A Life in Pictures

Whoa! The damsons are in.  We have a single scraggy damson Prunus domestica tree on a ditch in the fields across the lane. Recently we make jam from the fruit. 03Sep24 picked 1.15kg; 07Sep25  picked 0.85kg. The shortfall was partly due to fruit-fall and bird-attack, I conclude that timing is important: the fruit are pucker-up sour in August but compost by mid-September. Blossoms appeared this May. On foot of a phone-call from Dau.II, I lugged the ladder across the lane on 04Sep26 and picked a record 2.5kg of fruit [top L]; discarding A Lot blighted by brown rot Monilinia fructigena. 

 In the Spring, our friend-and-neighbour La Torbellina delivered a tray of very miscellaneous tomato and squash seedlings; not more than two of any variety. I carefully trans-planted them all: outside and in the polytunnel in a hope for the best fashion. I also started a variety of beans. It's been one of those years when it hardly seems worth the effort; the beans came late and grew scraggy and had a very brief bearing season. I saved about 1kg, blanched and frozen for Christmas and ate the rest. The squash were also disappointing: two scrawny courgette (which are the only variety worth eating [fry in butter with black pepper and a sprink of salt]. And a handful of uglier larger squash of uncertain name. Including the monster [mid L] which shouts the sage advice: "never eat anything bigger than your head" . . . free to good home, lads.

Me, I take 'less perfick' beans which would be rejected by Bird's Eye (and most of my family) and cook t'buggers up in a cozido: fry chopped onion and/or other allium in olive oil [it's a Portuguese recipe]; cast thereto available chopped veggies (beans, toms, spuds, carrots, squash); tarragon if possible, parsley oregano thyme else; sliced chorizo if the vegetarians are off-site; a handful of lentils. Cook till cooked. Gob more olive oil into the bowl. Eat with bread. 

A month ago, I started doing triage on the 000s of 'snap-shots' dating from ~1975 to ~2025. The collection / hoard cannot be dignified by describing them as Photographs. Photographs are composed, appropriately lit and in-focus. I am aware that Robert Capa and Henri Cartier Bresson loosed off a roll of film to cover one event / shoot . . . and left almost all of them on the cutting-room floor. That is probably appropriate now with digital cameras. But when each roll of film cost ready money while development and printing more than doubled that cost, it seems a ruinous expense to secure a couple of, like, Photographs. The stack of duff snaps [bot L] is 25cm tall and weighs 3.4kg. Their next and final move is to the dump; I will no longer schlep them, unviewed, from home to home over several decades. I have spoke! It's pathetic really, I look at images from 40 years ago and cannot recall the name of several of the friends thus captured. How much harder will it be for The Daus who weren't even born when the snap was snopped?