Symbolic Forest

Photos from the Jardin du Luxembourg on a Sunday morning. Old men playing chess under a canopy. Hidden away in the groves of trees, a man practises moving a sword around. People sit on benches in the shade, enjoying the last weekend of the August holiday.

Keyword noise: August, chess, holiday, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, park, summer, swordsman, trees.

This was seen in the large Parisian department store Galaries Lafayette^* the other day, in the “Epicerie Britannique” section of the gourmet foodhall:

A bottle of salad cream that says “99p” on the label, on sale for €3.24^** At today’s exchange rate – just under 68p to the euro – that’s a shop price of £2.20. Slightly less of a bargain than it says on the label, then. The shop was also selling tins of Heinz beans originally from multipacks, singly, for about £1 per tin. Ouch. How much does it cost to import a tin of beans, exactly?

* They do apparently have an official website, which I couldn’t get to work at all.

** Frankly, I was quite surprised that a shop in Paris was willing to let people know that salad cream exists.

Keyword noise: British, Epicerie Britannique, expensive, food, France, Galaries Lafayette, Heinz, import, Paris, pricing, salad cream.

Bude, in North Cornwall, back in May. A study in clouds and sea-spray.

Keyword noise: Atlantic, Bude, clouds, coast, Cornwall, North Cornwall, ocean, photography, sea, seaside, shore, storm, surfing.

This June was originally going to be Photo Month on this site, given the oodles of photos I took on holiday. Unfortunately, I took so many photos on holiday,^* I still haven’t managed to sort through them all yet.

Here’s a few, to be going on with. The Tintagel area. I have more to write about Tintagel.

* 803 in total

Keyword noise: arch, archaeology, beach, castles, church, Cornwall, cove, fogou, medieval, photography, ruin, sea, shore, souterrain, Tintagel, tunnel.

Keyword noise: beach, Dee, estuary, Merseyside, photography, resort, River Dee, sea, seaside, West Kirby, Wirral.

As promised yesterday.

Keyword noise: beach, Dee, estuary, Merseyside, photography, River Dee, sea, seaside, West Kirby, Wirral.

As the song goes.^*

* You know, that song by that woman from Carlisle.

Keyword noise: Dawlish, Devon, English Channel, geology, photography, railway, sandstone, sea, seaside, Teignmouth.

Well, not many words. Yesterday: a walk on the beach.

Keyword noise: beach, Devon, Exmouth, photography, river, sea, shore.

Photo post of the week: photos from the archives, because I haven’t been out and about. These are all from 1996, I think; so this is what the 1990s looked like, to my eyes at any rate.

Keyword noise: Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, beach, black and white, footbridge, history, photography, railway, seashore, dunes, sidings, tower block.

Time for a winter holiday photo special, as I’ve spent the day with The Parents, looking at steam trains. Much like I did last Christmas, in fact; except last Christmas I was still using a film-powered camera, so the pictures didn’t make it online for quite a while.^* It’s high time I did more photo posts purely for the sake of posting photos. Future ones will not all be of steam trains, I promise.

* and I don’t think it was ever even mentioned here.

Keyword noise: engine, GCR, Great Central Railway, Loughborough, photography, railway, steam engine, steam train.