Author: julesprichards

Time left in book: 42 mins

You know when the mid-evening light sometimes makes everything look ethereal… and then it gets dark.

And the church bell tolled… We have time.

It takes half a minute for the church bell to ring 12 o’clock.

This week, I made hot cross buns. The dough took time to prove: mix and knead, wait an hour, add the fruit, wait an hour, form buns, and wait an hour.

Peeling potatoes, pealing bells, it takes time.

When we’re ill or bruised, it can take time to heal.

I don’t know about you, but my usual daily routine and habits have a momentum that does not allow life to ‘steep’. Steep: to extract a flavour or to soften, to surround or fill with a character.

When we have ‘things to do’, it’s hard to notice that we have time…
‘We have time’…
We have time to be…
Time to breathe…

This week we have had a week off work. We are fortunate, circumstances have caused us to use the time to pause and savour, and perhaps steep.

Nothing to be done, as Vladimir and Estragon might have said.

Some recent reading reminded me: to look upon all encounters for value, for opportunity to breathe deeper, and meet with our neighbour at a deeper level than our ‘usual’ fleeting presence of mind allows for…

Rosemerry Trommer writes:
‘What if we assume we belong?
Then we might find we are held by strands of birdsong…
I spent so much time worrying… until recently, real belonging asks nothing of me… 
Hold a door, pass the salt, share a sunset…’

Rumi wrote: ‘Be grateful for whoever comes, treat each guest honorably…’

And so back to the bell tolling 12… midnight…

Based on a true story.
Time left in book: …

You know when the morning light sometimes makes everything look ethereal…

Contrary to Nietzsche’s ‘ugly’:
Truth can be beautiful – we possess breath that we might steep in beauty.

I create images – it’s what I do.

My recent reading seems to focus on ‘the immediate’, ‘don’t go searching’ seems to be a take-away… 

Below are some blossom trees in Abbey Park in Leicester that have promised, and delivered recently. Abbey Park may be 150 years old but it still has more to give…

I’ve been meaning to post something for a while, but I can’t find space to form anything cohesive, so here’s (just) a list of recent jottings; (and a word cloud from said jottings)

Fact: apparently, we fall into a hypnotic state roughly ten times a day – for a few seconds only…

‘The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.’
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes

‘Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.’ 
Carl Sagan

‘We create wonderful places by giving them our attention, not by finding “pristine” places that will bring wonder to us.’
David Haskell

‘We live more in the life we do not have than in the life we do,’
‘a poet’ 

‘The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.’
G. K. Chesterton

‘the hardest thing of all to see is what is really there’
J.A. Baker; The Peregrine

‘There are things we will never see, unless we walk to them. Walking is a mobile form of waiting. What I take with me, what I leave behind, are of less importance than what I discover along the way.’
Thomas A. Clark

‘And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.’
Roald Dahl

‘Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it, and you’ll start believing in it. And so will most people who come into contact with you.’
Jesse Owens

‘logical positivism; if we don’t have a word for something, we cannot think of it, let alone care for it’
A.J. Ayer 

sonder; a noun meaning the realisation that each random passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own, populated with their ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness.

‘People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.’
Iris Murdoch, ‘A Fairly Honourable Defeat’

‘When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’ Albert Einstein

There’s a giant mirror in a restaurant in Budapest where the reflections in glasses and the light of a candle make things sparkle. The occasion was enchanting. Literally enchanting. Indeed, Nothing much more to be done. Brought a tear to my eye… speech… less… be-atitude…
Perhaps it was a combination of sound, light, taste, smell, and significance. An illusion. Biodynamic wines!? sincerity? a delusion?
Then we move to a Budapest ‘ruin bar’, where nothing is polished… cherry flavoured IPA? Or a triple Riesling… all is well, mirror-ball reflections…. Happy daze.

We adventure away from the norms, looking for treasures, but as John Muir reflected “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

A break away from the normal routine of life… being in places that from a distance hold enchanting ideas. Sitting drinking wine by the Danube River as the sun sets behind the Buda Palace… enchanting, cue the first few bars of Strauss’ Waltz.

But things are still ‘connected’… We can’t really break away… And why would we. We reflect, we sit and ‘sonder‘, amongst the city bustle people living vivid, complex lives, with ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited bruises and brilliance… All is well, with my soul…

Breathe deeply…

After reflection. Back home. Away from the city there’s birdsong, life goes on, and the things that need to be done still need to be done; dental appointments, daughters, decisions, duties, responsibilities…

But with the help of a large mirror, the things you look at change, when you change the way you look at things.

