April 3, 2020 at 7:31 pm (destinations, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: Albuquerque, Cornwall, England, Fowey, Fowey Festival, Fridays, London, memories, New Mexico, nostalgia
This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is DISTANCE.
These days, everyone’s talking about and hopefully practicing “Social Distancing”. Since it’s something we should all be doing, we thought a challenge focused on DISTANCE might be an appropriate reminder of its importance.
Self visited New Mexico over the holidays. The place still fascinates.
Cranes in a field near Albuquerque, New Mexico: Late December 2019
Self loves London’s bridges. She loves the view, she loves the bustling river traffic.
London, November 2019
Finally, self was fascinated by Cornwall, which she visited for the first time last May, to attend the Fowey Festival of the Arts (Traditionally held in May, the festival’s been postponed to late September),
Sailboat near Fowey, Cornwall: May 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 27, 2020 at 9:08 pm (destinations, Holidays, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: blogs, Cee Neuner, New Mexico, photography
Cee Neuner: Pick a topic from this photo.
Possible topics: black and white, tree, sky, road, vanishing point, landscape, horizon, clouds, weather, country side, early morning, or come up with your own topic.
Self picked SKY.
All from her first visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, late December 2019
Museum Hill, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 28 December 2019
On the I-25 from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, 28 December 2019
Still on the I-25, Still 28 December 2019
Check out these other takes:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 27, 2020 at 2:06 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Places)
Tags: England, English writers, reading lists
from the Preface to Brideshead Revisited:
- It was impossible to foresee, in the spring of 1944, the present cult of the English country house. It seemed then that the ancestral seats which were our chief national artistic achievement were doomed to decay and spoliation like the monasteries in the sixteenth century. So I piled it on rather, with passionate sincerity.
Guest Bedroom, Fowey Hall, Cornwall, May 2019
Front Parlor, Fowey Hall, Cornwall, May 2019
Fowey Hall, Cornwall, May 2019
He wrote the Preface in 1959 (Brideshead Revisited was written in 1944) and it’s even truer today, 60 years later.
Stay tuned.
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March 22, 2020 at 5:24 am (destinations, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: advice, historical fiction, Manila, novel, The Philippines
Self wrote the below section in a tone deliberately deadpan. It’s from her novel, Camarote de Marinero: Voyages.
An archivist to a young missionary who is shortly to depart Spain for the Philippines (1597):
- As regards your health. The only hospitals are in Manila. You will be ill, but there is no help. There are two seasons, the dry and the wet. Fever is common during the wet season.
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March 13, 2020 at 11:33 pm (destinations, Family, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Places, Traveling)
Tags: art, British Museum, Fridays, London, memories, museums, Redwood City
For the first time in over 10 years, self went to the supermarket and bought a bottle of vodka. In the back of her mind was something a friend had told her: that alcohol contains a natural anti-viral agent. The vodka was set out right at the end of the liquor aisle, an open invitation: Smirnoff, Ketel One, Grey Goose, Belvedere. She nearly picked up the Smirnoff then decided that if she was going to self-isolate, she deserved the best.
In the meantime, she’s cleaning out the closets in son’s room. And found a whole bunch of Lego figures. She scattered them on the floor and took pictures. VOILA! Scale!
For contrast, a picture she took in the Antiquities gallery of the British Museum, May 2019:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 8, 2020 at 2:26 pm (destinations, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Places, postaday, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: England, Holidays, London, memorial, Oxford, World War I
Miriam Hurdle: “I am fascinated by the reflection photographs in the lakes, the rivers, the building windows, the sunglasses, the mirrors, and the puddles.”
Self is, too!
Here are three from her archives:
- Two snapshots of the London Eye, taken from the next bridge over, November 2019
- Lily Pond in Front of Christ Church, Oxford, UK, 11 November 2019 (Armistice Day)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 6, 2020 at 6:26 pm (destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Links, Niece, Places, Traveling)
Tags: breakfast, Cee Neuner, Doreen Fernandez, happiness, Makati, memories, Prague, restaurants, reunions, The Philippines
WHAT FUN! Self loves Glass, Cups, and Saucers. Just in general. Thank you, Cee Neuner!
Good morning, Silay! Hometown of Dear Departed Food Writer Doreen G. Fernandez: Self visited in September.
Gamboa House, Silay: September 2019
Hello, Ateneo Classmates! Reunion Dinner
Makati, September 2019
Hello, Prague! At the Globe Bookstore/Coffeeshop. Self was in Prague with her niece, Irene.
May 2019
What a year 2019 was!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 29, 2020 at 6:34 pm (destinations, Flowers, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Places, postaday, Weather)
Tags: Garden, Redwood City, Saturday
This week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge, YARD, is a great one, practically tailor-made for self. When the weather is good, self spends much time in her yard. She’s extra-inspired now, as the trellis has been painted.
This was the day the painters arrived:
And this is what her front yard looked like when the plumbers arrived (She decided to take her son’s advice and have the decades-old galvanized iron pipes replaced with copper).
Meanwhile, in the backyard, her plum tree is starting to bloom.
Spring is a gorgeous time of year in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 21, 2020 at 4:36 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, destinations, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: California, English writers, Garden, novel, reading lists, seasons, spring
c. 1948: Rose and Cassandra are daughters of an impoverished father (he’s a writer, what do you expect) and he has moved them and their stepmother, Topaz, to a dilapidated castle in the country.
The author, Dodie Smith, is English but wrote this novel in Malibu (She’s long gone, in case you were wondering)
Self started this book six days ago and is only up to pp. 43 – 44. There’s hardly any drama yet.
“There’s quite a bit of spring in the air to-night,” I told her. “You go out and smell it.”
Rose never gets emotional about the seasons so she took no notice, but Topaz went to the door at once and flung it open. Then she threw her head back, opened her arms wide and took a giant breath.
“It’s only a whiff of spring, not whole lungs full,” I said, but she was too rapt to listen. I quite expected her to plunge into the night, but after some more deep breathing she went upstairs to try on her tea-gown.
“It beats me,” said Rose. “After all this time, I still don’t know if she goes on that way because she really feels like it, if she’s acting to impress us, or just acting to impress herself.”
“All three,” I said. “And as it helps her to enjoy life, I don’t blame her.”
The novel’s been inspiring her to spend more time in her backyard. The gorgeous weather helps. The scrawny lemon tree has five fat lemons.
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February 6, 2020 at 4:59 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Flowers, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Surprises, Weather)
Tags: art, California, exhibits, Garden, museums, Redwood City
Self loves the idea of REST.
REST is crucial to her creativity.
Recently, she had an opportunity to see an amazing exhibit at the Bakersfield Museum of Art:
Night. Rest. Nocturnes. What a beautiful theme.
Not to mention: The paintings she saw were otherworldy, powerful in their depictions of this special and mysterious time of day.
For instance, Jessica Dunne’s, which showed a San Francisco street in fog:
Just after she drove down to Bakersfield, the Bay Area had a brief string of sunny days. Gorgeous! Self went to the backyard, for the first time in weeks, and saw an eight-foot-high bush completely covered in bright, yellow flowers. So many flowers, she could barely see the green.
What is the reason for such a ridiculous display, flowers? She never fertilizes and barely waters. This is a common euryops, which is the landscape plant of choice for new subdivisions. But she’s never seen them throw out flowers in a display so in-your-face! That’s the ony way she can think to describe it. It is so overpoweringly extra. She took this picture early in the morning:
Euryops, February 2020
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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