A partially disassembled (or maybe it is partially assembled) stone sett street in Perth, Scotland. I don't have too many images from our half day trip to Perth, so this will only take a day or three to get through them.
The U.S. needs more stone sett streets. Kind of like cobblestone streets but smoother, yet with all the wonderful old character.
The puzzle builders were taking a break apparently when I happened by.
Tags: Perth Scotland UK Europe travel Holga Holga 120FN film street stone square old world analog fitting together Blue Moon Camera
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We spent a day and took the bus north to Perth in pursuit of the history of a watch. Mind you, we already had the watch just not its history. Once upon a time it had come into the family via a watchmaker in Perth. As time is wont to do though, it had erased the original watchmaker's shop from the map. That happens as centuries pass. We passed through a few other watchmaker's shops but learned little except that the watch we had was old, but then again... we already knew that.
So the rest of that short day was spent wandering, looking and absorbing. There was a bit of eating too - hot lentil soup on a cold bench looking out over the River Tay. Oh, how many more times I would like to be able to say I spent the day in exactly that fashion.
Tags: Perth Hasselblad Hasselblad 500C Scotland UK St. Johns Toun St. Matthews Church of Scotland grass Europe film analog memories and waking dreams toned old world Blue Moon Camera
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What one sees when one walks along the River Tay during the spring blossoming.
Tags: Hasselblad Hasselblad 500C tree heart Perth Scotland UK Europe spring pink blossom square film analog old world The River Tay St Johns Toun Blue Moon Camera
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The city by the River Tay. Not a very exciting image, but then again life doesn't seem to be very exciting in Perth either. Perth definitely has that slower pace-of-life feel to it so common in the Old World, at least compared with life in the U.S. It is not just a quieter city, but a quieter way to live there, and I quite like that. Some day in another life I would like to live a while in Europe, you know - a nice cottage in Scotland or Germany or an apartment in Paris or Florence. Some day.
Tags: Perth Scotland UK United Kingdom Europe Holga 120 Pan film pano panoramic panorama city urban old world analog travel River Tay St. Johns Toun Blue Moon Camera
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A quiet patch of grass in a quiet park along a quiet river during a quiet day. It was a beautiful day, in its quiet way.
But that was that day, something quiet happened today too, my grandfather died. He died yesterday too, but they brought him back (he had asked to not be resuscitated, but the proper instructions had not been posted at the time). In the end, he was grateful for that little mistake because his wife, son and daughters were able to sit around with him for another hour and socialize. And then he died again this morning. None of it came as much of a surprise, him and my grandmother are in their mid-nineties and are ...well... old. And death happens more often at that end of life, but their health has been failing along with the old age and for the last couple of weeks we have been more or less expecting this day to be sooner and not later.
Now before the waves of condolences start to pile in, it's ok. Or rather, I'm ok, my family is ok, my grandmother is coping and it is hard for her but she is a tough nut (runs in the family) and is ok too. It's ok because he lived a good life, a really good one. He was born in the middle of beautiful country on a farm in rural Alberta. He grew up in the shadows of the Canadian Rockies and worked as a bellhop at the Banff Springs Hotel (how I would love that job now). He grew up to become an engineer and laid the initial cables for the tram line at Jasper. He moved to Seattle and became an engineer for Boeing before retiring at an early age. I only knew him in his post-engineer life so I knew him as the grandfather who you could go with on long walks around the Sound. Or go to the park for games of frisbee. There was the piano in the basement (it was right next to the ping pong table, more good memories there) and the chess board upstairs. In fact, it was from him that I learned chess. There was his garden in the backyard and the many wonderful dinners he cooked whenever we came to visit. Him and my grandmother lived quiet, full and independent lives right up until the day before yesterday when his failing heart made a trip to the hospital necessary. And when he did die, it was peaceful and quiet too. No pain, no protracted suffering, no wasting away. To get all that at the age of 95... well, who could ask for more? Really. We all die at some point and not all of us are lucky enough to do so at the end of a long life, surrounded by family and free of pain. So I am happy for him in that weird sort of way that can exist only in a circumstance like this.
And it really isn't sadness that I feel at this point but rather a wistfulness for all those quiet and wonderful afternoons spent at the park with him tossing that frisbee, or sitting in the sun of their living room windows trying to (unsuccessfully) outflank his queen in order to get at the rest of his chess pieces. He was a pretty awesome granddad, I couldn't have asked for a better one and I am thankful for the three and a half decades I had to know him.
But this image is from Perth, and that was then while this is now. But somehow it seemed to fit, at least in some way that makes sense to me.
Tags: Perth Scotland UK United Kingdom Europe quiet days gone by but don't look back for too long there will be more quiet days to come Blue Moon Camera
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