Budapest, where the food and friendship brings beatitude. X

Over the last few weeks, reading between the lines, things have glimmered, and glimpses of truth have sparked, but, as ever, they are very difficult to grasp. But listen… you can hear the smallest things…

I recently listened to a friend talking about the ‘scripts’ we have in our worldviews. The ideas and narratives we have both been given and have chosen. What do we unconsciously take for granted, and use as a foundation for our being.

Also, what are we holding onto, grasping too tightly? 

I was also reminded about the importance of ‘seasons’ “A season for planting, for waiting, for flowering, for stooping, for dying, for clearing and for emptiness”.  

 “A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing” Ecclesiastes 3

Things change…

The same friend above reminded me of ‘composting’, how it’s ‘natural’ for things to recompose; institutions, organizations, projects, personalities, should have the possibility of regeneration built into them, the potential of ending/changing (re-composing) into something else. Don’t feel precious about your grasp, but embrace, trust and grow.

As you may know, I ‘play’ at amateur theatre. The next amdram opportunity clashes with other plans I’ve made, so I will not be diving into a new script this ‘season’. I was disappointed, but in retrospect i am reflecting on not having to sweat over a new character. Learning to ‘play’ a character, learning their ‘script’, can be a consuming hobby. Perhaps it’s time to go off script.

Over the last five years I have played;

Simon ‘A keen young insurance broker, well dressed and professional looking’

Martin ‘Not lost, just waiting for someone… 40s looking for love’

Bernard; ‘A foolish fixer of things and odd job guy’  Played Bernard twice.

John: ‘A friend of Colin’s who is married to Evelyn.’

Bill: ‘Never lifted a finger in the house… couldn’t even be bothered to wipe the toilet down… and dead.’

Jack: ‘…who rapidly cultivates a taste for pouring whisky over his head’

Clarence: ‘A failed old-school Shakespearean actor, “Before my body I throw my warlike shield.”’

Jeff: ‘Nosy neighbour, moves the bins every week!’ 

Tony: ‘failed club singer, and flouncer’

As Rumi wrote..

This being human is a guest house.

Be grateful for whoever comes.

For now, we’re ‘off book’ and I am just being; Jules: ‘insert description here’.

Instead of lines, I have returned to tunes and songs. After a few years out, I have returned to Global Harmony the choir that I enjoyed for more than a decade. 

Everything comes from nature…

Goodness and brilliance…

Listen… can you hear the smallest things…

Another new year…

I recently heard “Art has a way of reflecting the nerve ends of our souls…”

And read “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”

I’m toying with an ambition ‘to be more active than the algorithm’… Ahh… The cultural machinations that are constantly suggesting what we do, think, eat, hear, be… I think we can do better than that, do you?

With a little reflective realisation…“What do we know for sure?”

That life is tangible.

During holy-days there might be a chance to glimpse a sense of something more tangible. Something more than a WhatsApp TikTok message…

If the shepherds simply sent a WhatsApp message and the wise folks just commented on Linked In… I don’t think the story would have lasted… UV. ✨ MTFBWY. BFF.

Real life has colour and character, stories and sounds, light and shade…

True life can be achingly accordant, diverse and disparate. Immanuel, life is tangible.

This year I’ve neglected one of my favourite phrases, “The interaction between things is what makes things fruitful.”

So, this coming year, to try to be more active than the algorithms. Somehow.

No filters, just autumn…

Below is a random selection of textures from our autumn break. From the North Devon coast and from an East Midlands garden.

You can’t bottle it, it’s just there. It’s free.

(Five images taken in the same week from each universe below, slide to compare)

The East Midlands: The church bells chimed three times, mid-afternoon. It’s October, but the sun’s still warm enough to sit out with a coffee. Buzzards can be heard calling, they are circling high, crows are… crowing. A light aircraft splutters through the blue, and… away. Silence… except; (the tinnitus) the birds, the distant hum of traffic, the buzzards, a bee… relatively quiet… I take the deepest breath. It’s Autumn.

The North Devon Coast: Two hundred miles west the tide has turned. Two juvenile gulls shadowing their mother on the rocks. You can see the tide on the move filling the estuary, and the sandbanks get washed daily by the sea. The tide’s relentless duty is remarkable. The relative calm seeps into your pores and the tide soothes… a cup of tea on the harbour side. It’s Autumn.

I take photos, I create images… It’s what I do.

I did a thing. “Why?” I asked my daughter. “I dunno, ‘cos you’re weird” she suggested.

Every autumn I incline to seek out conkers. When the kids were young, I had an excuse. But today the excuse was so the youngest teen could practice her driving, she could drive us to our favourite conker site. They walked the dog, I collected the bounty (for the local primary school to ‘play with’ was my adult reasoning).

