Fifty-seven: the blue hour

Fifty-seven: the blue hour, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Walking home today, about six o'clock, this was the canal. Peaceful and calm, although cold, and the light a lovely blue. It was almost too dark to take the picture, hence the slight blur, but it was so lovely to see, I had to use the pic.

Fifty-six: infrastructure

Fifty-six: infrastructure, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Before we moved to Preston, we looked up the town on Flickr, to see what we were getting ourselves into. One of the pictures was of a telephone pole just like this one, with wires going in all directions to the local houses. It was captioned something like "twenty-first century communications networks in Preston". It was a great picture, and when we moved to Preston we saw just such poles everywhere. There;s even one outside our house, visible from the kitchen window. The thing is, though, the phones work fine, so does the Internet, which is faster and cheaper than anywhere I've ever lived, and it all comes through those wires, so we shouldn't complain.

Fifty-five: light

Fifty-five: light, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is a candleholder Martin bought in a junk shop in Porto last year. It's quite cheap, and clearly salvage from a catholic church somewhere, but not shating my squeamishness about catholic regalia, he insisted on it.

The junk shop was quite something, packed with rubbish, but holding some interesting finds. We battled a bit, because the old woman who ran it spoke no English, but she managed French, as did I, so we bought forks, of all things, and a few other knickknacks, and this candle holder. It lives on the mantelpiece, and that's the startlingly-textured wallpaper of the living room behind it. Yet another example of the interesting wallpapers of this house.

Fifty-four: people

Fifty-four: people, originally uploaded by meganknight.

London is full of people. And I mean FULL of people. I still think of myself as a city person, and I miss cities, but I am clearly not used to people, because London left me feeling claustrophobic and overwhelmed a lot of the time. It didn't help that I wasn't feeling well, but I just felt I was constantly bupbing into people, getting in their way, having them in my way. It was loud, and too warm, and generally quite unpleasant. We did find an amazing find, though: the Masonic Temple. Martin wanted to see it, so we went, and when we got there, there was a museum and a tour, so we got to see the inside of the temple, and the most incredible mosaic. The whole thing is rather nazi-soviet, though, having been built in 1928 or thereabouts, the height of Deco - all hard edges and massive spaces. The mosaic covers the curved spaces between the walls and ceiling, and is largely light blue and gold, with illustrations of key scenes, symbols and figures. The whole thing was awe-inspiring, but once again, no pictures allowed.

Fifty-three: tree

Fifty-three: tree, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is Lincoln's Inn Field, in London. We were in London for two days, on an impromptu trip, which went rather oddly. On Thursday, I had no time to take pictures, and so this picture and the next were taken on the same day: Friday.

It's a lonely tree, on the edge of Lincoln's Inn Fields, which were once attached to Lincoln's Inn, one of the four Inns of Court at London. I have no idea what any of this means, to be honest, but the field is lovely: quiet and green, and surrounded by trees. It's really just a park, but it was a sanctuary from the almost insane claustrophobia of Sir John Soane's Museum which, although, fascinating, I found oppressive with the weight of all that stuff. No photography allowed, though, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Fifty-two: hammock

Fifty-two: hammock, originally uploaded by meganknight.

We are not big on cat toys or furniture, although we love our cats to a point pretty close to delirium. Partly it's a matter of taste - most cat toys and furniture are ugly, but it also a matter of not really thinking about getting them things. They do have boards to scratch, bought for pennies at the hardware store, and I did make catnip toys once, but Oliver dismembered them rapidly. We've tried beds, but none of them worked, except for this one, which Oliver is pretty much always in. The thing about this, is that it's hanging off the radiator, so it's nice and warm. He used to sleep on the floor next to the radiator, and that's why I bought it. He slept under it a few times, until I actually lifted him up and put him in it, and then he was hooked. I like it because it's in my study, so I have a companion while I'm *ahem* working away.

Fifty-one: Gloom

Fifty-one: Gloom, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is a pub close to campus. It's the 'nicest' pub, and the only one I ever go to. I have lunch with an American colleague in the business school there fairly regularly. The food's not great, but it's reliable, and the company's good.

We tend to bitch about the Brits quite often - there's something about livin in a foreign country requires a regular session with a fellow-foreigner, just to get it all out of your system.

Fifty: doorway

Fifty: doorway, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I've been trying to photograph the cobbles in the street outside through the wavy glass in the front door, but I just can't get it to work. It's frustrating, because it's such an interesting effect and texture. This is the next best thing - a scene through the front door - street, houses, tree and sky, but you wouldn't know that.

