Good Morning 4 - 13 September 2010

Good Morning 4 - 13 September 2010
Originally uploaded by John Oram

Every day the sun rises. Sometimes we see it, sometimes we do not. On occasion, even on the way to work, it brings inspirational joy. Joy worth stopping for.

A Tension Deficit

For the first time in a long while all my sources of (often irrational) anxiety and therefore stress, have dissipated. A morning as Watch Supervisor passed as pleasantly as possible. As I headed home I had much more energy than usual although I must admit my early start caught up with me soon after I reached the house. As Greg's head was hurting more than usual today we both observed much of the blue afternoon from the living room but even that inspired a photograph. We went out for excelllent Indian food at the Lee Tandoori and I captured a sunset.
Greg did well on the machines in our otherwise rather dismal amusement arcade. It will appear in one of my future photographs because, believe it or not, it is housed in the former Lee on the Solent station building. In just a few days we shall embark on a short tour of East Anglia and soon thereafter leave for Palm Springs. I feel good.

Submarine Museum - Gosport

Even after 12 years in Gravesend, it is only now that I live in Lee on the Solent close to my place of birth and home town that I feel my life has some stability, that I am not in some sort of state of perpetual motion. I shall retire in four years and expect to stay in this general area. Greg receives regular property advertisements and today we went to look for a house in nearby Alverstoke. Reluctant to return home for an afternoon of inertia, we went on an unplanned visit to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum.

With no long journeys to and from work any more I have been able to make better use of my plentiful leisure time and I have often been surprised and delighted with attractions exceeding my sometimes subdued expectations. Today was such a day. Dull weather was no deterrent to enjoyment of an excellent attraction. The exhibits and galleries are very good and, even before one boards HMS Alliance, Holland 1, the Royal Navy's first submarine makes an absorbing sight. Alliance is admittedly in a sorry state and is the subject of a restoration appeal (part funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund) but the guided tour was brought to life by the profoundly engaging Soapy Watson a retired submariner of nearly 80 who kept my attention for well beyond 45 minutes and could have kept it for much longer. I left entirely uplifted.




My photographs are at www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram

And I Will Always Love You

And I Will Always Love You
Originally uploaded by John Oram

Discovering the Perfectly Normal

For all that I am privileged to travel to many amazing places beyond the UK, I am increasingly aware of the attractions of my own country. This awareness has been heightened by our partial confinement to the isles as Greg's leg recovers. Flickr is an important part of my life now and, as well as showcasing some excellent photographs, it is a source of inspiration for themes. Flickr contact 'tatraskoda' has extensively photographed Gainsborough, presumably his home town. In one sense the pictures mean little to me as I don't know the place but, at the same time, they fascinate as a carefully constructed record.


The things by which we are surrounded, those parts of our everyday lives, are the easiest to overlook. There is little incentive to photograph them; if we do not, they change or disappear. For many years after the disposal or at least discarding of my SLR, I did not have a camera. When the advantages of digital became evident I saw so many things as potential subjects. It still took time though to turn to the familiar - where I live and where I have lived. I know what I have missed and am determined to miss no more. The task is not to shoot indiscriminately but to capture aspects of the perfectly normal in a way which contains interest. Sometimes that interest will become apparent only with the passage of time.


If you want to understand what I mean, study some historical photographs especially of places you know. You will see things, places, people that have gone forever. They are, save for those images, beyond obliteration. There is no trace in the present day and a visit to the subject location reveals nothing. Such is the value of our photographs.

I have started with Lee on the Solent, Havant, Fareham, Gosport and Chichester. I won't be flooding my photostream but I hope what I do post will be appreciated.

A Long Twilight and a Wet Night

It was, as it had been in the south yesterday, a grey-yellow light which defined nothing and dulled the mind of the photographer. The day, in the course of which we moved back south again, would see changing light and changing weather. Dressed soberly we drove to Kilwinning. Funerals are no longer shocking. At my age, death becomes part of life; truly the humanist view as reflected in the service which saw Ruth to her rest. Far more uncomfortable though was the foray with the family into the now abandoned home. The image of a life frozen at the moment of death, of possessions no longer possessed, was striking. We are all transient. It was evident that the family had spoken well to the humanist speaker as the service captured perfectly a life lived quietly but which added value to the existence of others including those of us who remain - until our time. The view from the crematorium chapel was one of stunning beauty and, as much as anything else, caused me to choke up. The brief family wake was in the dourly Scottish Taylor's in Kilwinning. Their entrance is a time portal. Before we left for the funeral, a steam locomotive in LMS colours had rattled south, symbolising how time wraps round on itself.

