On my way home

After dropping Helena at the Station for her trip to London, I drove to the north of Gloucester to attend a day long training session. It was titled 'How to be a good Chairman' and was organised by a Gloucestershire Association which offers support to all the local parish and town councils.

It was better than i expected and particularly useful to meet all the other chairmen and hear about the particular situations in the se challenging times for communities. I came away felling how lucky I am to be able to be a councillor in Stroud, because we not only have a large populace which means our income is higher than average, but because of all the benefits of being an urban organisation despite being in the heart of the Cotswolds.

On the way home I went into Gloucester to buy some fresh tofu at the Yip Shing, our wonderful asian food emporium. It is owned and run by young entrepreneurs whose families hailed from Hong Kong, b ut who were themselves born locally. They are very energetic and enthusiastic, and seem to be making a success of their wholesale business.

I stopped off at the Gloucester Docks, which are sited near the ancient lowest crossing point of the River Severn, where the Roman centre of Glevum was established. I couldn't park anywhere nearby, so having jumped out of the car i took a couple of snaps. My eye was caught by this couple sitting on a bench, whilst I was intending to take a view of the strange vertical object on the quayside contrasted with the tower of Gloucester Cathedral in the background.

In the end despite the focus of my 50mm on the couple, I really like the rather visually unsettling effect of out of focus vertical lines and the colours of the dock warehouses. The shapes of the small trees and their shadows seem to look like they were painted too.

I must get back to photographing people again soon.