Foggy Old England

What does one remember ten or more years later?

There were four of us on the boat. A crew of three or more was required: one to pilot and two to work the locks. Rounding out that number is the only reason I was invited. I was the plus one's plus one.

I'll only post the one (Narrow Boat) image. The rest simply are not that interesting (or no more interesting than this one), consisting of:

• Similar
• But vertical
• Canal with Fog Slowly Lifting
• Two Derelict Barges
• Slowly rusting
• Without a doubt, the best unused shot...
  • Of the canals
• But hardly postcard quality
• A Crumbling Bridge
• I found myself fascinated by the state of these crumbling bridges.
• Also, I think I started to think of them as Portals...
  • Ala Wild Rides, as explained further below.

I won the camera in a contest, some store raffle which I had entered. It was a bottom of the line version of the camera they were hawking. It's sort of odd how they gave me the inferior model in order to save ten dollars... or however much more it would have cost the manufacturer to gift me the primo model. No zoom. Auto focus. A complete point and shoot. I took a few hundred pictures over the course of two weeks. These days, I'd take that many in a day.

I think we ate out every night, always tying-up (i.e. ending the day) close enough to a tavern to get some food. But I remember a stop towards the end of the week the best... or at least, this is what I wish to relate. And going inside, sitting down, the room rocked and swayed as if it was afloat. I was getting Sea Sick on Dry Land! It was pretty trippy... all the more so, since the Tavern looked like the inside of a ship. I remember plenty of wood beams. But if I went so far as to say it was decorated with a nautical theme, I might be making stuff up.

I'm sure I could tell story after story, recounting day after day of the trip. But the good bits have been converted to fiction elsewhere. And this is not intended to be a major project, just pushing a few pictures along... to wherever here is.

This is the Postcard Shot: the shot on the postcards in the gift shop. Well, some of them. They must have handled that tree in the middle differently. Or course in the autumn (this was a week into The Spring Bloom), the leafs and such would make the shot.

I liked this place. It was the first stop (if I remember correctly) after we got off the boat. But then, maybe not. I was not driving. And it was a long time ago.

There are only two other images in this folder. {This folder consisting soley of the remaining unused photographs I took of Fountains Abbey.} I'm pretty sure the bulk of the images from this vacation went into the Making the Passage post, which utilized my Ghostly Aura filter.

Anyhow, those two other images consist of:

• Front On View
• The other postcard view
• Flagstone Work
• It reminded me of The Pattern from The Amber Series.

In my teenage years, I was a big fan of The Amber Series. It had a thing called a Wild Ride... or some such. It was basically flow of consciousness, connecting one scene to the next.

I knew I was walking around the ruins of Fountains Abbey, but there was something in the air, a twitch, a turn... and suddenly, everyone was wearing hats, old hats, the type which might be worn in times of old, the women in bodices, the men in their oversized cod pieces, blue jeans turning to purple silk, as the walls spontaneously rebuilt themselves, rocks once missing, were now in place, details long lost to the sands of time, suddenly restored...

And so on and so forth.

It was a wonderful way to describe a Magical Transformation.

Anyway, back on point, there was a bit of stonework partially paving an otherwise grassy open-air room, which reminded me of The Pattern... for obvious reasons, I like to think.

The other part I liked about these ruins was being able to stand underneath it all in near catacombs... that opened directly onto sunlit grassy fields.

The place was packed. But there was nary a security guard in sight.

Lovely day.

Lovely time.

We even walked the grounds, making a loop about the lake. We might as well have been at Pemberley.

This is as close to Stonehenge as I've ever gotten.

I was in this field for about an hour. I could have spent a lot longer here. In fact, if I were taking that {mythical} camping trip and spending the night at a ruin here and a ruin there, I could have easily spent a day (and the entire night) here. It was glorious.

In my mind, I am prone to erase the sheep... and the distant roadway, which might have been a highway. But I remember the wind and the cold and the edge of rain, which I am likely to play up, turn into a mist, and imagine a flash of lighting towards the end in the distance.

The other images in this folder included:

• The Same
• Only horizontal
• Copper Bark Birch Tree
• I forget this character's name.
• Wooden Gate Leading to Pasture
• It seemed like the start of a story.
• Why was this gate closed?
• Where would this path lead?

I love moss. Given unlimited money, I would set-up a steam-room full of moss. And if I never get rich, I am sure I could splurge on another vacation to these moss filled lands... maybe. Though, I've got to tell you (even if I get rich), I've often thought my money would be better spent vacationing rather than buying a house. Then again (and on the other hand), I have had great success living in exotic locales for extended periods of time. And a vacation becomes quite inexpensive that way (i.e. if one simply moves there), as the expense sort of reduces to one's default standard of living.

No one ever agrees with me. But I feel one of the principal joys in vacationing is in the temporary rise in one's standard of living. This does not hold true if one goes camping. But if one is staying at Luxury Hotels and subsisting on Five Star Dining Experiences, it most certainly is.

And I think that is as far as this series of images is going to guide me.

Other unused images, include:

• Moss Lined Path
• Leading through the forest...
  • These were fantastic forests.
• Chutney & Cheese
• My lunch at the estate
• I had Chutney & Cheese.
  • A delightful sandwich, consisting of...
    • Quarter Pound of Cheese
    • Half as much Chutney.
• Out of character, I topped this with a Cider.
  • And was pleasantly un-intoxicated for the rest of the afternoon.

Finally, I will say that I find shopping to be one of the great joys of travel. And given the time, money, and inclination, I can see landing (wherever) with only a change or two of clothes, counting on the rest (of whatever one needs) to be available locally.

Of course, that said, default medications for colds and such have (historically) been fairly precious on the run. But then, the TSA's restrictions on liquids have put a damper on that sort of advance planning.