The weather offered hope for the camera as we headed for Dumfries to investigate further things we had seen on the way to Irvine but not stopped for. Far away though England was we spent time in several locations all with very happy results. All are now on my Facebook page and at Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram .
The rhinos at Lincluden are totally incongruous but charming. The Dumfries & Galloway Aviation Museum is magnificent. Thanks to the kindness of John Hilsley, I had access on a non-public day and got some wonderful photographs. I was very emotional to be allowed into Trident G-AWZJ, withdrawn in 1985 but still partially extant. My photographs of it today add a dimension to my Flickr set 'Demise of the Tridents'. We had not finished in Dumfries and stopped again at Dalscone Farm. A lot of effort and investment has gone into providing a low-priced but very worthwhile attraction. We went to see alpaca and llama and were relieved that the hoards of children were apparently satisfied with the indoor play area. Perhaps they had seen the animals earlier on. As with Blooms in Wroughton the animals were difficult to photograph. Most were eating and therefore with heads to the ground. In the case of the goats, when they are not eating, they are planning to and the approach of any potential source of food excites them.





We maintained variety by taking the Lockerbie road to regain the A74(M) . There was so much we could have photographed but we stopped only for food and fuel. In the North West and Midlands it rained heavily as forecast and driving conditions became difficult. At Norton Canes I recouped my earlier losses and went into profit. It was near midnight when we reached home and I sat up to do my initial processing. Life had continued for the living.

The World Turned Upside Down

It was always going to be a challenge driving something like 460 miles today only to do the return journey tomorrow after the probably stressful event of a funeral. I was sharing the driving with Greg and trying not to think about the distance except in positive terms as we passed various metaphorical milestones. It was one of those grey-yellow skies in the south and one which deposited occasional if somewhat translucent showers from deceptively high cloud.

Sutton Scotney was crowded when we arrived and we continued instead to Chieveley. It would not have been my first choice for breakfast but, to be fair, the food, served charmlessly by listless late teens, tasted better than it looked. Our stomachs were revived but our wallets depleted by our latest brush with the fruit machines - no £500 today. I don't know what I expect at 90% payout but I must have still had some expectations when I lost another £20 at Norton Canes. Thank goodness the toll is reduced at weekends.


There are more attractive service areas than Lancaster as I have alluded in an earlier post. In fact it is visually hideous and, inside, is inadequate and cramped. However, its M&S Food provides the best lunch you can have on a motorway. There was some beautiful weather to enhance both the Lake District and the south of Scotland and thus the world was turned upside down; it is not often these regions can offer better weather than the south which has had a dire non-summer.

I was not looking forward to the A75/76 variation to our usual journey, required because we would be staying in Irvine and not Glasgow but much of the route was very pretty. There were mining scars as well. I resented the speed limits for the several pointless linear towns with their drab cottage bungalows lining their main thoroughfares. Such were my thoughts as we passed through Sanquhar but as we left the worst of its dull centre behind we stopped for some surprising photographs which appear on my Photostream at www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram . That very stop delayed us enough to allow new cloud to encroach the Ayrshire sky so I had only a brief foray to the railway at Newton on Ayr and the merest glance at Prestwick Airport's tastelessly decorated terminal before continuing in the gloom to Irvine.

We found the Menzies Hotel with only a little driving but my first impressions made me wonder why exactly it has four stars. With no obvious lift and air conditioning which seems, to say the least, ineffective, it was set to lose one Oram star and see Oram star at Reception in one of his famed monologues. However, dinner revived their reputation. I must say the food was pretty good. Generous portions and good quality ingredients were served efficiently considering the presence in the restaurant of two large groups. The mainly teenage wait staff would not have been at all suitable for 'sulky breakfast' at Chieveley; they had evidently been to smile practice. Perhaps this was just one more manifestation of the good Scottish service I noted in my last blog from North of the border.


Tomorrow won't be easy but perhaps the mood will be lightened on the way back if we can photograph rhinos in Dumfries. We know it is possible and you will be none the wiser unless you read again tomorrow.