Travel
Whiteout on our trip from Lille to Marseille. Attractive, but not our usual view of farms in the Morvan, Charolais (the Upper Loire and Saône), the forests around Le Creusot or the vineyards of Macon. Colour photographs of monochrome scenes.
Three views of London from the south bank of the Thames: Southwark cathedral (1839 AD) and its new neighbour, The Shard; the raucous me-first towers of the City of London thrusting ever upwards as a messy group, and the oldest of them all, the White Tower, the bastion built on the orders of William the Conqueror in 1078 AD, the Tower of London.
Snapshots of my day trip to Keswick, Christmas shopping:
The new headquarters for BBC Wales nears completion of the construction phase. It’s another block of big solid architecture, its blast-proof windows and mainly square lines looking more like a reactor block for a nuclear power station than an environment for creative experiment.
Cardiff Central Square below is awash with workers in muddy site boots and hiviz green PPE kit mingling with the railways workers in orange from the station opposite, established by the Great Western railway in the nineteenth century.
Views from both sides of the Col de la Croix Haute, 1176 m. It usually feels like the boundary between Dauphiné and Provence, the weather and topography change dramatically even if it is no longer the administrative line. On the north side, the valley of the river Drac and glimpses through the clouds of the peaks of the Écrins topped with new snow from yesterday’s storms.
Over the pass in frost, grey mist and a strong wind but very soon down the valley of the river Buëch the sun shines out from a clear blue sky, lighting up the yellow and orange of the birch and ash tree leaves.