The other thing you wouldn't know, reading this blog, is that I do actually leave the house. Pretty much every day. I even take my camera with me, most days. It's just that I find the campus boring, and I don't have time to hang out and take pictures there, much. Plus, I'm self-conscious while taking pictures. I will try harder, though, I promise.

Forty-nine: watch cap

Forty-nine: watch cap, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This blog is turning as much into a record of the minutiae of my life as a work of photographic creativity. This picture is firmly in the former category. It's a watch cap I knitted for Martin, which I finished today. It's knitted in a merino/cashmere/silk mix, and should therefor not be itchy, unlike the previous woolly hat I knitted him, which suffered a tragic fate at the hands of the washing machine. It's the colour of milky coffee, which is what he wanted. I initially bought the wool to mend some socks, but he liked the colour so much I knitted a hat out of it as well.

It's photographed on the staircase finial because Martin hates having his picture taken.

Forty-eight: books

Forty-eight: books, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I have only recently learned to give away books. These are headed for one of the charity shops, but I need to take a few in to the campus coffee shop as well - to swap for books I have taken from them.

This is all fiction, and as I said, I have only recently learned to get rid of books, and I am still pretty much sticking to fiction. The fact is, though, we have a lot of books, and not a lot of space, and honestly, I am never going to read any of these again. They are mostly discount paperbacks bought at airports - I always allow myself to read frivolous stuff on planes - so I won't miss them. I don't think I can even remember a single title in the stack right now.

Forty-seven: houseboat

Forty-seven: houseboat, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I have always wanted to live on a boat. I've spent considerable time on boats, primarily sailboats, and have slept on them numerous times, but that's not the same as living on one. In Vancouver, there are houseboats in False Creek, and they are lovely, although quite expensive: they're sorts of places artists and actors live - trendy, close to town, artsy and off-beat as well. I briefly had a deal with someone to share a houseboat, but it fell through - when I showed up with my stuff, he wasn't even there, so I had to crash with friends. There's nothing like being a student and moving with all your possessions in milk crates and duffle bags in a friend's car.

This boat is on the canal, and it's for rent, but only for holidays - a floating camper van, or caravan. They're called narrowboats, and they used to move all sorts of goods along the canals of England. Now they're outfitted for slightly alternative holidaymakers - the kind who are slightly too environmental, or middle-class, for an actual caravan park. I'd love to have one, or rent one, but I can't imagine Martin agreeing - he has no consciousness of the romance of boats.

Forty-six: glove

Forty-six: glove, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I had minor surgery on the back of my right hand yesterday, which is why there was no picture, and why I am wearing this glove.

I'm not supposed to get the wound wet, so, in order to take a bath, I put on one of the delightfully purple nitrile gloves the NHS provided. They didn't actually provide the gloves for this purpose, they provided them for when I was injecting myself with disease-modifying-anti-rheumatic drugs.

The NHS takes this VERY seriously. First of all, I had to persuade them to let me inject myself, as I had been doing for years before coming to the UK. Then, they started delivering the drugs, in preloaded syringes, each one encased in layers of plastic, sealed in a pouch, placed in a cardboard box with half a ream of warnings! and heldpful advice!, then six boxes were placed in another box, sealed with more plastic and delivered to me, along with a box of alcohol swabs (fair enough), a box of nitrile gloves, a sharps and cytotoxin disposal box (bright yellow with a purple lid), a set of safety goggles and so help me god, a full hazmat suit, just in case I suddenly became radioactive, I guess.

I confess I never actually used any of these things, except the syringes and the sharps box. Alcohol swabs are always useful, but I think this is the first time I have ever used one of the gloves. The hazmat suit was tossed and I gave the safety goggles to the Manchester Hackers group along with a whole bunch of old tech kit.

Forty-five: night garden

Forty-five: night garden, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is growing in our sad little scrap of garden. We don't know what it is, but it has lovely little white flowers right now, which is worrying, since it's mid-February.

Rental houses often have sad gardens, and this one is no exception. It's very small, maybe eight feet by twelve, and partially paved over. There's a flower bed, with two large bushy plants taking over, and this smaller one. There's just enough space for Martin to grow some herbs, and small section elsewhere where he planted onions and potatoes a while ago. I would love a proper garden, but I suspect Martin rather likes rescuing sad plants and finding them little corners among the rest.

Forty-four: Gargoyle

Forty-four: Gargoyle, originally uploaded by meganknight.