The process of ‘play’ is an integral part of the creative process… that’s what I like doing, being creative. It’s rarely useful, but to create something is an urge that we all enjoy… 

I’ve wittered before about it here… putting ‘stuff’ together in a new or another way, to resonate a novel or appropriate difference… …to illuminate the familiar, to resurrect the lost, to prize grace out of joy, to make firm that thing that is in flux, to capture, weave or play with, to engage, disturb, entertain, please, refresh, challenge…

I recall a little project from 10 years ago here… hopestrengthwisdomlove

Any who… Process documented below.

I’ve said it before;
Repro; copying and reproduction of documents and printed material.
Graphics; creating imagery and visual material to communicate significance.

From postcards to large format posters, cake-toppers to wall-wraps. I have more than 30 years experience of working in print  ‘here’.

I’ve written before about School Reprographics here.

Essentially I support teaching and learning through the timely provision of a variety of printed resources and graphic design.

See more, search the blog for ‘repro‘

Here’s just a random selection from the last year;

As part of the graphic design I provide supporting teaching and learning at Leicester’s Castle Mead Academy, I was asked if I might create a graphic that visualises “Two Thousand Years of History within ten minutes walk of Castle Mead Academy”.

I’ve recently completed educational graphic timelines for History, Computer Science and Art.

Colin Hyde from University of Leicester’s Oral History Archive saw these and suggested the ‘two thousand years’ idea.

Castle Mead Academy is situated in the heart of Leicester, as you can see history is on its doorstep; from the Jewry Wall Roman remains through to remains of the 19th Century Leicester’s Central Railway Station.

Thanks to Colin for the concept idea and the content.

Leicester City Council has compiled a wealth of images and information in their  Story of Leicester project here: story-of-leicester
Their Heritage Panel Trail brings Leicester’s 2,000 years of history to life with now 350 colourful information panels now installed on the city’s streets, more info here: heritage-panel-trail

Two Thousand Years of History within ten minutes walk of Castle Mead Academy.

Before the Romans   before 47AD
Leicester was the primary dwelling of the Corieltauvi tribe who lived around the River Soar in the area that is today beneath St Nicholas Circle, Jubilee Square and Bath Lane.
The Romans   47 – 500 AD
Although we can’t see it, the Roman forum was under St Nicholas Circle. What we can see at the Jewry Wall is the remains of the main bath house in Roman Leicester.
After the Romans   500 – 1066 AD
St Nicholas Church was consecrated in 879and contains Roman tiles in its tower.
The Normans   1066 – 1154 AD
The castle motte was built in 1068 and is the huge mound that the Normans built to support a wooden castle soon after they invaded in 1066.The Castle Area contains the Norman motte, the Great Hall/Leicester Castle 1150, St Mary de Castro Church 1107,and the Turret Gateway 1423.
Medieval Leicester   1066 – 1714 AD
Bow Bridge, the original bridge, shaped a bit like a bow, was built c.1350. The Newarkes contains Trinity Hospital founded in 1330,The Newarke Houses Museum c1511 and 1583, the Magazine c.1400. Wygeston’s House comprises a timber hall of around 1490; a brick block of 1796 which replaced an earlier timber shop and chamber;and a Victorian (1800s) wing standing on the site of the medieval kitchen.Leicester Cathedral which dates from 1086, and the Guildhall which was built in 1390.
Georgian Leicester   1714- 1837 AD
Castle Mead and the Rally Park are built on the site of the Leicester and Swannington Railway (L&SR). This was one of England’s first railways, built to bring coal from West Leicestershire collieries to Leicester, where there was great industrial demand for coal. The line opened in 1832.
The canal was completed in 1794 and Friars Mill, one of the earliest factories in Leicester, was built in the same year.
Victorian Leicester   1837 – 1901 AD
The site of West Bridge Station, was part of the Leicester-Swannington Railway. There was no platform at the original station and passengers had to climb aboard using steps and handrails attached to carriages. A narrow passenger platform was eventually created in 1876. By 1893 a new purpose-built station had been constructed next to Tudor Road.
The streets to the west of Castle Mead around Tewkesbury Street were built through the 1880s to the 1900s. There is a KingRichard III theme to several of the street names, such as Tudor Road.
Leicester Central Railway Station was built in 1899 and is now Lane7. The station was part of the Great Central Railway’s London Extension linking Nottingham with Marylebone in London.

There’s an ‘around the block’ video, made from a cycle helmet cam here:

#Graphic #Repro, it’s what I do.

If I can help you visualise something. Drop me a line.