One Green Bottle

A very eventful day. The calm serenity of this glass jug is a welcome image but it wasn't like this most of the time.

To give you the full story, this is one of a series of images from a Ten Minute Photo Project entitled My Mother's Life, which I shot before I took her out for lunch today. I used a lens which I haven't played with for a while, the 35mm f1.8 prime. I was a bit gobsmacked at how rich and peachy the images were, it was a joy to use for something like this where you are trying to capture the minutiae of someone's life.

Anyway the drama came when we were slowing down (stopping in fact) on a motorway slip road due to congestion and the guy behind me didn't stop and smacked straight in to me... as did the car behind him and the car behind .... etc. So I end up the innocent front man in a five car pile up whilst carrying an 89 year old passenger who was a bit nervous to say the least.

After an hour and a half of police, paperwork and breathalyser testing (zero alcohol for me) and an examination by the AA of my chassis, it turned out ironically that we were the only ones who had a car that could drive away from the scene. We had torrential rain and another traffic jam to deal with before ending up in Nandos and putting our day to rights.

After taking aged p home and giving her pills and tea, I left only to be caught in another huge jam caused by people rubbernecking an overturned car. I finally got home and had a chance to look at the pics. If you want to see the full set click here.

I'm intensely proud of my mum. Our worlds shrink as we get old in most cases and our days are centred on small things; but she remains an interesting, witty, loving and charming person who dealt with our travel traumas just like she has most things in life (including being bombed in world war two and bringing up three kids) - philosophically. These pictures are a homage to a life less ordinary.