It's Valentine's day, and what I am photographing? Gargoyles. Oh well.

It's not a great pic - the light was wrong, and I initially planned to try again on my way home with the light facing them, but then it was well past six by the time I left, and well, you know.

This gargoyle is on yet another church on my walk to work. I'm pretty sure it used to be Catholic - it's got a big square steeple with a cross (and a gargoyle) on each corner, and then a celtic cross above that. It's a very impressive building. Nowadays, though, it also has neon signage that says Emmanuel, and a neon cross on top the whole thing. It's not a great fit, aesthetically, but at least it hasn't gone the way of so many other churches in Preston.

Forty-three: Grin

Forty-three: Grin, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is a conch shell, and I have no idea where I got it from. It's more than a conch, actually, it's my darning shell, and I use it frequently. In fact, I darned socks this weekend.

The shell looks just like the one my mother had, but I know this isn't my mother's shell, unfortunately. I know I bought it, and I seem to recall Martin was with me at the time, but that's all I know.

I'm amazed to learn that darning is a rare skill these days. I mend things quite often, so does Martin (different things - toasters vs holey jumpers), it just seems normal to me. I think it's rather sad that people don't know how to darn, and people don't have these lovely shells to help them do so.

Forty-two: catseye

Forty-two: catseye, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is Oliver's left eye. It's a lovely greeny-gold colour, and he uses it to great effect when the food or skritchings are not entirely to his liking. I believe this is called the hairy stinkeye.

It's actually pretty hard to photograph his eyes: he keeps them closed a lot, and closes them whenever I get the camera out, it seems.

Forty-one: lost

Forty-one: lost, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I don't like this picture, but it is interesting, and sad - which is probably why I don't like it.

It's a stuffed toy, a dog, I think, about eight inches long, left on the ground by a bus stop, and covered in mud and cigarette butts.

It's been there a while, I think, although I've never noticed it before. I really hope that the kid who lost it isn't still missing it.

Forty: vanillin

Forty: vanillin, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Martin's studying biochemistry with the Open University. On Wednesday he sent me an excited message: guess what I got? A molecular model kit! It's very cool, the OU sent it to him as part of his study materials, and he's been playing with it all day, looking up molecules on wikipedia, making a model, and them coming to show me, pointing out the methyl groups and carbon rings.

This is vanillin, the aromatic in vanilla.

Thirty-nine: ice

Thirty-nine: ice, originally uploaded by meganknight.

It's green week on campus, and one of the activities/exhibits is an ice sculpture of a polar bear, with the slogan "think before we sink" on its pedestal. I saw them carving it yesterday, and took a picture, but I decided to come back today and photograph it when it had melted a bit. It's almost 10 degrees today, so it should have melted. Unfortunately, someone apparently came and kicked it apart during the day, because when I got there this afternoon it was strewn in pieces across the lawn.

I wondered whether someone might have destroyed it to make a point, but it appears it was just wanton vandalism.

This is part of the sculpture, and its base, but you wouldn't know it.

Thirty-eight: Windows

Thirty-eight: Harris, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is the main entrance to the one of the original university buildings, now just a generic university building, with offices and classrooms. I thought this was the original building of Institute for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the wonderful original name of what is now the University of Central Lancashire, but n doing a bit of research, and thinking about it, I realised that this building dates from 1897 (as you can see from the date on the top right window), almost seventy years after the original institute was founded.

The building was commissioned by what had become by then the Harris Institute in part to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1867, and it was officially known as the Victoria Jubilee Technical School. Now it's just the plain old Harris building, and although it has a lovely doorway and an impressive staircase, and there are some stained glass transoms on the first-floor windows, it's just a generic university building, with its main annoyance being that it's a long hike from here to the nearest coffee shop.

Thirty-seven: pearls

Thirty-seven: pearls, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I like necklaces. I don't think of myself as a particularly typical jewellery-loving girly-girl, but I love necklaces and have a large collection. I have basically three kinds of jewellery: crafty handmade stuff bought from people in markets and such, some of it quite serious and expensive; the odd bit of department-store tat, although I haven't bought any of that kind of thing since we left Dubai, and a few pieces of old jewellery bought in antique shops and fairs.

That's where I got these pearls - at an antiques fair in Lytham St Anne's. They weren't nearly as expensive as I expected (or as a similar set at a neighbouring stand), and I'm pretty sure they're genuine (albeit cultivated). What sold me on them was the clasp, whih is lovely, as you can see. I'm sometimes tempted to wear them the wrong way round, with the clasp showing, but haven't yet.

