:
Imbaba opening bridge, Nile River, Cairo, c1941
The Imbaba Bridge is a swing bridge in Egypt. A photo of the swing section can be found here.
You might also be interested in this post of mine from July about another opening bridge on the Nile, the El Gala’a Bridge, or, as it was known in 1941, the English Bridge.
And below, from a post in December, this excellent bridge perspective. Thanks to Ahmad Omar (see his comment below) I’ve discovered the name of this bridge: Aboul Ela Bridge, also known as the Abou el Ela, Abou al-Ela, and the Boulak Bridge. It was constructed between 1908 and 1912 and dismantled in 1998.
Abou el Ela Bridge, Cairo, c1941
And you should look at the Beckett Bridge in Dublin by night, on Ailsa’s blog.
My father volunteered to go to the Middle East in 1941 as a soldier, and it’s clear from his poetry and photos that it wasn’t quite the adventure he’d expected and that he thought often of home. And my mother, who was the girlfriend left behind, sent him photos of herself in her front yard (photos were only ever taken outdoors then), to show him what he was missing.
I’ve just come off duty,
And feeling kind of blue,
So the best thing I can think of
Is to drop a line to you.
Writing seems to cheer me
Makes a man remember home,
And makes him often wonder
Why he commenced to roam.
*****
If by chance they get me,
Should put me out of gear,
I’ll go out like a Briton,
Like you would have me Dear,
But in the meantime, while I live,
While the guns and cannons roar,
I’ll pray with all my heart, Dear,
That we will meet some more.
