It has been forever since I last posted on this blog, largely because I haven’t had many photos to post. Can’t believe it’s almost Christmas – the autumn has flown by, and suddenly it’s December. I wish I had photos from the autumn, but I spent most of my holiday recovering from a surgery, and by the time I was back on my feet, it was past its peak. Typical. And now it’s the end of the year, and winter.
autumn
Rainy afternoon
It was the kind of August day that is more autumn than summer; rainy, melancholy, a perfect mist on the sea, the last of the summer flowers fading away, and I wanted to visit this old fishing port about 20km north of Oulu. I remember this place from my childhood – it was bopping back then, a whole fleet of boats going out every day to catch whitefish and Baltic herring and salmon, people like my grandparents buying the fish fresh from the fishermen in the morning. Fears of industrial pollution and cheap north Atlantic fish imports have all but killed the industry, and the moorings have filled with leisure boats. Another tiny piece of the world as it was crumbled away.
Autumn to winter
Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
Between two dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too soon
Three months bade wane.
Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote again.
First went my friend, in life’s mid light of noon,
Who loved the lord of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in June
Three months bade wane.
A herald soul before its master’s flying
Touched by some few moons first the darkling goal
Where shades rose up to greet the shade, espying
A herald soul;
Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.
The deep dense dust on death’s dim threshold lying
Trembled with sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying
A herald soul.
One went before, one after, but so fast
They seem gone hence together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed
One went before;
One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music’s radiant store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the last,
One went before.
A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies wherethrough his heart’s pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,
A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent, how should I forget
That ere the sunset’s fiery goal was won
A star had set?
Autumn and Winter, by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Oh happy fair
As a resident of St Giles, I have a love-hate relationship with the fair. There’s something undeniably magnificently bonkers about the whole idea. The fair being blessed by the priests of St Giles church is extraordinary. The clean, empty street on Wednesday morning, devoid of any signs of what’s been going on for the past few days, is nothing short of miraculous. I (sort of) love all the garish lights and colours and enjoy the smell of donuts and spit roast and hot dogs and the sight of people carrying oversized stuffed animals around. But the fair is also noisy and disruptive to all normal life, bringing sleepless nights and forcing residents away. The fair also photographs very poorly – the fast moving people and the bright, flashing lights just don’t make a good combination. The rides move fast for someone who is has problems with continuous focus. Someone will be photobombing your carefully framed portraits, or the people move out of the frame. And the light on their faces will always, always be terrible.
Butterfly in the library 