Thanksgiving

This is a post to file under 'sometimes other places' (see blog sub head)

Also under memory and thankfulness.

 all photos courtesy of Claudia Schmid

Here is the cottage where I spent summer holidays long ago. I never went there in November but my daughter went recently. Ah, the wonders of Instagram!

Here it is straight on with different color paint than I recall and a different gate.

Here are some cows waiting to produce milk for clotted cream - at least I hope so.

Here is St. Winnow the other side of the Fowey River. We used to take the canoe there and wander in the churchyard.

Here is a beach on the north shore with a stream meandering through it - how perfect for feats of engineering!

How people are dwarfed by the wide Atlantic beach...

Inspiration

I've cheated and read Weaver and Willowmanor and Titus's posts about inspiration.

I'll admit, nothing inspires me nearly so much as looking at what other people have done.

So, first of all, family. The date on this photograph is September 1939.

My father's brother Maurice, who hated school

 and was good at tennis in an erratic sort of way.

Look how his hair has been flattened down for the photo.

He died, of course.

One of Claudia's first photographs when she was taking photography in high school.

A pumpkin grown from one we had kicked off our porch.

I've learned everything I know about taking pictures from her.

Something magic and fairy tale about pumpkins always.

West Square in London, near the Imperial War Museum Film archives.

Why do the mossy steps lead nowhere?

What possibilities in the quiet window.

Colors in Morocco. A life saturated with visual delights

but all sorts of other things too.

I hope no one finds this last image offensive.

David Shrigley captures so exactly how I sit at my desk

and get distracted all the time.