sunrise

it was quite the morning...
still in a funk from mum leaving for blighty...
a swim tomorrow should straighten things out a touch...

silhouettes

in some ways ive been lazy, i havent posted much recently, havent taken the photographs off my memory card since bells, havent felt much like posting, thinking, editing.

In other ways, super busy, fixed the dings in my surfboard, been running most nights of the week, logging 25k's a week in training for my race in september.

Ive been homesick, however thats had benefit, forcing me to look over images of my home town, listen to music "grown" there. appreciating where i come from, despite not being there right now.

And I HAVE been taking photographs, lots of them, ive been using instagram alot, just because of the convieience, but i miss the opportunities the blog gives me to explain how and why I arrive at taking the photographs i do, the thoughts that have been boucing around my head for a few days, that inspire me to go out with the camera.

One morning, a few weeks ago, the sun was low, burning the sand orange a red, and silhouettes were everywhere.

I liked these four.

a dark few days

its been a tough few days, my buddy ed left these shores, a few surf sessions tucked under his belt and many a frozen memory locked away in my mind. Good times and great waves.

It leaves me bereaved again, a strong work, but the only adjective that accurately captures the bleakness of having your longest, truest friend spend that kind of intense time with you, to be ripped asunder. He leaves a void that never gets properly filled.

To make do, I shaped myself a new board...B13, to commemorate some good times. I listened to moseley shoals, and old blues records, and the thievery corperation whilst I shaped and glassed. Its not the neatest of works, but im happy with it, its rough around the edges glassing wise, which is kind of how i felt whilst i made it. I reckon it'll go good.

my heart and sea

Last night i saw the new Nathan Oldfield movie - the heart and the sea - Another great patagonia screening with a few donation payment beers, good vibes...

nathans blog 

The movie has gotten me thinking about those that I include in my family, those i love, and those dear to me, so many are the on the other side of the world and I get chance to see once every couple of years...its a heartbreaker some days. Im grateful and lucky to have a few on this hemisphere that I'm proud to cal friends and are very important to me.

I also met Pesty last night - ive followed his work ever since I got into this blogging thing, and it was great to actually meet in real life, share a few moments of whats obviously a similar unbridled passion for all things aquatic and beautiful.

 pestys blog

And in two weeks my closest buddy, Ed is coming to visit - I get to surf with my oldest surfing compadre.

And in another 6 months an new life will join our family - I will become a father. I cant describe how this makes me feel.

my wife - playing with light

hiatus

So there have been few posts recently - ive been consumed between homesickness, catching up on waves, solitude - expansion of interests, pea and ham soup and things autumnal.

Ive taken very few photographs of late - despite the wonderful season, the colours, the sunrises, the rain, nothing has caught my lens.

This weekend just past, I stood beside the road up in the Grampians, and looked down on a mist covered lake, the sun hitting the clouds below me...sometimes the camera can never capture what the eye and then, the mind perceive. So i shot a few anyways, for reminders of what it REALLY felt like.

Heres the examples, doing little to conjour up the mood:

 nice to be amongst some topography again - reminiscent of blighty

golden hour

Regardless of all that... it was nice to get away from it all....sleep in the van, burn a few logs eat from the saucepan, and scope out some climbs. its been great to get back into climbing, pushing myself in new/old ways, reminding and rediscovering and pulling tendons and using my body in other ways. 

I feel obligated to use my body...because I can, and have been reminded visceraly that some cant, and may never be able to. its a humbling reminder:

my beautiful wife - companion on this adventure

 cold - but alone, and beautiful

 worth the walk

long and short, this pommie is happy, for now...and trying to embrace it all and stay humble and centred.

nowheresickness

im sat in the business lounge of birmingham airport, having scored an upgrade to business class for the first leg of my flight, its a great way to ease into the journey, the food is good, the beer is free - im calm.

The weather outside this window is worsening, the wind picking up, bringing with it dark grey clouds and rain, hammering into the floor to ceiling glass in front of me. im calm.

the thought of home is confronting - home...a word with which i am troubled by..

"But I'll tell you the reason you couldn't get home
Cause there's nowhere you've been and it's nowhere you're going
Home is only a feeling you get in your mind
From the people you love and you travel beside" stornoway

So, where does that leave me. Im leaving those i love, those that have seen me through the most troubled parts of my mind. Home isnt where im going, but now, it isnt where ive left, im travelling alone, today.

but i do have people i love, family, all of them, friends, all of them, here and there - but im torn, perpetually, and misunderstood, perpetually.

Im embracing it, im befriending it....which is why...im calm         whilst inside a small piece of me is racked with
                                                                                                                                 the pain of leaving, ripped apart.

 home.......?

 home........?

homesick

i love this place - i miss surfing there. Why, today, im not sure

 croyde bay, UK - NYE 2010

homesick

its like sea sickness, the exception being that you cant get of the boat, you just have to wait for the storm to cease.

I ache for home.

The people.

The small things.

The smell of it.

This reverie has taken me to places in my mind i'd rather not visit, floods of memories, reminiscence of evenings with friends, early hours  spend in quiet companionship with those that knew me as a child, and saw me become an adult. Music is trigger, and for some reason i cant avoid pulling that trigger over and over today.

I blame the SE wind.

And my friends and family.

for being so fucking awesome.

*the pic above is of an empty medicine bar, a converted warehouse that hosted nights of Substance.