a wedding

We speed down the motorway in convoy, dodging the rain clouds.

The grounds of the Abbey are green and lush, welcoming like the party within.  They come from around the world to witness a young Englishman and young Japanese lady exchange their vows.  And the language of love is universal - no words are needed.

These photographs are dedicated to my nephew, his beautiful new bride and their respective families ...



私たちは、雨雲を逃れ、船団を組んで高速道路をスピードを落とす。

修道院の敷地内には内のパーティのように歓迎し、緑と緑豊かです。彼らは若いイギリスと日本の若い女性の交換、その誓いを目撃するために、世界中から来る。と愛の言語は普遍的である - 何の言葉は必要ありません。

これらの写真は私の甥、彼の美しく新しい花嫁と、それぞれの家族に捧げている...

cutter

The cutter comes late morning.

Swathing wave of corn-kissed sun trembling a mile long outside our window. Glassy stares and the blood-red threshing circle of metalled teeth grinds slowly to place.

I watch, camera cocked and he doffs his cap, implacable in silhouette against the noon. And then!!! The mettageisen furies unleashed, digging deep to the dirt cloud swirls. Their heads fall sullen to the ground, row upon row upon row. Falling. Their seed spills rich in the dust storm.

Three mile-long passes to the boundary.

The cutter comes once more in the dawn, blade glint and rasping the husks. I sit in the field, hidden in the long summer grass and pick over death in the stalks as time flows past me in a harvest of dust.

respect the light ...

It moves, it shimmers, it burns away the early morning clouds to etch the sky cobalt.

I've been up at crack of dawn, camera in hand, pondering a mystery. The complete and utter impossibility of taking the perfect photograph. It's over twenty eight years since I began this strange voyage, yet still she eludes me. Sometimes I get closer than others. An ambush late at night, or a dawn stalk like today. Yet still she makes away to the thinning air.

There was a time I was bedazzled by harsh mid-day colour, intoxicated with swirling motion. And now I seek still. She is to be found there, in the empty tranquility. If I just look a little harder ...

what is church?

church is not bricks and mortar, though it's built on a firm foundation

church is not systems and processes, though beauty is to be found in a story that passes down the ages

church is not history alone, it is the past, the present and the future

this is my church

these are my brothers and sisters.

congregation

viewed ...

a momentary lapse of reason

As I tap away at the trusty Victrola in Sunday's early morning light I reflect on the events of the week, and in particular yet another senior moment in the life of electrofried.  Please do read on if you're prone to the odd memory-lapse yourself.

This Wednesday saw me train-bound to the wild excesses of Harrogate and the Chartered Institute of Housing's annual bun-fest, accompanied by the usual trusty flotsam of office-colleagues.  We changed at York, long a favourite amongst train-spotters and photographers the world over.

The station is girded by a stunning lattice-work metalled roof of the most intricate beauty.  Fashioned into one long and sensuous curve, it's been funnelling passengers into the North-Eastern railway network since the first train departed at 5:30 am on 25 June 1877.  And it was here that I and my colleagues ventured in search of refreshment at the emporium of Master Costly Coffee.

He was sitting there in the corner when one of my colleagues spotted him.

'It's Gareth Southgate!'


Indeed it was the very same - Gareth Southgate, late of Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough - player, manager, TV pundit and now Head of Elite Development at the Football Association - sipping quietly at a styrene-foamed muglet of Master Costly Coffee's finest.  As a long-standing fan of the Villa, I summoned up the courage to take but a few steps across to the corner.

Ever felt your brain go to mush ....

I extended a hand, and fatefully uttered the words,

'I've always wanted to meet Gary Linekar!'


Mr Southgate looked up somewhat quizzically, but still deigned to shake the by now trembling hand I had proffered in greeting to him earlier.

'He's a bit older than me, you know.'


A true gentleman, he humoured me for a good five minutes more in light banter, despite the fact my brain had become disconnected from my lips at the very outset of our conversation.  It quite restores one's faith in the old school of footballer.

Well, I don't know what Mr Southgate made of it all, but on my return to the fold of guffawing colleagues I realised my ill-placed words were already in the course of several texts back to the office.  Oh dear, yet another electrofried senior moment, I'm afraid.  But such is life!