New wave

"We wish you a Merry Christmas".

From left to right: Sparkly, Peter, Pixie & Dave.

Christmas Morning Stroll with Arty Bits

This morning we indulged, for the first time, in a FFCMS (Fab Four Christmas Morning Stroll). The sky was blue, the air crisp and the sun scudded invitingly across the frosted fields. We had scarves, and gloves, and suitable footwear (as found in all good walking shops). We also had Pixie Wimpy, a timid creature, much afrighted by the workings of old Jack Frost underfoot. She tiptoed along, ably supported by two lusty fellows.

Anyway, enough of this nonsense. Sparkly found some splendid ice in the ruts of the cabbage patch (cabbage patch? Where's Mrs Tiggywinkle?). Held up to the light it made a splendid subject for Peter's artful eye and here we see exactly how it was done. What colour, what poise, what gloves

Harmonious Harmonium

Well, if you haven't got a lighting stand with you, just improvise. A couple of chairs and ten hassocks gave me the height I needed for the shot of the keyboard below, as Dave's record of my setup shows.

What attracted my attention today in All Saints Church, Clehonger, Herefordshire, was the legend "Brattleboro, VT". It's the name of a town in New England. Various of my American friends have taken me there on more than one occasion. I don't yet know how the Esley Organ Company of that place exported their Harmoniums to Victorian England. Perhaps some of you can answer that for me?

Welsh Wales

It seems a long time since we last wrote up one of our BDOs. In fact today was more than a mere ordinary BDO as we ventured further afield than usual, crossing the lightly defended border into Welsh Wales. So it was an EBDO where E can mean anything that takes your fancy although Extended seems a safe bet.

After a pleasant stooge around the valleys looking for industrial relics and rows of exquisitely lit, miner's cottages, we headed north over the mountains and down to Talybont-on-Usk. There, sheltering under a small lattice-work bridge, I found some reflections which I found compellingly attractive. I toyed with them for a few minutes, a process which Peter has captured for posterity.

(A note for students of photographer fashion. I am wearing my winter photography apparel which, in essence, consists of an Austrian deer poachers coat. It is extremely warm, exudes a strange woolly smell and weighs as much as a small moose. It includes, along with the obvious deep pockets in which lenses, etc, can be disported*, a large, through aperture at the back in which could be secreted a pheasant or some other denizen of the woods - a hare, rabbit, large vole, who knows. Never know when that might prove useful).

*(PS. Since composing this post I have had the chance to look up the word 'disport'. It means: 'To amuse (oneself) in a light, frolicsome manner'. Now while I have no evidence that my lenses are not amusing themselves at the bottom of my dark, lint-infested pockets, it seems unlikely. Therefore I must conclude that 'disport' was not the word I intended.

I apologise unreservedly if anyone has been led astray. I am substituting the word 'disported' with the word 'lodged' which I feel is more in line with my original intention).