Ace Jet 170

Walgae

Oh come on, it's can't be just me. I mean, wall algae; it's amazing isn't it? While others are looking up and around, I'm compelled to look close and down. It's like looking at another planet through a really powerful telescope, except it's just the wall in front of you and everyone else is wondering what the hell you're doing…you weirdo. Freak.

Twiggy

Since we were there camping earlier in the year, Castle Ward has had serious pulling power. That weekend was as close to perfect as I can remember. Last weekend we were back, just for the day. To play, picnic and collect post-winter twigs with organical appendages.

 

The Fallen

It's around this time of year that my wife charges me with the task of clearing all the dead stuff out of the greenhouse. There's plenty of it. Stuff that, over the course of the growing season, has been snipped or knocked off, or has just dropped as it ends it's natural life. Withered, shriveled and decaying, it's all so much more interesting than when it was alive and thriving.

 

 

Cracks and Crevices

 

 

This is all a bit out of order and all over the place but between our camping trip to Castle Ward and our week in the Wet County we got a few days on the west coast following an invitation to piggy-back our friend's holiday in Donegal. And when you're in Donegal, you spend all your time on the beach, whatever the weather. It's the law. For those unfamiliar with the region, the beaches are on the whole superb, generally amazing and on average excellent, with ultra-fine sand and clear, clear water. And geological interestingness abounds. (If you weren't freezing your knackers off, you could imagine you're on some craggy Greek island).

I spent much of my time, when out of the water, peering into cracks and crevices.

Duck Fight Season

  

  

Sunday saw us at Castle Espie, a nearby Wildfowl Trust centre, with lovely friends and lots of ducks. Fat ducks not in the slightest bit interested in the seed we were throwing at them. Smug, fat ducks; over fed, overpaid and over there, not eating our seed. They were, nevertheless, entertaining: some dipped below the surface and were never seen again; some made unusual and amusing sounds; and others fought, quacking and screeching, pecking and flapping. But what impressed us most was the variety on offer (I haven't, unfortunately, captured some of the most striking specimens in residence). There were of course, the traditional ducks; the classic, timeless ducks we all know and eat (crispy); but then there were the others, the rare and endangered: the punk ducks, the goth ducks, the camp ducks, the prim ducks, the ducks with utensils for beaks and the modernist ducks, in all their minimalist black and whiteness. But still they ignored our seed.

 

Bastards.

Spooky Wood

We also found some spooky wood...

 

If you go down in the woods...

Lately, we've been spending time in amongst the trees: a bit of climbing, some picking, foraging. Some looking up (them trees are tall). Some looking down. And that's when we spotted these. Their super-ultra-vivid red was so damn bright in the shadowy undergrowth. If ever nature was trying to tell you something.

 

 

Surface+Stuff

Because it rained a lot in Donegal it was often more comfortable looking down. And this is what we saw...

 

 

Then we went to the beach, and saw...

 

 

So it was really quite good that it rained. Lots (lots!) more here. Because it rained lots.

Land of the Pipe Smoking Giants

Not sure if I've mentioned this place before. 

Hidden at the far reaches of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum (that we visit frequently) is an enthusiast-run miniature railway. Although you'd think I was, by the amount of rail-related stuff on Ace Jet, I'm not particularly interesting in all this, but our boys are and it's hard not to get sucked in, it's kind of magical. Mostly hidden in a walled garden, all the public see is a semi-circle of track that comes out of one red brick arch and disappears again through another. But we're sneaky. We always follow the rough path up the side, around the back to get the full picture. 

We were there on Saturday again and our boys were thrilled to be invited aboard. While they were looping around the lawn, I was taken into the workshop to investigate the lathes. It was excellent. And the enthusiasm of the pipe smoking, engine fiddlers that look after it all is inspiring.

 

 

Making stuff look shit etc.

OK, perhaps it's very uncool to say this but I really hate graffiti. I know, I know; it's a youth/sub-culture thing and I'm just about as far away from that now as I could be, and I know there are some very talented people out there graffiti-ing (or whatever you'd call it), and yes, I know, everyone loves Banksy. But on the whole, the vast majority of it is just moronic and habitual daubing of "public property" with shitty looking "tags". (God, that sounds so like my dad!)

I expect that there are many urban, derelict and just generally shabby spaces that are made to look no worse by graffitied embellishments - not so much "you can't polish turd" as "turd is turd" or something - but I'm not talking about all that. I'm talking about the stuff I see driving to work or walking down the street with my children.

Graffiti adds nothing positive to our landscape unless you're "in the club", it just makes stuff look shit.

And yet, lately, I've become strangely intrigues by these little boxes. It's the colour, the damn colour that does it, then it's that texture or whatever it is, then once you start noticing them you can't stop.

What does it all mean?