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Tag: wilderness

  • …And the Sea Steamed

    The colour of the water, paler for quite a way out from the Cuckmere River mouth as fresh water entered the ocean, was indeed steaming.

  • Away with the Faeries

    Bore Da as they say in Wales. Good morning Some of us honour our roots, our predecessors and their construction of the Judeo-Christian culture in which we live. It expresses itself in many ways and yesterday I went on one of my favourite memory walks through a copse. This small strip of woodland, almost a…

  • Morning Prayers

    One of the first things I do in the morning in my every day routine is as I come downstairs, I turn right while the cat sits and waits, posing. He knows what I’m doing, I’m going to turn on the computer and collect the camera from the office. I then return past the bottom…

  • In Slater’s Footsteps

    In Slater’s Footsteps

    Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.                               Dylan Thomas With the addition of a photographic record of decay, the four books of images of paintings and photographs of the sea defences at the Cuckmere…

  • Emma Stibbon at the Towner.

    Emma Stibbon at the Towner.

    Now the Turner prize has gone, and we have our gallery back. Still not free of the corrosive Arts Council social work arts programme, but ignore the excrescence on the ground floor, despite its claim using the Bayeux Tapestry to justify the size of its awfulness. No, bypass it and head for the stairs leaving…

  • Such is Living.

    spinal stenosis is part of a growing (literally) problem with bony growth appearing where the shouldn’t. It is some form of arthritis it seems, affecting spine, legs, hands etc. In fact, from what the cardiac man says it is firing off signals from my nervous system which may be false, but to which my body…

  • To The Woods

    To The Woods

    I visit the wood infrequently, but it is one of my favourite havens where I can feed my soul with its silence and beauty. Alongside the prints of my photographs of the sea defences from which so much of my painting has sprung in the last few years, sit a few of the images of…

  • A Bit of a Blow

    Its quieter now. We are I guess, some 400 yards from the beach, and the persistent thunder, a little like traffic noise, has gone. The sun is shining, and the weathermen and women can stop panicking until the next stiff breeze comes along. My admiration for those who persist in living in cottages at Cuckmere…

  • The Old man of the Mountain

    The Old man of the Mountain

    . Everything is badly planned here. New housing is proposed but children’s schools are already at capacity and children will be sent over the Downs on roads that often block and isolate the town. There is not enough surgery capacity to cope and the surgeries are themselves are in buildings that need revision – so…

  • Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’

    I don’t do cruises. That was the theory anyway. The idea that I would voluntarily confine myself with hundreds of people with no escape filled me with horror. Going on holiday with a whole village? Many years ago, as Editor of HotelDesigns, I organised some reviews of the design of cruise ships. I was taken…

  • Death by a thousand cuts…

    To those demonstrators who littered tons of rubbish on London streets as ‘environmental protest’ I say shame on you, don’t expect government’s magic wand to absolve you of responsibility. You littering hypocrites – your penance should be to collect an amount of rubbish from hedgerows and beaches where you live equal to that you dumped…

  • In Botswana Tourism Matters

    Close encounters with elephant, lions, hyenas, cheetahs and rhino amongst the ‘big five’ beasts, elephant shrew, lion ant and others in the ‘little five’ have all been enjoyed in touring Southern Africa. It has been at its heart a search for beauty and wilderness, gripping my artist’ soul. The last wildernesses lie in these lands…