That wall

Well this is a bit annoying! In February when I was photographing roadside shrines as my homage to freespiral's Holy Wells I passed this wall and took its picture because I knew that one day I would like to Blip it. This of course was when I was having extreme camera problems and so was taking Spouseman's smartphone out with me. So today I went for a walk to re-photograph this wall and when I got home I found that the February smartphone shots were sharper than today's efforts by the Sony. So I have cheated, shhhh, and used the better image. I apologise to purists.

Of course there is a story to this aberration! We drove past while an elderly couple were building the bottom half of the wall. Their middle-aged son was with them. Lots and lots of rain had caused the bank to collapse into the roadway and they were shoring it up in order to leave both the public road and the access into their olive grove clear for traffic. The pile of stones was on the opposite side of the road to the wall. The old woman sat with (presumably) her son on a blanket adjacent to the pile of stones. There was a picnic. The old man was carefully selecting a stone, crossing the road to the wall, placing the stone carefully and returning to select another stone. The old woman was bright and beady eyed and was making sure her menfolk were fed. The old man was wiry and beady eyed and appeared to have been skilfully building dry stone terrace walls his whole life. The middle-aged son was dull-eyed, doing nothing at all and we guessed he was probably quite dependent upon his elderly parents.

The next time we passed the beautiful traditional wall had been topped with this eyesore of cement blocks. Is it a tragedy? Certainly it looks like one. But if it is an indication that a dull-eyed middle-aged boy can lay a sound (but ugly) wall then it is not a tragedy. Even if it is an indication that somebody else came along to help then it is not a tragedy. It's certainly not aesthetically pleasing but surely it is a demonstration of co-operation and it allows people to pass by freely. I can think of worse walls.