My mind

This is a running blog.

I’ve taken the month of January off from any serious running and running blogging and have filled this page with photographs taken in 2013.

After today it’ll be back to stories of sore knees, urban pissing and enlightenment on long runs. A disappointment to the people tuning in to see photographs but, as the posts are infrequent, not too much of a disruption.

This image should give you a good idea of what the inside of my head looks like.

It may look like a childish mess to you but it all makes sense to me.

The inside of my head

That’s what beauty does

The sharp focus and shallow depth of field in this image draws your attention to the flower in the same way that you find yourself day dreaming in the barber’s chair as he runs the electric razor over the back of your neck.

The image empties your mind of the extraneous noise that makes up the thought processes of everyday life.

I suppose that’s what beauty does.

This must be why the more enlightened of us seeks beauty in everything – it helps to empty the mind and give clarity.

Shine

This is the gas headlight on a very, very old motorbike.

The lamp was made by the Lucidus of Paris who made phares et lanternes  – lamps and lanterns.

My technically trained brain finds this as beautiful as anything in the natural world.

Shine

Happiness

Happiness is many things.

A hamlet cigar.

The ability to get completely lost in the moment, to not know yourself and to just enjoy existing.

Middle daughter, happy. Italy 2013

The baby

When we think of babies we (those far enough away from the smell of dirty nappies) normally get a surge of procreation hormones.

But babies can be loud, bold and not as cute as you’d hope they’d be.

The Baby

Freedom

When you’re trudging around on a warm summer evening with a cranky wife and even crankier kids a few loose looking bikes can seem very tempting.

La Gazza Ladra

Somewhere inside me there a good person trying to get out.

This goodness usual manifests itself in my deeds as, like most men, I tend not to be very expressive (unless you’re stuck with me on an ultra marathon).

One of the manifestations are my sporadic efforts to feed the robins and tits (feathered type) in the back garden.

And then all the local jackdaws, magpies & pigeons crash the party.

No filter parking

One of the things you notice when you mess with digital photographs (what are now called images) is that you can adjust the temperature of the photographs.

This is just a way of saying that you can make certain colours warmer or bolder – to emphasise some aspect of the photograph. The most obvious example is where you turn a piss cold winter’s day into something a bit more inviting.

This photograph is exactly as it came out of the camera. It was as if the line painters had instagrammed the street!

No filter parking

Off to the land of Tír na nÓg

In Irish mythology there is a land across the waves where you never grow old. This is the land of the young (Tír na nÓg).

This is the view west across the Atlantic from Mizen Head as the sun sets.

America we call it now.

 

Brisighella roofs

Another everyday view.

Because I live in mid-20th C suburban Ireland and not medieval rural Italy the simple layout of the roofs of this village give me pause to consider more than just the beautiful patterns that the tiles make.