Ancient Mariners Sleep Deep . . .

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Way back in October of 2009, barely a year into this blogging adventure, I did two posts (which you can see here if you click and then scroll down the page to October 13th) about a pair of fishing vessels, the Pen an Dour and the Etoile du Berger, which had been tied up at a quai in the Morlaix, Brittany harbor, and left there to sleep the deep sleep of the abandoned, the forgotten, the neglected, the unwanted, the past. They had been painted green and red, but by then their once splendid paint had begun to peel and flake, like the skin of a bad sunburn case. Some months later I learned, to my regret, that they had been removed from the Morlaix harbor, and sent to a destination unknown, where they would surely finish their days.
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This past Monday, while out in Brittany again for a few days, la Grenouille wanted to go for a seaside walk, so we set out for a hike up a remote stretch of coast we hadn't ever walked before. After two hours of fairly strenuous, but glorious, walking, in unseasonably warm sunshine, on the outskirts of one of the tiny villages that dot the coastline in those parts, we came across another pair of red and green abandoned fishing ships. For a moment I thought we had found the final resting place of the two that had been towed out of the Morlaix River, but I quickly realized these were larger vessels, not the same ones at all.
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There was no good reason I should have found these two ancient mariners, the Kalinka (red) and the Etreom (green). We were simply out for a walk on a lovely Spring afternoon. But as you can well imagine, I'm not one to let an opportunity like that pass, and as I just happened to have my camera in my rucksack, while la Grenouille soaked up some sunrays while sitting on a stone wall, I scrambled down the embankment into the mud of the low tide flats there, and went to take a closer look. A much closer look. How could I resist ? The beauty of peeling layers of paint and rusting marine metalwork held me mesmerized for quite a little while. The photos below are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I submit these for your consideration. More will follow, should you be so rash as to encourage me to further folly. Anchors aweigh !
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Immatriculations MX317516 and MX300088
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Just A Little Further On . . .

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It seems hard to fathom that another year has passed, in the blink of an eye. The holidays have gone by and the new year has been amply celebrated, but a more personal day of reckoning is drawing nigh, that date of birth, where one steps back and considers where one has been, what one has become, and where one is going. I'm beyond the point where I'm secretly hoping for presents; a bit of cake will do the trick nicely, and la Grenouille is good at that sort of thing.
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No, these days it is more a question of wanting to give; to give my daughters a chance for an education worthy of their dreams, to give la Grenouille the company of a smiling toad, to give you the pleasure (if such it may be) of being able to view in these pages the photographs I've been pouring heart and soul into over the years, such as they are.
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There are some recurring themes in my work, which you know by now if you've looked back at any length into the archives here. I wonder if anyone does ever look back beyond the most recent of posts. Maybe someday. These pages contain already a good part of the history of my days here on earth. One life among 7 billion currently living, and among god only knows how many who went before. (One interesting article here gives a rough estimate of how many humans have ever lived.) I hope to keep going a bit further here, further on down the road.
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Dream cars have always had a powerful call for me, speaking volumes about our society. This one in southern France seen a few years back was a classic, disappearing under the brambles, and will be going no further, other than going back down into the ground.
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Texture is another favorite theme, especially texture in old paint . . .
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And texture in ancient wood, old rusting metal bits . . .
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Texture in stone . . .
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Even texture in bone . . .
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This grinning skull was in the window of a medical school supplies store in downtown Paris a few years ago, I don't know if it is still there. I photographed it because it brought back memories of other hanging skeletons from a laboratory oft visited in childhood.
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Came across a funny website recently called "dumpr.net" which lets you play around with your photos. One of the possibilities was to put your work in a museum. So if ever one day any of the work on this blog ever were to get into a museum, here is what it might look like. Keep on dreaming, all the way to eternity.
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So, hope to see you a little further on up the road . . .
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Nuts About Coconuts !

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It happens once in a blue moon while out roaming about, that one sees a place that one would just love to learn more about, especially in terms of cultural enrichment and enlightenment. I had such an experience in a small central Pennsylvania city recently. The sign which caught my eye because of the colorful parrot on it announced a "Party In Paradise". What could there be not to love about a place proclaiming in colorful terms that a party in paradise can be found there ??? Yes indeed, Club Coconuts sounded dandy to me ! And I swear that parrot looks exactly like the one on the cover of Tom Robbins' excellent book "Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates".
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Another sign outside Club Coconuts boldly declared that this was a No Work Zone ! Yes ! My kind of place ! And I just adore the little bi-plane pulling the Club Coconuts banner sign in this one.
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Club Coconuts even apparently had people standing by to dance with me. I would have enjoyed a bit of square dancing, you know, swing your partner round and round, do-ci-do, and all that, with sawdust on the floor, but I just couldn't, unfortunately, wait around until 8 o'clock to see what that was all about. Life is cruel sometimes, I'm sure it would have been good healthy fun. Maybe next time. (Cue the Tom Waits music as he drives away wistfully.)
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Now I can't say for sure, but this establishment was just up the street from Coconuts, so I can only imagine that some of Coconuts customers must work in here, after a tough day slinging rusty scrap steel, Coconuts is probably a good place to go for a beer and to unwind dancing.
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Some Fall colors were just starting to come out in this next landscape . . .
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Texture . . . October Theme @ Blogger Friends Photo Club

Our sponsors would like to put in a word for a photo club happening over at Blogger Friends Photo Club, which is being taken care of by Desi in South Africa. Each month she announces a theme, and then over the month people can send her photos related to the theme, and at the end of the month she posts them all; and folks can then come back and see what everyone else did related to the theme for that month. The theme for October is "Texture" . . . so if you have any photos with great texture in them, don't wait to send them to Desi, there are still a few days left in October . . .
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To participate in Blogger Friends Photo Club, it's easy, just send Desi an e-mail with the photos you'd like to enter to : photoclubfriends@webmail.co.za and she'll do the rest. . . which is really wonderful of her, as this is purely for fun and she has devoted considerable time to it over the past couple of months to make it happen.
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She has two other blogs as well which are worth a visit or three, at Desi Van Zyl Photography, and at Being Desi.
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Although this is not one of the photos I sent for this month's texture theme, it might have been . . . The texture of a parched piece of earth . . . somewhere in France . . .
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