Ace Jet 170

#theoldmenoforangefield

 

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For the past five years, during term time, I have found myself walking our dog around Orangefield Park, near to the Grammar school our boys go to. My oldest son – the one that's an actual giant – plays rugby and Saturday morning is more often than not match day. Just like it is throughout the western world no doubt.

I drop him off for pre-match training, give the dog a walk, then take my position pitch-side to shout a bit. It's great and although I don't have a long history of sportsfaning, 'The Rugby' has become a top-notch source of pleasure…and pain, of course. Such is the plight of the sportsfan.

Orangefield Park fills a gap between the school, a densely residential area, a key arterial road and a dodgy estate. Like many parks, it's a meeting place where people meet people they would never normally meet.

My favourite people are the old dudes. The grumpy, friendly, silent, chatty dog-treat packing, dog-walking, old dudes. 

I've watched, from the bushes, the ebb and flow of the old dudes. Sometimes walking solo, sometimes in pairs…occasionally in packs. I do engage with them – usually as our dogs are drawn to each other's odours – not least because I know that one day, I will be one of them.

I've been taking sneaky snaps of them whenever a back or gaze is turned. If you're on IG, you can follow the hashtag above to keep tabs on the park's most worthy patrons.

There and brack again

Spring. And with it returns more opportunities to scratch around the shoreline for discarded bivalve mollusc casings; washed up from their brackish habitats for macroscopic scrutiny.

The Weed

We were up on the north coast on Sunday, visiting Karen's friend Abigail. She has a place in Cushendall. The beach on Cushendall gets lots of sea debris and with a good few days of amazing weather, the detritus was all dried out. Ready for picking.

To the unfamiliar, most of the flotsam and jetsam looks like the dried stems of bulbous flowers. But of course those heads are seaweed roots, their dehydrated tendrils twisted into alien, slightly creepy, shapes.

There's more to freak you out on Flickr.

Beachy

Hands up who doesn't love a beach?

Thought so. Everyone loves a beach. Even in inclement weather there's much to entertain you on a beach. Karen is facinated by rock pools and we can spend hours poking around for trapped sea life: hermit crabs, shrimps, the occassional blood sucker, a sea snail here and there. Unidentifiable fish. Once, on the north coast of Ireland, we cornered an enormous jelly fish in a particularly deep and still pool, to study from a safe distance, until we set it free (being careful to avoid contact of course).

I like to comb. For small, pilferable natural phenomena.

The Ropes

I feel like I've already shown these but I can't see them anywhere in Ace Jet now so perhaps I'm wrong.

Ropes. And floats.

I was digging through a load of photos to find some to use on a small advertising project. I do have a tendency to take photos with a graphic design application in mind. Not a real, specific one, but I'll compose a shot with space in it, instinctively imagining it being used on a book or brochure cover or something. It's just a habit. I do it without thinking too much. And every now and then, the photos come in useful.

So, let's hope that in the future, someone asks me to design something to do with sea fishing or ropes or harbours so I can use this lot.

Stick. On Rock.

Fungus Meets Photosynthetic Partner

May. And with it comes the urge to be out. By the sea. On rocks. Photographing lichen.

The Fallen (2012)

Towards the end of the growing season last year we experienced a minor mini rodent problem in our greenhouse. Just a few mice. With humane traps bated with peanut butter (crunchy) and fragments of chocolate coins, one by one, the culprits were caught, jarred and re-homed in the estate that houses the Northern Ireland Assembly. 

Despite warnings to the contrary I soon had the little blighters under control and after a few weeks our unwelcome lodgers were all relocated. I'm happy to report there has been no sign of any more. Not that Karen quite believes that they've all gone. Which is the reason why she/we neglected to clear the greenhouse last year. Instead, we left much to rot and decay over the winter months.

Consequently, earlier today, I was presented with my new assignment: Clear all the shit out and make doubly sure there is nothing still living inside. Perhaps some would recoil from a task like that but not me. In fact, I jumped at the chance. Weird though it may sound to some, I find decay as beautiful as it is gross; especially when isolated and photographed against an unnnatural surface, like the galvanised steel shelves.

A little while later and it was job done, greenhouse cleared. And I can report that, without any shadow of a doubt, there is definitely nothing living inside. If you're interested, there more dead stuff here.

Northern Rock

We got a week on the North Coast just before the kids went back to school. It was epic. Somehow, even though we've been in NI for seven years, we haven't really spent any time up there. It's probably the most impressive part of the province. So we did all the obvious but dead exciting things: The Causeway, the Rope Bridge, White Park Bay was amazing. Nick from The Apprentice interupted our picnic at Ballintoy Harbour and we spotted basking sharks from the ferry to Rathlin.

And, predictably, I looked at rocks.

Favourite Pebble Style

We've all got one haven't we? For some, it might be the Red Nankin or White Cochin. Others might prefer the classic grey base and white lined Clonmore - the graphic designer's favourite. Then there's the Merkle, Norwegian Mulefoot and the Black. You might lean towards shape rather than colour and tone: The Kidney, the one the Germans call the Ungekochtes Brot or (the schoolboy's choice) the Flat Cap (perfect skim-fodder but if it's the one for you I guess you're not going to lob it back into the briny willy-nilly).

This is mine. The Simmental.

Staring at the ground

As previously suggested, I spend a little too much time looking down. Last weekend we were camping at Castleward. Not adventurous camping. No. Cozy, easy-to-bail-out camping just an hour's drive away. OK, it was cold at night and we were in our own tent. I mean, we weren't glamping. But still, not exactly living in the wilds; Bacon and egg every morning and organic burgers for tea. A pot of espresso on the stove and a bottle of red to keep our strength up.

When we weren't huddling together for warmth, frying up a car crash breakfast or searching for the puncture in one of the air beds, we were on our bikes, heading pier-wards for a spot of crabbing. Armed with rinds for the pinchers and a picnic for us.

Beautifully textured, ancient piers.

Special Branch

Better get this posted before we're too far into the Spring/Summer for it to be even slightly relevent; once all the leaves are out, that'll be it.

This is something I've been meaning to do for ages. Have come close a couple of times then bailed out thinking it's just too mundane even for Ace Jet. This is one of those things I imagine we all do. I mean, we all love tree tops don't we? Especially when they're leafless and the sky's a bit gloomy. Perhaps you've got a few snaps of them yourself? I keep taking them, then I figure, no one wants to see my tree top photos. Not when they've got their own to look at. So these are really just here for my reference. Feel free to move along swiftly. Sorry for wasting your time.

North did a thing for Dalton Maag once that used leafless tree tops. A type specimen book. That's what made me think, like the clouds, we all like them. For me it's their monochromatic/silhouetteness. Like they're etched and flat. Not all 3D and manychromatic, like what they really are. And then there's the thought that if you could dig them up and turn them upside down they'd look the same. Not just my thought. That's obviously not an original idea; lots of people have thought that. But still, it's interesting isn't it?…Isn't it?

Beachwear

It's the crusty mollusks, that's what I like best. This time last week it was our first trip to the beach this year. The boys rockpooled while I snapped the surfaces.

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?