Thirty-six: coats

Thirty-six: coats, originally uploaded by meganknight.

You can tell we live in a northern climate because we have a row of coats at the front door. We didn't originally, but I am slowly training Martin in the ways of the snow and rainbound world, and the importance of a rack of coats at the door is a key part of this. When we first moved in, Martin would carefully go upstairs and hang his coat up in bedroom, like a good South African. There are two problems with doing this - one is that the coat is very likely wet, and putting it in a closet is a bad idea, and the second is that you will spend your life tramping up and down stairs in your coat, a hot, bulky, and unnecessary activity. He has finally come round to convenience of having a coat right there at the front door, especially since our coat hooks are right above a radiator, which means they're often toasty warm as well when you get into them.

Now if I could get him to adopt the imminently sensible arrangement of changing your shoes when you come inside, I'd be very happy, but I think that may be asking too much. In this he is very English - never unshod except in the bath.

Thirty-five: spices

Thirty-five: spices, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I think I've already mentioned that we cook. Well, this is a very small corner of the spice cupboard, featuring two kinds of cardamom, cinnamon and coriander. Behind that is paprika, smoked and plain, raw sesame seeds, ground cinnamon, mustard seeds, asafoetida and what seems to be fenugreek (I don't want to go downstairs again and check). You can also see food colouring on the right and several citrus oils up top.

The spice section is about a quarter of the food cupboard (and considering that another quarter is cat food, this should give you an idea). It's a shelf about a foot deep and four feet across, and it's a bt of a jumble, as you can see.

The jars are also important - an assortment of ball jars collected in thrift shops and junk sales over the years. They go well with the collection of pestles and mortars on top of the food cupboard. We like spices. We like having jars of whole spices and strange ingredients just waiting to be turned into amazing things. I feel rich when I have spices to wallow in, like a mediaeval lady.

Thirty-four: Belisha beacon

Thirty-four: Belisha beacon, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Belisha beacons are one of those symbols of England you read about, and don't really understand until you get here, at least I didn't really understand what they were. What they are are flashing yellow lamps on stripey poles, set up in pairs on either side of a road, and they signal a pedestrian crossing. Pedestrians have absolute right of way at a Belisha beacon - if you're even standing near one, all traffic grinds to a halt. This is probably a problem for this one, which is on Adelphi road, one of the main roads through campus, and north-south through Preston. It's in the middle of campus, and positioned in such a way that if you are walking across campus with someone, but heading to different ultimate destinations, this beacon is exactly the place where you would logically stop and finish the conversation before going your separate ways. It's not just me, everyone does this, and the bit of pavement on either side of the actual pedestrian crossing is usually crowded with people having awkward conversations. This means that the road, which is very narrow at this point as well, has a constant backlog of annoyed, confused and worried drivers not knowing whether they should stop or not. The one major advantage is that if you are approaching the crossing and see your bus looming on the horizon you have a pretty good chance of catching it, since it will very likely be stalled by just such a gathering.

Thirty-three: bush radio

Thirty-three: bush radio, originally uploaded by meganknight.

First of all, let me say that this is an original Bush radio, not one of the replicas you see around these days. It's also working, a rarity, and Martin's pride and joy.

He bought it somewhere in South Africa, and it's come a long way with us, although we seldom play it. Like a lot of original Bush radios, it doesn't have longwave (FM), so it's not that useful. It is lovely, though, an object with great presence and history, and I love seeing it on the dresser every day.

Thirty-two: lights

Thirty-two: lights, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Another late night, another day of nothing to photograph but darkness.

This is me playing with a tripod and a long exposure, or as long as I could manage to persuade the camera to do without consulting the manual (which I didn't have with me). It's the local intersection, looking down Blackpool road. That's the Lane Ends Inn on the corner, an utterly generic English chain pub, serving generic beer and food. I think I like the streetlights best: they remind of what lights look like when I take my glasses off.

Thirty-one: moss

Thirty-one: moss, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is a jersey I knit, in moss stitch. I knit a lot, it's among my many anachronistic skills. I'd make a good peasant farmwife, or at least I would have before the arthritis hit.

I enjoy knitting - I can do it while doing other things, like watching TV, and it produces a feeling of accomplishment. The problem is that I'm seldom as enthusiastic about the end product as I am about the process. Knitting produces a kind of cook's syndrome in me: by the time it's done I'm sick of it and never want to see it again. Last year, however, I knit three baby blankets, and they were all loads of fun to do, and wonderful, because I don't have to see them again.