Spring Blossom in Lower Street

When the east wind blows,
Send me your perfume,
Blossoms of the plum:
Though your lord be absent,
Forget not the spring.

Sugawara Michizane, trans. G. Bownas, A. Thwaite

I thought the spring might have forgotten us this year, but no, there is cherry blossom in Lower Street! Unfortunately no light in the sky, which is why I have ended up putting this through the comic effect mangle in photogene, and then adding another layer in Distressed FX. In other words, same street, different look. Entirely.

Further up the street, some of the houses have low front doors: you open the door and step down into the house. Weavers worked from home in this street, so some of the roofs are steeply pitched so as to accommodate the uprights of their looms. There were also textile workers' riots in Stroud over poor pay and conditions. One of the houses down this end of the street is called Hobbit House.

Work was exceedingly full on today. I walked home through the cemetery (I've bought a season ticket from town to the cemetery gates: will I start wearing black and reading the Brontes now ?) and sat down, only to be interrupted by a knocking at the door. It was my massage patient. I had muddled up the time, this was my mistake after she'd stood me up on Monday! However, all of this means I now have time to blip and watch Pointless before our Scrabble session with a friend. Not sure where my daily Poetry challenge will get squeezed in, though!

The digi photography course last night was a bit basic, but I may start learning more useful stuff next week. It's a ten week course squished into seven weeks. I am definitely not the one with the least knowledge. Our members include a professional artist and a diver who wants to learn underwater photography! The college is on a purpose built campus, completed in 2007, so has a room with a suite of Macs, a professional looking studio, and a (I think) a darkroom. Students on the art foundation course study photography as part of the package. Older students on the Access to Art course may also take a photography module. I am so glad I did not choose to do it at the community centre premises in Cam: apparently their problems included the ceiling collapsing, revealing asbestos; broken loos; and, at one point, no computers for the entire course!

One stupid thing I did while fiddling with my camera was to switch the date stamp on, and leave it! So I have had to crop tightly on the left to get rid of it.

Oh, and here's my poetry blog entry for the day.